Romney Story Archives - Page 2 of 4 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

November 29, 1878: Writer Margaret Prescott Montague Born

Writer Margaret Prescott Montague was born at White Sulphur Springs on November 29, 1878. Her books, which were set mostly in the southern mountains, included The Poet, Miss Kate, and I; The Sowing of Alderson Cree; Calvert’s Valley; and Linda—all written before she’d turned 35.

Her brother was superintendent of the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Romney. Montague’s interest in his students inspired her book Closed Doors.

Montague departed from mountain themes with “England to America.” This World War I story, which won the O. Henry Award, was praised by President Woodrow Wilson and considered to be a plea for a league of nations.

In 1923, she published Deep Channel, which offered character studies of mountain people. That same year, she wrote two stories featuring the mythic lumberman Tony Beaver, West Virginia’s version of Paul Bunyan. Her Tony Beaver tales were collected into the book Up Eel River. Montague claimed that Eel River and its inhabitants were products of the fertile imaginations of West Virginia woodsmen. Although, it’s possible she invented them herself.

Montague died in Richmond, Virginia, at age 76.

A Sweeping Legacy – Broom Making Lives On in Appalachia

In 2017, West Virginia Public Broadcasting featured one of West Virginia’s last remaining broom makers; Kanawha County resident Jim Shaffer. The story ended with a question: would this dwindling art continue once Shaffer retired? Well, it turns out, a whole family in Hampshire County makes brooms together, and they were inspired by Shaffer himself.

Meet Wanda Hott – Broom Maker

Just about 20 miles from Romney, West Virginia is a little town called Kirby. Kirby is home to Wanda Hott and her family. She owns a big farm which has been in her family since the 1930s.

Wanda Hott ties the broom corn while using the machine she purchased from Jim Shaffer.

Wanda ties the broom corn while using the machine she purchased from Jim Shaffer. — Wanda Hott ties the broom corn while using the machine she purchased from Jim Shaffer.

Hott works as a professional school bus driver for Hampshire County Schools during a normal workday, but for more than a decade she’s also been a broom maker.

“I got into broom making, because my sister wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas one year,” Hott said. “I needed a broom; I wanted a practical broom, and she got me a broom from Jim Shaffer.”

Inside Appalachia: A Broom Maker Legacy

Hott fell in love with that broom, and she remembered her great-great grandmother used to make brooms. She wanted to learn how to make them too and started teaching herself. For some help, she reached out to Jim Shaffer and began buying his broom-making supplies. Soon, they became friends.

Wanda and her husband Steve work on the broom making machine they purchased from Jim Shaffer.

Passing on a Legacy

Hott has been making brooms for the past thirteen years now. And then, last year, Jim Shaffer called her and told her he had decided he was not able to continue making brooms. Hoping to pass on his craft to the right person, he offered to sell her his broom making equipment. She accepted.

Hott hopes her broom making business will be her main source of income once she retires from school bus driving.

And, as it turns out, two of Hott’s teenage granddaughters, Shelby and Kierra Westfall, have taken a particular interest in the broom making craft as well.

“It sparks my interest,” Shelby said. “It’s something that I’m actually able to sit down and do, and it doesn’t lose my interest.”

And her younger sister, Kierra feels the same way.

“I’m a really hands on person, so I really like to be able to feel something and have it in my hands, and broom making’s a really good way to do that,” Kierra explained. “And I like spending family time, cause I think family time [is] really important, so it’s kind of a way to do both for me.”

Clay Lick Brooms & The W.Va. Broom Barn

Shelby and Kierra often work alongside their grandma. Hott’s taught them to make a variety of multi-purpose or decorative brooms by hand, but she isn’t really sure how the craft became such a big part of her family.

“It just evolved,” Hott said. “I learned to make the broom to start with, and then I would teach my sister and our friend, and when family members came, they would jump in and it was a big thing. Anybody that wanted to see, we’d teach ‘em how to make brooms.”

Hott has two separate broom shops on her farm. One is the W.Va. Broom Barn and the other is the Clay Lick Broom Shop. The brooms she makes with Jim Shaffer’s equipment are made in the W.Va. Broom Barn and take about 25 minutes to finish. They sell for about $17. Hott sells them to local Lions Clubs, just like Shaffer did.

But the brooms made in the Clay Lick Broom Shop are made entirely by hand without the machine. Since they take longer to make, Hott sells these for up to $50.

A Family Tradition

Hott hopes broom making continues to spark interest for her family. For Shelby and Kierra, they want to continue the tradition too.

“I think it’s a really great thing that there are still people around [who] still want to make brooms, because it is a really neat and wonderful thing to learn,” Kierra said.

“It’s something that I think should be passed on; people should know how to do it, cause you’re not always gonna have plastic, and you’re not gonna always have machines,” Shelby said. “The broom corn is something you can grow and make yourself; you don’t have to go and buy it.”

Shelby sits with her family’s collie, Sadie.

Wanda Hott’s brooms have been getting noticed. She’s even had customers as far away as California and Illinois. And with her entire family also interested in making brooms, for now, it looks like this artform won’t be disappearing in West Virginia anytime soon.

Ex-Superintendent of Schools for Deaf, Blind Suing State

The former superintendent of West Virginia’s state schools for blind and deaf students has filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse his firing.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports Martin Keller Jr. is suing the state Board of Education and state schools superintendent Steve Paine. Keller’s attorneys, Dave Hammer and Christine Glover, say Kanawha County court filed the suit on Monday.

Glover says she hopes the filing leads to Keller’s reinstatement and that a federal lawsuit doesn’t have to be filed.

The board didn’t explain why it fired Keller on Nov. 17. He was hired in August 2015 and officials said he was the first deaf superintendent in the schools’ history that stretches to 1870.

Kristin Anderson, state education department communications director, says a responsive pleading will be filed soon.

November 29, 1878: Writer Margaret Prescott Montague Born

Her brother was superintendent of the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Romney. Montague’s interest in his students inspired her book Closed Doors.

Montague died in Richmond, Virginia, at age 76.

December 23, 1762 : Virginia General Assembly Charters Romney and Shepherdstown

On December 23, 1762, the Virginia General Assembly chartered the towns of Romney and Shepherdstown, igniting one of the longest-lasting debates in West Virginia history. The question? Is Romney or Shepherdstown West Virginia’s oldest incorporated town?

Some historians think Shepherdstown might have been settled as early as the 1710s or 1720s. However, its earliest documented settlement didn’t occur until sometime before 1739, when Thomas Shepherd built a grist mill in the town. As for Romney, Job and John Pearsall had settled there prior to 1738. Still, it isn’t certain when either town was first settled.

But, since Shepherdstown and Romney were both chartered on the same day, the big question still comes down to which one came first. At that time, bills passed by the General Assembly had to be read allowed three times. Shepherdstown sometimes argues that it is older because its bill was read for the third time before Romney’s bill was. However, both bills were signed on the same day without any indication of which one came first. So, as for determining the oldest town in West Virginia, let the debate continue.

W.Va. Peach Season is Here, But There's Little to Harvest – Here's Why

It’s the peak of the peach season here in West Virginia, and lots of folks are clamoring to their nearby farmer’s markets to get some. But the late frost this year did a number on the state’s peach crop, and some say it was the worst frost in 30 years.

Orr’s Farm Market has been family owned for generations. It’s located in Martinsburg and has been around since 1995. But the legacy of the orchards that fuel this family market has been going strong since 1954 when it began with only 60 acres. Now, that number has increased to 1100.

“About 450 acres of it is peach trees,” said Katy Orr-Dove, Retail Market Manager at Orr’s Farm Market, “our other big crop is apples, and there are some adjoining family farms just south of us here, so it’s not all us, but a lot of it is us.”

The Orr’s say their property is home to the largest peach orchard in the state. About 15 to 20 percent of the family’s peach crop is kept and sold in-state at their farm market. The rest is sent for wholesale at various grocery stores along the East Coast.

But this year, farmers all across West Virginia, like the Orrs, saw a late frost that the state Department of Agriculture says was substantial. A department spokesman says the damage itself was hit or miss across the state, but the frost devastated many peach orchards in the Eastern Panhandle.

“It hurt all over West Virginia, the late frost,” said Walt Helmick, West Virginia’s Agriculture Commissioner, “but not like it does here. Here, this is the area that you watch the most, because this is where those industries that are dependent on frost free nights exist.”

Helmick attended Romney’s Peach Festival earlier this month. The Hampshire County Development Authority says about 2,000 people came out over the course of the weekend – celebrating the crop through song, dance, a parade, and foods like peach pie and peach ice cream.

Helmick says West Virginia is 15^th in the United States for peach production with about 5,000 tons harvested on average each year. But Helmick says that’s only a quarter of what was produced at the industry’s peak in the state in the 1920s and 30s.

As for how much this year’s late frost impacted the overall productivity of the industry in West Virginia – Helmick says he’s not sure yet. But at Orr’s orchards, 60 percent of their peach crop was lost.

“From what I’ve heard from my uncle and my father, this is a once in 30-year type of a frost,” Orr-Dove said, “and so it’s not very common, and so this is the first time I’ve had to see us deal with this kind of a loss.”

That caused the price of a bushel to increase by 2 to 3 dollars at the Orr Farm Market. Orr-Dove says while there were fewer peaches on the trees, that allowed the peaches that did survive to grow larger.

“They had more room to grow on the trees since there weren’t as many,” she said, “So, you know, my customers are very happy this year, and they haven’t really noticed it; there’s a lot less wholesale going on to the grocery stores though.”

Roughly 80 percent fewer peaches are headed out from Orr’s to retailers this year. But Orr-Dove says that fact hasn’t got her family down – they’re looking forward to next year’s harvest.