Visiting Our Past: Mitchell County McKinneys reveal a joyful legacy

Charlie McKinney — the Mitchell County pioneer who had four "wives" and 43 children, and whom everyone loved? (See "Spruce Pine and North Toe — the history and the vision," Part 1).

Here's a news flash. The family has produced a "McKinney Heritage Cookbook," and it's stuffed with family lore.

The bedroll story rolls out again, and you can accept it or not. Charlie's wives, when he chucked his bedroll into their cabins, each in turn chose to accept it or not, thus determining where he slept on any given night.

We can state that everyone loved "Old Charlie" because in 1852, when he died, 19-year old Jacob Carpenter wrote in his diary of deaths: "He mad brandy all his life never had no foes got alon fin with everibodi I nod him."

Also, he "cild 75 to 80 hogs a year and womin never had no words bout his having so many womin."

It should also be noted that McKinney brought apples trees to the area; and that his property, located in what is now known as McKinney Gap, is part of the heritage-celebrating attraction, The Orchard at Altapass.

Modern love

The family history part of the heritage cookbook — titled "Delicious Memories" — jumps four generations after leaving Charlie, who was evidently a model of memorability.

Memory happens to make a strong comeback in the 20th century — as we see with the line that passes through John and Hattie McKinney, and through their son, Bill, born 1899.

The family's recollections and recipes, dedicated to Bill and his wife, Annie Thompson McKinney of Grassy Creek, reveal a legacy of both loving and fun-loving.

Phil McKinney, son of the late Rev. Brown McKinney, recalls Wednesday afternoon fishing trips to Lake James with his granddaddy, Bill. "You can't catch fish unless you have clean hands and a pure heart," Granddad would say.

It's a puzzling statement, but Phil knew how to interpret it. "I have carried those words as a motto for life," he says, "trying not to catch more fish, but to honor his memory in how I deal with others."

There's an inheritance of gentleness that replicates itself in families just as there's one of neglect that's hard to reverse in others.

When Bill's fifth child, Zebulon Vance McKinney, was sent back to the house by Bill's dad, John, because young Zeb was dragging his feet instead of clearing stones behind John's plowing, Zeb's mom, Annie, told John to take him back to the field and give him a whipping.

"Now, Zeb," Grandad said to Zeb on the way to the field, "I don't want to whip you, so when I slap the reins against the plow handles, you yell out just as loud as you can. Then we can go back to work."

Grandpa John was admired as a wise man. Loyalty trumps fear; sparing the rod does not always spoil the child.

Annie comes off as a disciplinarian in this story — someone's got to be — but that is not the way she is mainly remembered. She is remembered for her awesome flower gardens; and for her teaching.

Her first day on the job at the Harris High School (which included all grades), she filled in for a fifth grade teacher who had walked out because the children were too rowdy. Annie took over and immediately applied her storytelling craft, mesmerizing the children into submission.

Grandma

Zeb's younger sister, Joann, formed a special bond with her grandma, Hattie "Hattie Bell" Washburn McKinney.

Hattie carded, spun, and wove wool, made suits of clothes; mended shoes on a shoe last; and doctored sick neighbors in the area between the North Toe River and what is now the Spruce Pine Golf Course.

"I fondly remember her helping me make a playhouse under a crabapple tree," Joann McKinney Wilfong recalls. "She carpeted the floor with moss and gave me kitchen items to play with. She taught me how to make dolls out of mountain laurel blooms; she was my best friend."

Grandpa John died when Joann was 5, and she went to stay with her grandma while she was in mourning.

"As days became weeks," Joann relates, "I learned Swedish embroidery, learned to play Canasta, popped popcorn in the fireplace, helped Granny with any chore, attended church and then at night she told me stories as I cuddled next to her in the bed."

School started. Joann had to leave, and she gave her Teeny Tiny Tears doll to her grandma to keep her company.

Culture of kindness

A day after Joann expressed sadness that she hadn't gotten a child-sized broom from Santa one Christmas, her older brother, Brown, began looking all over the house, sure that the broom must have been delivered, but lost.

Finally, he pulled the broom out from behind a desk. "I fondly look back," says Joann, "knowing that my kind brother Brown had bought the broom with his own money and placed it there the day after Christmas."

A large contributor to the culture of kindness in the McKinney household was papa Bill's way of doing things.

He managed Harris Clay Company's Spruce Pine store from 1940 to 1956; then took ownership and moved the stock to Spruce Pine Grocery, located where Twisted Laurel Gallery operated at the time of this writing in 2014. The store had been the community hub; sold everything from cutlets to cupboards; and had a policy of reaching out to shut-ins and bereaved families.

"Dad came home for lunch each day," Joann recalls, "often bringing someone with him. ... Sometimes it would be a black man (such as) Mr. Tommy Flemming, who tried to sit on the porch to eat. However, Dad insisted that he come to the table with the rest of the family."

More: Visiting Our Past: Mica, war bring changes to North Toe, Spruce Pine in 1860s

More: Visiting Our Past: Spruce Pine and North Toe enter the 20th century

More: Visiting Our Past: Changing times for Spruce Pine, North Toe as some industry leaves

Ham was Bill's special offering, and it inspires the family recipe, "Ham Delight."

Slice Pepperidge Farm dinner rolls crosswise and spread both sides with a mixture of butter, mustard, onion, and poppy seed. Then cover the bottom half of the rolls with generous layers of ham, apply Swiss cheese, and then the tops of the rolls. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Funny guy

The store was one of several places where Bill exerted his antic genius.

At times, when he was home and heard the train coming, he would call the meat market at his store, just to hear his employee, Charlie Greenlee, say, "Wait just a minute Bill. I can't hear you; they've a train coming."

Bill purchased and donned a disguise that included a large, flat-billed cap; an oversized overcoat; and a pair of glasses with a large nose to which he applied makeup to have it match his skin color.

In her school essay, "The Most Interesting Person I've Ever Known," Charlene McKinney, daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Bill McKinney Jr., told one of the ways in which her grandfather used his get-up.

He'd walk down the street in his disguise and "when he came to someone he knew ... he would talk to them and convince them that he had known them 30 years ago." Then he'd go around the corner, turn back into himself, and return to his friend, who usually gushed about how they'd just rediscovered an old acquaintance.

Bill was president of the Mitchell County Building and Loan Association; invented a wintergreen liniment; and ventilated his underwear by cutting holes in it.

He also invented a sandwich — which is not in the cookbook: banana, peanut butter, tomato, bacon, and mayonnaise.

Barbara McKinney, wife of Bill's son, Sam, says that Sam has picked up the sandwich trait, inventing a mustard, peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

She was finally convinced to take a bite, she says, and "until this day, when I have an upset stomach, I'll ask Sam for this sandwich, which only he can make right."

Rob Neufeld wrote the weekly "Visiting Our Past" column for the Citizen Times until his death in 2019. This column originally was published Aug. 10, 2014.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Visiting Our Past: Mitchell County McKinneys reveal a joyful legacy