Francine Bryson putting Pickens on the baking map

By Olivia Fowler, Courier Staff

Pickens resident Francine Bryson was standing in the kitchen cooking pork chops on a Wednesday night when the phone call came.

She didn’t pay any attention to it. When she saw the California area code, she assumed it was a telemarketer and said, “Don’t need any, already have some.”

But when the phone rang again, she answered and found out she was being asked to try out for a new national TV show, “America’s Next Great Baker.”

They wanted her to go to Nashville on Saturday and bake her first-place winner from the National Pie

The author at Cumberland Gap, location of Confederate Fort Raines, where Mark Cloer wrote.

Doubt, decline and the destiny of duty

By Dr. Tom Cloer, Special to the Courier

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series on Civil War letters from Courier contributor Dr. Thomas Cloer Jr.

 The next Civil War letter is from the oldest Cloer ancestors for whom I have personal letters. John B. Cloer and Aggatha S Cloer are my great-great-great-grandparents. How moving it is for me to see the precious handwriting of these old calloused hands! They were writing just before Christmas 1862 to their son in the Civil War. They mentioned that their son, Mark, had written that he had reunited with his Company. Mark had obviously come home for a November 1862 visit, as he had talked about doing in his correspondence.

Notice the information in this letter about salt. Why would this be important? Coffee, tea, sugar and salt were in very short supply in the mountains during the Civil War. Many of the mountaineers even used okra seeds for coffee during this time. Molasses was used for sugar, but salt was a very different matter. My brother, Nat, and I, growing up in Southern Appalachia during the 1940s and ‘50s, were responsible

During their down time, Civil War soldiers often spent time writing letters to their loved ones, even though many of them never received proper schooling.

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on Civil War letters from Courier contributor Dr. Thomas Cloer Jr.

By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr. – Special to The Courier

How many mementos do you have of your grandfather? I have two or three, and cherish them as if the objects were solid gold. I have one object that belonged to my great-grandfather, Jacob Miller Cloer, a tool he used in making wooden white oak shingles for roofs. It very well could have been used by his daddy, William Marcus (Mark) Cloer, the Confederate soldier described in this article. These Civil War letters are like that tool. For my grandchildren, these letters go back eight generations!

Introduction

Pickens and Oconee counties of South Carolina contain part of the Blue Ridge Escarpment that joins the rugged mountains of South Carolina with the Appalachian Mountains of North America, running from Georgia to Maine. The writers of these Civil War letters lived in mountainous, undeveloped Macon County, N.C. Macon County includes the mountain towns of Highlands and Franklin, lying immediately northwest of our beautiful South Carolina mountains.

There is one question I had to try to answer before sitting down and doing the most tedious, but for me

Only recently dubbed “Mother’s Day,” the highly traditional practice of honoring of Motherhood is rooted in antiquity, and past rites typically had strong symbolic and spiritual overtones; societies tended to celebrate Goddesses and symbols rather than actual Mothers.

One of the earliest historical records of a society celebrating a Mother deity is found among the ancient Egyptians, who held an annual festival to honor the goddess Isis, who was commonly regarded as the Mother of the pharaohs.

The festival of Isis was also celebrated by the Romans, who used the event to commemorate an important battle and mark the beginning of Winter. Yet the Roman root of Mother’s Day is perhaps

Don’t miss the blooming

of the rare Oconee Bells

By Olivia Fowler, Courier Staff

A trip to the Jocassee wilderness is more than a journey of a few miles. It’s a passage into another time.

What may be most striking upon arrival is the quiet. There are no motors running, cellphones ringing, people shouting or any other intrusive sounds.

An unpaved road is the only way in, and the terrain is more than a little rough. But anyone worth their salt will not be discouraged. There are about 200

SPECIAL SECTION IN THIS WEEK’S PAPER

PICK UP ONE TODAY

FOR ALL FESTIVAL INFORMATION

PICKENS — Spring has always been special in Pickens County, with warm, sunny days and cool crisps evenings. And the third weekend in April offers the best way for area residents and visitors to Pickens County to say goodbye to the chills of winter with a two-day event filled with activities to thrill all age groups.

The 30th annual Azalea Festival, slated for April 18-19, is shaping up to be a