Art and Culture Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia Maronites Preserving Food, Faith And Future, Before It’s Too Late

Updated on Aug. 18, 2022 at 3:45 p.m.

Editor’s Note: In August 2022, Dalton Haas was arrested and charged with passing bad checks and possessing stolen church property.

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Throughout Appalachia, many communities share a common concern: As the young people leave and the older generations pass on, who will carry on the traditions?

But in Wheeling, West Virginia, one young man, Dalton Haas, is determined to reverse this trend. He’s committed to bringing his community home, to the sound of church bells and the smells of homemade cooking.

It was the annual church fundraiser and volunteers gathered in the basement kitchen, serving food and sharing fellowship. The volunteers were mostly women, but alongside them was Haas, dressed in a black t-shirt with a tree printed on it: a cedar of Lebanon.

Dalton Hass in front of Our Lady of Lebanon in downtown Wheeling.

Haas is 25 and with his dark hair and youthful face, he looked out of place. But he says he’s known the women for a while. “I’ve been watching them cook and bake in this church my whole life,” Haas said.

Haas is a member of Our Lady of Lebanon, the only Maronite church in West Virginia. Maronites are Catholics who adhere to an Eastern branch originating in what is now Lebanon and Syria.

In parts of their mass, Maronites still use Aramaic – the language of Jesus.

Monsignor Bakhos and Dalton Hass during a church mass.

Maronite immigrants came to West Virginia around the turn of the 19th century, seeking economic opportunity and refuge from religious persecution in Lebanon. With them, they brought rich traditions of food, faith and community.

There were once over 300 Maronites in Wheeling. But today, the congregation is small and the majority is elderly. Older generations have passed on and the younger people have moved away.

“I’m the one that stayed, the lone wolf that stayed,” Haas said.

Haas’s family moved to Wheeling from Lebanon in the early 1900s. When he was eight, he began serving on the altar at Our Lady of Lebanon. Today he’s one of the few servers still left.

But Haas explained that for him, it was different. During his preteen years, he fell in love with the traditions of his church and the culture of his ancestors. He started to learn Arabic and practice Lebanese dance.

Dalton Haas carries Lebanese flag at the 2019 Lebanese festival.

Around that time, he started cooking. Haas says food plays an important part in Maronite religion.

“We put a cross in our dough because we think that’s the only way it’s going to rise, is if it’s blessed with a cross,” he said.

Haas learned to cook from the women of the church. They would prepare food for bake sales, church dinners and the annual festival fundraiser. Dalton learned how to make “kibbeh” from Linda Fadul Duffy, one of the main volunteers for food events.

Kibbeh is Lebanon’s national dish. It’s made with ground meat, onions, spices, and bulgar wheat, all mixed together and topped with pine nuts.

Duffy’s family used to own a Lebanese Bakery in Wheeling. Her mother, Rose Fadul, was born in Lebanon. She opened the bakery in the late 1950s. They served dishes like hummus, stuffed grape leaves and tabboli.

Meat and spinach pies being served at the annual church fundraiser at Our Lady of Lebanon, a Maronite church in Wheeling, W.Va.

“It was in business for over 50 years, and it was very, very popular,” Duffy said.

The bakery closed its doors in 2017 — much to the disappointment of the community, Duffy said, the Lebanese and non-Lebanese alike.

“Everytime I go somewhere, people say, ‘I miss the bakery, I miss the bakery,” she said. “And I says, ‘Well we all do.’”

Duffy still regularly cooks for church events at Our Lady of Lebanon. But she worries future generations won’t be able to carry on traditions of food in their community.

“I think Dalton’s the only one,” she said. “Because we don’t have too many young people in our parish.”

With the bakery closed and the congregation shrinking, Haas felt compelled to reverse the cultural loss in his community. That’s why he plans to open a Lebanese restaurant and bakery in downtown Wheeling. He says it will be more than just a restaurant, it will be a cultural experience.

Hummus at the annual fundraiser at Our Lady of Lebanon.

“When you walk into the restaurant, you’re going to think you’re in downtown Beirut,” he said.

The restaurant will have live music, belly dancers on the weekends and serve authentic platters of Lebanese food, Haas said.

Monsignor Bakhos, the pastor at the church, says he’s thankful younger generations are preserving these traditions.

“Some younger generations, they pick up from their mothers and grandmothers,” he said. “We are pushing as much as we can.”

Bakhos says the church in Wheeling is unique. It’s been over 20 years since he first came from Lebanon to lead the congregation, and he’s gotten to know the people well.

Bakhos explained that many in the church feel a pull back to their culture, back to the faith and back to the food.

“They have what I call nostalgia,” Bakhos said. “They have nostalgia to their childhood with their grandmas and grandpas.”

He says even though most in the congregation have forgotten the Arabic language, they’ve held on to a few words — words like kibbeh, tabouli and hummus. They know the names of the food.

“I noticed that the difference in this community here in comparison with other communities in the U.S., is that this community has roots,” Bakhos said.

This community does have roots – in the mountains of Lebanon and the hills of West Virginia. And Haas says he’s committed to bringing his community back to these roots…before it’s too late.

“In 10 years, who’s going to do all the cooking? Dalton and monsignor? Dalton and one of the women who is still here? It can’t be,” Haas said. “It’s impossible.”

By offering more activities for Maronite kids, Haas hopes that more children will get involved with the church. They are trying to bring back Arabic classes, dance and cooking lessons.

In the meantime, Haas is planning to open a Lebanese food truck in Wheeling, while he continues to search for a permanent home for the restaurant.

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.

Lewis County Middle Schoolers Make Ornaments for National Christmas Tree Display

Middle schoolers from Lewis County, West Virginia designed Christmas tree ornaments that are included in the National Christmas Tree display in Washington D.C. It’s part of the America Celebrates annual ornament program, which selects a classroom from each U.S. state and territory to design decorations representing their region.

This is the second year that students from Robert L. Bland Middle school were selected to submit ornaments. Their designs represent West Virginia, with depictions of the New River Gorge, cardinals, rhododendrons and much more state emblems.

The ornaments are hanging on a tree designated for West Virginia. There are 55 other trees representing each state and territory. The trees all surround the National Christmas Tree in President’s Park.

Joseph Merrifield, the art teacher at Robert L. Bland Middle School, says it’s a big deal for his art students to have their work displayed nationally.

“The leaders of the free world walk through President’s Park,” Merrifield said. “It’s a way to get their work out there. That’s the whole object in my opinion, is to let the kids express themselves and let the world see it.”

Creating and submitting the ornaments looked different this year because of the pandemic and remote learning. Last year, Merrifield’s students were given two clear, acrylic halves to design and create. The discs were then shipped back to DC, where they were assembled into ornaments. This year, designs were submitted digitally and then created into ornaments onsite. Merrifield says students were given a template and could use any medium to create a design.

“As a traditional art teacher you’re so used to working with acrylics and colored pencils and crayons and those things,” Merrifield said. “Kids are starting to move more towards that digital medium. I wanted them to work towards their strengths and do things that they were comfortable with. It was really free rein on that template.”

Merrifield says that teaching middle school during a pandemic has been challenging, especially with art, as it’s such a hands-on experience. He says this national opportunity to display students’ artwork is a highlight of 2020.

“Working with students in a pandemic, it’s very hard to keep socially distant,” Merrifield said. “Anything that I could do to try to normalize that through the creative process, the better off we’re gonna be.”

Ornaments designed by students from West Virginia for the America Celebrates program will be on display in Washington throughout December.

Cicadas: A Loud Insect For Emerging Artists

This year millions of cicadas emerged for their once-in-17-years mating season in West Virginia. The insect phenomenon inspired one state artist, who uses cicadas in her artwork.

Cicadas are oval shaped, winged insects that can be as long as three inches. They can be black, brown or green, often with red or white eyes. Their mating calls are thought to sound like “a hissing jet.”

“There’s like, a lot of times that I hear people say, “Oh, my God, these things are so annoying,”” said West Virginia artist Jessie McClanahan. “They just scream all the time, or people are scared of them.”

McClanahan is a 26-year-old ceramic artist based in Charleston. Her work has a natural, organic look – often including plants or insects, specifically cicadas.

“I really love insects. When I was a kid, I was convinced that they were my best friends.”

McClanahan wears her hair in two braids, with thick bangs across her forehead. She has detailed insect tattoos — one of which is a cicada — covering her right shoulder.

“I need their screens to go to sleep. Sometimes, when I leave the South, and I can’t sleep, I have this YouTube video saved on my phone,” she said. “It’s an Appalachian summer nights, and it just has a bunch of cicadas screaming in the background.”

And in the last few years, McClanahan found a way to incorporate cicadas in her ceramics.

“I take cicada shells, and I cast them in clay slip. And then I paint them.”

The cicada shells are actually the skin or exo-skeleton the insect sheds when it emerges from underground. Jessie has gathered shells over the years just from living in the Mountain State, and her friends also find shells for her, too.

This year McClanahan was selected for the emerging artist fellowship for the Tamarack Foundation of the Arts — she is one of five artists chosen in the state. Her cicadas are featured in her work through the fellowship.

In her studio, which is beneath Taylor Books on Capitol Street in Charleston, Jessie dips her cicada shells in the “clay slip” which is the consistency of a mud puddle. She fires the shells twice in a kiln, and in between each fire is when she adds detail to the little creatures, which typically remain a neutral clay color.

She starts by sanding down any fingerprints or rough edges.

“These things are really delicate, so I have to use a fine touch,” McClanahan said while taking cicadas out of the kiln. “This one’s actually a really nice one. He has all his legs. Some of them are missing legs or like their heads are a little wonky.”

Jessie joked that she spends so much time with the cicadas that they take on their own personalities.

“Just like the way that they’re sitting like some of them, their heads are kinda like, obscured by their little claws a little bit more, or some of them like have their claws spread out more and they look sassy or shy.”

She also covers the shells several times with clay and paint to prepare them for the kiln again and to also add detail.

“So I started off with the eyes, and I feel like that determines your personality a lot, too,” McClanahan said.

Cicadas have five eyes — two main eyes and three on top of their heads — which actually help them see the light through the soil so they know when to emerge.

She said her cicadas are not “hyper-realistic” but a loose interpretation, as they are still pieces of art.

She uses several different paint brushes to create texture and depth.

“So right now I’m painting on their little underbellies,” McClanahan said.

McClanahan’s ceramic “web” with cicadas attached.

She first started using cicadas in her artwork in a college class, mostly out of curiosity, but now she is on a mission to rebrand the insects through her work.

“I want people to love them as much as I love them. Like, they’re unabashedly themselves, you know, and they’re these little creatures that spend all this time underground,” McClanahan said. “And then they finally come out of their ground, and they’re like, “Hey, I’m here.””

Jessie’s ceramics professor at West Virginia State University, Molly Erlandson, was actually there when Jessie thought to cover cicadas in clay.

“I’m looking at one right now. I mean, they’re amazing, unique,” Erlandson said.

Erlandson said she has never seen it done before.

The natural world also plays a part in McClanahan’s other work as a ceramic artist. All of her ceramics are earth-tone colors, ranging from everyday items like mugs and bowls to abstract sculptures. Rather than using a potter’s wheel, all of her pieces are hand shaped, which McClanahan said is more time-intensive, but allows for more one-of-a-kind pieces.

Her signature sculptures look like a clay web in a rounded shape or vessel, sometimes containing plants or flowers or even with cicadas attached to the “webbing.” Erlandson said she interprets the webs as McClanahan’s reaction to her environment.

“She talks a lot about the terrain of West Virginia — how she grew up here, how she is sort of in love with the look of the land, and I see her work as greatly reflecting that,” Erlandson said.

McClanahan said the life cycle of the cicada is representative to her of what is happening in Appalachia right now — when the cicada emerges from the ground it sheds its shell and goes through a “rebirth” and “growth,” charting the region’s process of change.

“We have traditionally made all of our money off of coal mines. That’s not as feasible right now,” she said. “So we see all this change happening within our communities. And like, man, some of it’s not for good, but I see some good happening. We’re going through change, we’re going through a rebirth in some areas.”

To see more of Jessie McClanahan’s work click here.

WVU Celebrates Opening of Art Museum

After waiting for over six years, Morgantown art lovers flooded the halls of the WVU Art Museum Tuesday to see the university’s diverse collection of modernist and contemporary art.

Robert Bridges, the museum’s chief curator says the WVU Arts Museum is the only art museum between Charleston and Pittsburgh as well as Cleveland and Washington D.C.

“Our job, I feel, is to bring art from the outside areas in here to give not only our students but the people of West Virginia a chance to see what’s happening in the greater art world,” says Bridges.

The exhibit is called Visual Conversations – Looking and Listening and it showcases artworks WVU has been collecting since the 1930’s. Over the years some of the works have been temporarily displayed at Stewart Hall, but for many of them, they are being seen by the public for the first time. The collection houses Appalachian, American and even international works.

“With this exhibition, we have paired up some of these artists so you see an artist that was working in the region along with artists that were more nationally known,” says Bridges

The museum’s pride and joy is the exhibition of the West Virginia artist, Blanche Lazzell. Born and raised in Monongalia County and a WVU alumna, many of Lazzell’s modernist works showcase West Virginia’s physical and social landscape. One of her most visually striking pieces is her untitled mural of Monongalia County that was painted in 1934 for the courthouse.

“The colors are just so vibrant and with the placement on the back of the gallery wall, people come in to the large gallery, they can see it and walk towards the space,” says Bridges.

After spending much of its life in storage, Lazzell’s mural is finally back on display.

Joyce Ice is the director of the WVU Art Museum and she says its opening isn’t just significant for the university but also for the state, “adding to the cultural vitality that makes Morgantown one of the best small cities in America while contributing to its wellbeing and that of our region and our state.

In an effort to make art more accessible, the museum is free and open to the public five days a week.

Art Curator Discusses Children's Exhibit

This is the time of year when the city of Charleston becomes a work of art. FestivALL runs through this week an includes concerts of all kinds of music, theater, shows, dances and, of course, art.

At the Clay Center this week is “Art for ALL: A Juried Children’s Exhibit” with works from children ages pre-K to 6th grade.

When you see it, you will notice the beautiful dioramas, drawings and paintings, but also take a look at how these works are displayed.

This exhibit employs it’s own curator. We spoke with Amanda Rogers, an art history major from West Virginia University, as she prepared to go to work.

Amanda Rogers holds one of the paintings featured in the children’s art exhibit she is curating at the Clay Center.

Paws4people Teaches Prisoners To Find Compassion and Tolerance

St. Mary’s Correctional Center is one of five state prisons in West Virginia where inmates help train service dogs. The program is a partnership between the paws4people foundation and the West Virginia Division of Corrections.

The prison yard is surrounded by razor wire fencing. About a hundred men are outside wearing khaki jumpsuits and orange jackets. In many ways, it could be any other medium security prison- except that there are about 15 golden retrievers being led around on leashes in the sunlight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoMJprKqmZw&feature=youtu.be

Stephfon is one of 32 inmates at St. Mary’s who was selected to be part of the paws4people program. For nearly a year, he’s been working to train an English Cream Golden Retriever named Leo.

“Since I’ve had Leo, he’s taught me a lot of things about myself. Such as, myself having anger problems, and tolerance problems. Because when you’re dealing with dogs, you have to have tolerance and be able to control your anger. And either you’re gonna get it together, or you’re just not gonna have them anymore,” said Stephfon.

The paws4people program started in 2007 at the Hazelton Federal Prison in Preston County, and a couple of years ago it moved to the state prisons.

During their training, the dogs learn a hundred commands that they will be able to use to serve a disabled client. But after months of training, dogs are introduced to their prospective new clients, at an event called the “Bump”. For the inmates, this means their dog is about to leave the prison to go finish their service dog training and live with their new client.

“There’s a lot of tears. The toughest guy in here cries whenever his dog leaves,” said Amanda Anderson, the program manager at the St. Mary’s Correctional Center. Andreson helps manage the paws4people unit.

“I can’t imagine what they go through. I struggle sometimes because you do get attached. And with them, they’re putting everything they have into that dog.”

Cece Miller is the deputy operations officer for the Paws 4 People Foundation. She says the inmate trainers go through a kind of emotional transformation as they realize the impact of their work. “And this program has given them something that no other program has given them. And that’s a piece of themselves back that they lost.”

The bump is a two-day event that takes place inside the prison’s gymnasium. In front of a crowd of people, the dogs are introduced to the new clients one at a time.

“I was apprehensive about how a dog chooses his client, until I went and saw one. It’s a very emotional time,” said Patrick Mirandy, the Warden at St. Mary’s Correctional Center. “And you’ll see a dog who may not pay any attention to a client when he walks up to him. But then you’ll see another dog walk through that just wants all the attention from that individual. The one person it has this aura effect on or whatever.”

Often, the dog will bump up against someone and nestle against their body when they feel a strong bond with a person.

“The bump reminds me of to an extent that the client…the dog senses things about them to the nature of whether they want to be there or not. Not so much as they’re angry but what they’re going through, that they sense that. And if they can’t deal with it, they don’t want nothing to do with them. And that’s beautiful,” said Stephfon.

I asked Stephfon, what will it be like for him, when Leo chooses his client and they have to part ways.

“What’s gonna help me get over that is knowing that he’s going somewhere that he’s needed. He’s not needed here. I might say I need him, but there’s another one coming behind him. He’s going where he’s needed, where he can do some good for somebody, where he can make somebody else’s life better. And he will. He’ll make somebody else’s life better.”

The second day of the bump, Leo the dog did find his match. Leo will be working as a medical alert service dog for a civilian client who has post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, Stephfon has a new puppy that he’s training, named Nolen.

Note: Since that story was first reported last year, Stephfon is still a trainer with the paws4prisons program at St. Mary’s Correctional Center. He is also now an Academic Instructor for the paws4prisons and assists in teaching other trainers in the program.

He was denied parole in August 2015, and will see the parole board again in August 2016. The two service dogs he trained, Nolen and Leo, are both now living with their clients and are reported to be doing great at their jobs.