pandemic Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Harpers Ferry Reaches New Heights Four Years After Pandemic

Harpers Ferry is a historic West Virginia city and international tourist hub. But four years ago the national park and surrounding town were devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourists from around the world visit Harpers Ferry each year to immerse themselves in U.S. history. But four years ago, things were a lot quieter downtown with the COVID-19 pandemic spreading nationwide.

Between 2019 and 2020, visits to the park fell by more than 20 percent. Guided tours and bookshop sales fell, too.

“During the initial part of the pandemic, they said that being outside was actually a bad thing,” said Scot Faulkner, president of the Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. His group serves as a liaison between local residents and the national park.

“They literally blocked access to the trails. They blocked access to these open fields. They even hauled logs to block the parking areas,” he said.

“We experienced a decrease in visitation as travel restrictions and concerns about virus transmission led to reduced recreation activities and some closures,” Kristen Maxfield, an interpretation and education program manager at the park, wrote in an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Others involved in local tourism, too, said that making decisions during the pandemic was a balancing act.

One attraction that closed with the onset of the pandemic was the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) headquarters, located in Harpers Ferry.

Located in Harpers Ferry, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy serves as a headquarters for the Appalachian Trail, not too far from its midpoint.
*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

The ATC asked thru-hikers to suspend their journeys in 2020. And, from March 2020 to May 2021, the conservancy closed its office in town, according to Dakota Jackson, ATC associate director of visitor services.

According to Jackson, officials worried that a large group of thru-hikers traveling north from Georgia could spread COVID-19 to communities along the trail.

But, ultimately, she said a lot of decision-making happened on the local level, because land managers help oversee portions of the trail.

“It wasn’t ATC closing the trail,” she said. “It really was like an overall decision in response to the pandemic and land managers over the course of 2020.”

In 2022, once most health restrictions were lifted, Jackson said thru-hiker turnout spiked.

But visits to the Harpers Ferry headquarters remain below pre-pandemic levels. Where the center used to bring in 30,000 visitors per year, it barely passed 19,000 in 2023.

Some saw the pandemic shutdown as a way to keep people safe. Others, like hotel owner Karan Townsend, recall its devastating effect on local business.

Townsend said she’s seen pretty consistent tourist turnout since she founded the hotel in 2007. But the pandemic was devastating, because she had to all but close her hotel in March 2020.

Karan Townsend owns and operates the Town’s Inn, a hotel and cafe located in downtown Harpers Ferry.
*Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Things changed a few months later, because West Virginia rescinded some of its public health guidelines earlier than nearby states. Townsend said people began returning to her hotel shortly after this.

“Because we were allowed to open, people that were from nearby areas that were still closed down – actually, not just nearby, from all over the world – came here,” she said.

The upheaval Townsend’s business faced was not alone in Harpers Ferry. Faulkner said many tourist-centric businesses had to close up because of decreased visitors and revenue.

But, like Townsend, Faulkner said things improved gradually as the state reopened.

“As West Virginia began to reopen, being able to see the logs pulled away from the trail paths and being able to have the stores, especially the restaurants, reopen in the town … it began to have an uptick in terms of actual economic activity,” he said.

Today, visitors to the national park have bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. They have even surpassed previous heights.

Every year since 2020, the number of visitors to the park has grown. In 2023, more than 400,000 people visited the park.

That marks a growth of more than 100,000 visitors when compared to 2019.

According to Maxfield, the park is now back to its former self, with activities and tour opportunities restored.

“We are delighted to welcome visitors to experience Harpers Ferry National Historical Park for themselves,” she wrote. “There truly is something for people of all ages and interests here.”

Faulkner said that he and residents are also glad to see things back to normal. “We love this park, and [we’re] glad that more and more people are coming.”

In Floyd County, KY, People Turn To Traditions Of Processing Meat At Home

Over the past several months, people have turned to traditional skills and practices as one way of coping with the challenges created by the Coronavirus pandemic. Many have baked bread or started a garden, while others have returned to community traditions of raising and butchering animals at home.

In a special report as part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Project, Nicole Musgrave spoke with several people in Floyd County, Kentucky who have used the pandemic as an opportunity to teach others how to process meat at home.

We Need To Get Us Some Hogs

In eastern Kentucky and throughout the rural South, it was once common for families to butcher a hog every winter, an annual tradition known as “hog killing day.” Forty-five-year-old Frank Martin grew up in Langley, Kentucky in a family that raised and butchered their own hogs. He lives on the same property today, and he remembered the feeling of waking up as a child on hog killing day: “The excitement of waking up that morning knowing that all your uncles were going to be coming over and your family members, everybody’s going to get together…The comparison to going to somewhere that you’ve never been and you’re so excited about it, and you get there and it’s as beautiful as you thought it would be. That’s kind of the same feeling come that morning,” Martin recalled.

Frank Martin (right) stands with his two sons, Jace (left), and Max (center), in front of their chicken coop. The three built the chicken coop as a “quarantine project” while Martin’s sons were home from school because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

It had been thirty years since Martin felt that excitement of hog killing day. But this past spring, just after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, he decided to process a hog with his two sons. At the time, news outlets were beginning to report that meat packing plants across the country were closing due to Coronavirus outbreaks among workers. “I was talking with one of my friends at work and he’s like, ‘You know, they’re talking like there might be a meat shortage.’ And he’s like, ‘We need to get us some hogs,’” Martin said.

A hog hangs at the Martin family home in March, waiting to be butchered. Frank Martin bought the hog from his cousin who had been hauling livestock from Pennsylvania to sell in Floyd County, Kentucky.

While the initial conversation was prompted by reports about potential disruptions to the supply of meat, that was not Martin’s primary reason for butchering a hog. With his two sons home from school because of the pandemic, Martin saw it as an opportunity to pass on the skills and the memories associated with home hog killings. “I want these boys to be exposed to this. I want to teach them that this is how their grandfathers got their meat….And that’s one of the things we did this for is to show the boys that you can be independent and self-reliant in uncertain times, especially,” Martin said.

Frank Martin’s oldest son, Max, takes a break from working up cuts of meat at the family’s kitchen island. As a deer hunter, Max had experience butchering animals, but this was his first time butchering a hog.

For Martin’s oldest son, Max, helping his dad gave him a new appreciation for how meat gets to the table. “Just knowing where your ham comes from. You know that it comes from a pig. But I guess you don’t really know until you do it. How much work goes into it,” Max said.

With the help he had from his sons, Martin was able to pack his freezer full with vacuum-sealed meat. And he was not alone. Martin has noticed that friends around Floyd County have a revived interest in processing their own meat. “I’ve seen a lot of people looking for chickens this year. Lot of people asking if anybody has any hogs. So obviously this pandemic has created a circumstance where people’s looking to do more of those traditional things,” Martin said.

I Wish I’d Paid Attention

About six miles down the road in Hueysville, Kentucky, thirty-four-year-old Misty Shepherd also knows a lot about the hog killing tradition. As an adult, she has continued her family’s practice of processing meat at home. She butchers a hog every three to five years. For Shepherd, knowing how an animal was raised and worked up gives insight into how healthy the meat is. The way a hog looks is also important. “The color, the fat content. How it wiggles when it’s moving….The eyes and the skin color. Make sure it’s not pale, it’s got to be pretty. It takes a lot. I mean, years of experience to be able to walk up and just say ‘that’s a good hog,’” Shepherd said.

Misty Shepherd at her home in Hueyesville, Kentucky. Shepherd butchered two hogs this spring with her family.

When looking for a good hog, Shepherd typically buys locally from people she knows in eastern Kentucky. But this year was different. With so many meatpacking plants closed, farmers were left overstocked and looking to sell their animals for cheap. “Right now where this virus is going on, these farmers are having to kill their hogs because they can’t sell them, and they have new litters coming on. So these hogs actually come from out of state that we got,” Shepherd said.

With the prospect of higher prices and bare shelves in supermarket meat aisles, Shepherd noticed others in the community taking advantage of discounted livestock. But this created another challenge to the local food supply. “A lot of friends and people are buying hogs and buying cows, and the slaughterhouses that did stay open in this area, that did take the precautions, are already booked So now they have this hog and they can’t get it killed, they can’t get it worked up and they have no place to put it. So it’s a huge burden on them,” Shepherd said.

One of the two hogs that Misty Shepherd and her family butchered this spring.

People reached out to Shepherd for advice on what to do with the animals they had purchased. A lot of her friends had the same regret and often said the same thing: “‘I wish I’d paid attention. I wish I’d have paid more attention growing up, watching them do this’…They remember certain parts of working up a hog or a beef or something like that, but they don’t remember all the process,” Shepherd said.

But Shepherd does remember all the process, including one of the final steps to butchering a hog—rendering the lard.

Watching a Caterpillar Change Into a Butterfly

Standing at her kitchen counter, Shepherd took a slab of hog fat and cut it up into small pieces. The pieces then went into a large aluminum pot to cook over low heat, where they transformed from slick pink to crispy brown. As the fat cooked, it hissed and popped, releasing a golden liquid.

Chunks of hog fat ready to be rendered. Misty Shepherd shaved about 70 pounds of hog fat off of the two hogs she butchered this spring.

This process of rendering lard produces two products: liquid lard and solid cracklings. Shepherd uses lard for cooking, baking and canning; to make soaps and salves; and as a wood conditioner. She saves the cracklings to add to cornbread. “You can see it kind of looks a little bit like fried chicken crumbs. I don’t like to render it out so much that your cracklings are completely hard,” Shepherd said.

A batch of salted cracklings sits on a tray to cool. Misty Shepherd keeps cracklings in her freezer to add to cornbread for extra flavor.

Once the fat finished cooking, Shepherd strained the cracklings from the lard. She then poured the lard into a glass Mason jar, where it would sit on the counter for several days, turning from a golden liquid into a white solid. “It’s a lost art…You go to the store and you can buy processed lard out of containers, but you never see it change form. You never see it go from this slick, white-pink, to a dark gold liquid and then turn back into a solid, beautiful white color in a jar. So to see something change form is kind of like watching a caterpillar change into a butterfly,” Shepherd said.

Now, Shepherd shares this artful process with others in a Facebook group she started in April. In the group, she posts tutorials that explain traditional skills, like how to butcher a hog and render the lard. For Shepherd, these are things she would be doing regardless, but because of the pandemic, she has had extra time. “I was out of work and I had time and I was doing this stuff anyways. And I’m like, ok I can post some of what I do,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd has a lot of skills to remain self-sufficient, and the pandemic has created an opportunity for her to teach them to others, the way she learned from her family growing up. She now has close to 500 members in her Facebook group. Shepherd not only shares how-to videos and recipes, she also sells items she makes, like soaps, salves and balms made from hog lard.

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.

Wrestlers And Fans Venture 'Out Of The Darkness' With Drive-In Show

You’ve heard of drive-in movies and drive-in restaurants… But how about drive-in professional wrestling?

The All Star Wrestling company out of Madison, Boone County, held its first drive-in event Saturday night to more easily adhere to social distancing guidelines for the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 50 cars surrounded a padded ring in the middle of a field behind Lee’s Studio of Dance in Winfield, Putnam County. The site sometimes doubles as the haunted attraction “Fear on the Farm.”

Many fans wore face masks to prevent COVID-19 spread, and most watched at a safe distance from the ring and each other. Between matches, someone would hop into the ring with wipes and disinfectant, to sanitize the ropes and padding.

“The Mobile Home Wrecker” Bruce Grey walks into the ring for the evening’s first match.

“Pro wrestling is about the energy that comes from the live crowd,” said ASW owner and promoter Gary Damron, who donned his own ASW-themed mask for the event. “The boos and the cheers, that’s what makes wrestling wrestling.”

The company already had to cancel three summer shows due to the pandemic, according to Damron. “The Return: Out of The Darkness,” the show Saturday night, originally was going to happen indoors at the Madison Civic Center, until the company decided outside was safer.

ASW heavyweight champion “Pure Trash” Ron Mathis prepares to defend his title in a match against Shane Storm.

ASW isn’t the only group navigating a global pandemic. World Wrestling Entertainment and All Elite Wrestling, both of which televise their matches nationally, closed many of their matches to fans earlier this summer.

In late June, several WWE employees shared they had tested positive for the coronavirus, prompting the company to temporarily halt production and test staff, according to USA Today.

For the ASW show Saturday night, Damron said wrestlers were screened for symptoms before matches.

Huffmanly, “Leader of the Yeet Movement,” shouts to fans from the corner of the ring.

Of all the wrestlers and others at Saturday night’s show, including AEW manager and visiting personality Vicky Guerrero, the crowd was the loudest. Fans booed at body slams, cheered at body flips and lined up around merchandise tables, where wrestlers and the company sold themed t-shirts, stickers and DVDs.

Fans like Ben Musick and Al Scott from Portsmouth, Ohio, arrived hours early.

“I’ve watched wrestling in 17 states now, I think,” said Scott. “And West Virginia’s up there, it’s probably in my top five. … You can’t do certain moves in certain states and all that good stuff, but in West Virginia it’s sort of like the Wild West. You can do whatever you want.”

The Neon Ninja Façade throws Seth “Flippin” Martin into the air.

This wasn’t Musick and Scott’s first wrestling event of the summer. Both were at another show in Milton, Cabell County, from the IWA East Coast Company the previous weekend.

“I think they drew about 180 people, is what the Facebook [page] said, and usually that crowd makes like 100,” Scott said. “People are stir-crazy, they want to get out and watch their wrestling.”

The Neon Ninja Façade enters the ring for a match against Seth “Flippin’” Martin.

The wrestlers were eager to get back, too. KC Shingleton, also known as wrestler Kirk Blackman, wasn’t in the ring Saturday night, but was present to help and support other wrestlers.

If not for the pandemic, Shingleton would normally spend summer weekends wrestling, or performing with other musicians in a band called Jerks.

“So many people just have nothing to look forward to,” Shingleton said. “Some people aren’t back to work yet, some people are laid off, they have nothing to do, everything seems hopeless. So, I guess the importance of this show is just to make sure that people are entertained, and make sure that everybody goes home with a smile on their face.”

ASW heavyweight champion “Pure Trash” Ron Mathis sits down outside the ring during a match against Shane Storm.

Summer and pandemic permitting, Damron said he hopes to hold more drive-in shows in the future.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

Men Spend More Time With Kids During Pandemic, But Women Still Do More

During the coronavirus pandemic, both fathers and mothers stepped up to help more with childcare. However, overall, mothers still continue to do 15 hours more housework and childcare. That’s according to a recent survey by Boston Consulting Group, which asked parents in the United States and Europe how the pandemic has affected how they balance work and family responsibilities.

Sixty percent of parents said they had no outside help in caring for or educating their children during the pandemic. On average, parents are putting in nearly 30 hours of additional labor per week.

Fathers’ roles at home in the U.S. have changed, but only slightly, in the past 40 years. Only 2 percent of fathers in the 1970s stayed home full time with the kids. By 2013, the percentage of full-time fathers had only grown to 4 percent, according to a study by the nonpartisan think tank the Pew Research Center.

On average, women with children under the age of 6 in the U.S. typically put in twice as much time caring for children than men, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Gig Workers Eligible For Coronavirus Unemployment Benefits Beginning Friday

West Virginians who are self-employed or independent contractors will soon be able to apply for unemployment benefits if they’ve been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

During a virtual press conference Monday hosted by state officials, Scott Adkins, director of WorkForce West Virignia, said beginning on Friday at 10 p.m. workers who would not otherwise be eligible for benefits, including gig workers, freelancers and Uber and Lyft drivers, will also be able to apply for benefits under the CARES Act passed last month by Congress.

“So, for you folks who are self-employed, independent contractors, you’re going to have the opportunity to apply for benefits starting this Friday night,” Adkins said.

Self-employed and independent contract workers will also be eligible for the additional $600 per week in federal benefits beginning the week of March 29 and are eligible for back pay beginning from January 27.

Since March 16, more than 140,000 West Virginians have applied for unemployment, according to Adkins.

The unprecedented need has put a huge strain on the agency and the state has ramped up staffing and resources to help process claims, including deploying some members of the National Guard. Some applicants have reported weeks-long delays in getting approved.

Adkins said the claims backlog should be fully cleared by Wednesday evening.

“It’s a huge undertaking for us,” he said.

W.Va. Woman Recounts Family's Survival Of Spanish Flu

Just over 100 years ago, West Virginia faced the Spanish Flu, which is thought to be one of the world’s deadliest pandemics in modern history. Records indicate 50 million people died worldwide, and nearly 3,000 of those were West Virginians.

And while researchers have been hesitant to compare the Spanish Flu with the current pandemic, there have been some grim similarities. The Centers for Disease Control estimates well over 100,000 people have died worldwide from coronavirus.

Donna Graham in Kanawha County, West Virginia, shared with us her family’s story from the Spanish Flu. Her grandfather contracted the flu and the entire household had to quarantine. In Graham’s audio postcard she draws parallels between her family’s experience and the COVID-19 pandemic, and the importance to hold onto hope.