WV Living - Winter 2015

LIVING IN KEYSER | FEAST OF THE SEVEN FISHES | ROASTED RECIPES winter 15

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VOLUME 8 ◆ ISSUE 4

Winter 2015 CARLA WITT FORD

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features

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76

86

96

Living in Keyser

Winter Fun for Everyone

The Feast

This quaint small town has been called “The Friendliest City in the USA.”

Don’t let the cold weather turn you blue.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival brings thousands to Fairmont.

wvliving.com 5

VOLUME 8 ◆ ISSUE 4

39

33

55

21

spotlight

heritage

in every issue

is a divine dining destination.

Modern Homestead in Reedsville.

21 Must See Marx Toy Museum in

43 Art Ed Klimek of Jughead Pottery brings a

8 Editor’s Letter 10 Letters to the Editor 104 The Parting Shot

23 Event Mark your calendar for The Hank

49 Celebrations This historic Sabraton

15 Dining 21 at The Frederick in Huntington 39 Lodging Get away from it all at the Moundsville brings out the kid in everyone.

Williams Tribute Concert.

24 Shopping Gabe’s is a West Virginia shopping institution.

26 People Prehistoric Planet has made a business out of supplying replica fossils.

28 Music This Huntington-based band is on an upward trajectory.

southern tradition to the Mountain State.

home takes on new life during the holidays.

55 Food Stay warm and toasty with these warm wintry recipes.

63 Spaces This Harrison County couple

share their historic home during the holidays.

72 Living Local Maple syrup production is

on the rise in West Virginia. This top producer 31 Local Flavor Charming Cheese ’N More has tapped into something sweet. in Gap Mills is a throw back to simpler times.

33 Shopping Learn the Holl’s Chocolate sweet success story.

35 Road Trip For beautiful winter scenery, this stretch of WV Route 32 can’t be beat.

6 wvl • winter 2015

On the Cover Canaan Valley is a popular winter destination. This photo was taken in Old Timberline.

Photo by Nikki Bowman L VING N KEYSER | FEAST OF THE SEVEN F SHES | ROASTED RECIPES winter 15

wintry

Wonders TAPPING MAPLE SYRUP

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SCENIC ROUTES

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HISTORIC HOL DAY HOMES

EDITOR’S LET TER

A

re you ready for winter? After working on this issue, I think I am. I’m looking forward to touring historic homes decked out in holiday finery (page 93), taking the kids to a sledding park (87), going for a drive to enjoy new lighting displays (page 90), and settling in with a cup of hot chocolate as I watch snow coat the hillsides.

For me winter is a time for reflection.

It is hard to believe that seven years ago, I launched WV Living. As I celebrate this anniversary, I have much to be thankful for.

I’m very blessed to have an incredible, skilled, and hardworking staff. All are passionate about telling our state’s stories—the stories of small towns, talented artists, charming restaurants, amazing dining destinations, and inspirational people. People like you.

Thank you for supporting this magazine and other publications by subscribing, advertising, and giving it as gifts. Since my first trip to Lewisburg in 2008 for the first

feature in the first issue of the magazine, I’ve travelled the state from one corner to the other and then some. You would think I have seen it all, but every time I hit the road, I discover something new—a town, a shop, a restaurant, or a person—and I can’t wait to share it with you. I get excited when our stories help a new business succeed, a town attract more people to one of its festivals, or give unsung heroes the attention they deserve. These stories collectively become our state’s story.

I’m always moved by hometown pride, and I was particularly touched by our “Living in Keyser” story (page 76). Native Mara Boggs, who is Senator Joe Manchin’s state director, shares with us the places, people, and events that make her hometown special. That same pride of place is what led Robert and Shannon Tinnell to create the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival (page 96). This event in Fairmont has now become a tradition for thousands of people. I also appreciate

the efforts of people who are dedicated to preserving our history for future generations.

People like Ed Keepers, who has spent the last ten years restoring his 1852 house in Sabraton (page 49), or C.J. and Brenda Monroe of Bridgeport, who painstakingly decorate their 1872 home to share with others (page 63).

This winter, don’t be bah humbug.

Instead, get out and try a few new things.

Hopefully, we’ve introduced you to some great ways to make cold winter days memorymaking moments.

May your days be filled with joy and pride,

nikki bowman, Editor Follow us on

,

,

, and

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facebook.com/wvliving twitter.com/wvliving pinterest.com/wvliving instagram: theWVeditor

MARA BOGGS joined Senator Joe Manchin’s staff after serving for nearly 14 years in the active Army, in the 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Cavalry Division, and other units. While in the Army, she was an engineer, and served combat missions in the Middle East. She is Senator Joe Manchin’s state director, and has worked for the senator for four years, both in Washington and West Virginia. Mara is a West Virginia University grad, and has a masters from the University of Missouri.

Mara and her husband Ken are proud to call West Virginia home.

8 wvl • winter 2015

JULIE PERINE is a writer for Connect-Bridgeport.com and through the years has contributed to various West Virginia publications, including WV Living and WV Weddings. She is part of the public relations team for “The Fly Rod Chronicles with Curtis Fleming” and is former lifestyles editor of The Exponent Telegram in Clarksburg. She is an outdoors enthusiast and loves to fish, bike, and travel, often writing about those experiences. She, her husband Jeff, and two sons live in Bridgeport, where she was raised. She also has two married daughters and one granddaughter and is part-owner of Della’s Deli in Bridgeport.

REBECCA KIGER FOTOGRAFIA

contributors

LET TER S to the EDITOR

“I love all the beautiful pics of West Virginia. Makes me so proud to be from this state.” jenny aten logan, via Facebook

Breathtaking Sites

My husband and I recently took an overnight trip to the area. We enjoyed the sunset and stargazing at Dolly Sods, then went on to Blackwater Falls for hiking on a few trails.

Though most leaves have peaked, it’s still breathtaking to be among the majesty of our wonderful state. shelley halstead perry, via Facebook

Best of Everything

Best place to experience anything! Great Harley ride down the Appalachian Highway to Canaan Valley, nothing better. Almost Heaven! kim moskes, via Facebook

10 wvl • winter 2015

Positive Vibes

One of my favorite mags! Our state is portrayed in a very positive light and we have wonderful natural resources. linda ayers, via Facebook

Impressive

I came across your magazine at The Greenbrier in October. I am very impressed with the quality of the publication and your very interesting articles from around our great state! Keep it up! carrie mckenzie, wheeling, via letter

Good Memories

I always loved camping at Blackwater Falls State Park. There was always a ton of things for kids to do. The campsites were next to each other, but not right on top of each other. Dad and I used to scuba dive in the lake. kimberly davisson, via Facebook

LET TER S to the EDITOR

Great Work

Thank you WV Living magazine for this great article on our restaurant! mia margherita coal fired pizzeria, via Facebook

The Wow Factor

I was at my local Sam’s Club and rounded the corner and literally said “wow” out loud! The magazine is gorgeous! katie hanlon, via text

Let us hear from you. We want to know what you think about the magazine, and we’d love to hear your suggestions.

Email: info@newsouthmediainc.com Call: 304.413.0104 Mail: 709 Beechurst Avenue, Suite 14A, Morgantown, WV 26505 Take WV Living with you:

wvliving.com 11

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New South Media, Inc. 709 Beechurst Ave., Suite 14A Morgantown, WV 26505

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wvliving.com

EDITOR

Nikki Bowman, nikki@newsouthmediainc.com

ART DIRECTOR

Carla Witt Ford, carla@newsouthmediainc.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

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12 wvl • winter 2015

NIKKI BOWMAN

Play time

From antique toys to charming shops to divine dining destinations, these stories will bring out the kid in you.

PICTURED: POPEYE TIN TOY FROM THE MARX TOY MUSEUM IN MOUNDSVILLE

SPOTLIGHT Scallops adorned with risotto and asparagus are just one of the many entrees

available at 21 at The Frederick, a historic restaurant known for its steaks and seafood.

Fifty years later, much remains the same.

“I have an appreciation of the architecture and the art work that went into putting this place together,” says Mark, a longtime Huntington resident and standby in the area’s culinary scene. “I don’t think you could do anything to it to make better. When I was looking for a home, I knew it was available and moved in.” By then the restaurant had sat empty for two years, following the closure of the hotel in the 1980s and a rotating assembly of bars and restaurants. “I knew about it,” Mark says. “I’ve been in it through its different incarnations— even as a Chinese restaurant called Ming’s.”

Today the space is known for its refined steaks and seafood. “What you can count on here is a perfectly prepared steak,” Mark says. “Prime beef for the New York strip and ribeyes, aged 60 days, with a unique tangy flavor. We feature fresh fish all the time.”

Longtime regulars know the drill, but for first time visitors there are five must-try experiences integral to 21 at The Fredrick:

FREDERICK HOTEL

dining

21 at The Frederick

A cozy space, good food, and great décor welcome new and longtime diners to this Huntington staple.

D

ark wood, dim lighting, the clink of a glass, lilting laughter—it’s enough to imagine you’ve stepped back into the 1960s and arrived at a gentlemen’s club, swank, cozy, and luxurious. 21 at The Frederick has everything you’d want from wintertime dining—warmth, flair, and good food.

A longtime staple of downtown Huntington’s Fredrick Hotel, itself an opulent reminder of Huntington’s glory days, 21 at The Frederick got its start as a men’s lunch counter in the early 1900s, according to owner and operator Mark Cross. “And in 1962 the then-owner turned it into a private restaurant called the Elephant Walk.”

Enter the restaurant through the old hotel lobby, a beautiful space now used for parties.

Art lines the walls, along with artifacts dating from the hotel’s prime: When the Hotel Frederick opened in 1906 it was reputedly the largest in the South. Today the hotel has been parceled into offices with future plans to develop condos, but much of the old style remains. “We have acquired the use of a ballroom that used to be the main dining room for the hotel,” Mark says, adding that the mezzanine is also part of the restaurant.

ELEPHANT DÉCOR

This one’s obvious. It hits you the moment you walk in. Gold painted elephant motifs line the walls, down to the few remaining original barstools in the shape of elephants’ feet.

“The owner of the building then was a big Republican,” Mark muses, “We have a bunch of pictures of him with Republican presidents, but I think the name really came from a big movie at the time called The Elephant Walk.”

LIBATIONS

“Our restaurant features an excellent wine list that provides something to complement everything on our menu,” Mark says. Also wvliving.com 15

SPOTLIGHT Located across from the beautiful KeithAlbee Theater, 21 at The Fredrick boasts delicious

appetizers, entrees, and drinks served in an atmosphere reminiscent of a 1960s gentlemen’s

lunch counter. Enjoy your food in a room decorated with gold elephants and dark woods.

on tap: beer, liquor, and a menu of martinis.

It’s no wonder the bar is usually the first to fill as dinner approaches. “All of our regular customers recognize Thomas Plymale, who is my cousin, and he does a really good job of making sure everyone feels at home at our bar. Thomas has been with me for at least four years and though I wouldn’t really say we have a signature drink, he makes a really good Manhattan.”

Whatever your drink of choice, sit back and enjoy conversation, whether it’s with Thomas or Mark, who is nearly always at the restaurant, and admire more of that signature elephant décor. Perhaps you’ll snag one of those coveted foot-shaped bar stools. The bar itself is in the shape of an elephant’s trunk.

“It’s a cool look into the past,” Mark says.

ONE COMFORT FOOD TO RULE THEM ALL

Of course no trip to the restaurant is complete without one of those mouthwatering steaks, 16 wvl • winter 2015

but if you’re mulling over the menu of side dishes, look no further than the mac and cheese. “It’s our signature,” Mark says of the creamy bake of Gouda, Parmigiano, noodles, and heavy cream.

LIVE MUSIC

Music graces the dining room Friday and Saturday nights, adding a bit of lyrical class to the already elegant atmosphere. If your mood calls less for conversation and more for rumination in the low-lit, intimate space, sit back and enjoy your food with music as your companion. Mike Campbell on the piano is primarily featured Fridays and Saturdays.

21 at the frederick

Frederick Building, 940 4th Avenue, Huntington, 304.529.0222 written by katie

griffith

photographed by elizabeth

roth

SPOTLIGHT At Maria's Taqueria the focus is on simple but interesting

Mexican fare made from only the freshest ingredients.

dining

she says. “We’ve just tried to put a really fresh spin on making burritos and tacos and some kind of off-the-wall dishes, all of them with the freshest ingredients you could possibly use.” Think of Maria’s in Shepherdstown as being less like an authentic Mexican joint or high-end fusion Maria’s Taqueria in Shepherdstown is restaurant (though there’s a little making the best possible version of a of that, too) and more like a place where the best possible version familiar favorite. of your family’s taco Tuesday is for the purpose of this story we’re going happening every day of the week. to call Maria’s Taqueria a Mexican restaurant, Maria Allen graduated from Shepherd for lack of a better term, but you should know University in December 2008—not a great time that Maria herself doesn’t really think of it to be starting a job search. “I was graduating that way. “I’m white—some weird mix of Irish into a completely jobless market,” she says. But Catholic, German, Irish, and who knows what she’d worked in restaurants during college; and else? I’m not doing authentic Mexican food,” right around the time she began planning for

Building a Better Taco

18 wvl • winter 2015

life after graduation, a little smoothie shop near her apartment moved, and its space went up for lease. It struck her that it might be just barely big enough for a little taco place, and she realized that Shepherdstown was woefully under-equipped in the ethnic food arena. “What college town doesn’t have a Mexican place?”

Maria says, o she figured she could open one up there herself. Sure, the restaurant business isn’t exactly known for being cushy, and the vast majority of new restaurants fail. But, hey, it seemed more promising than unemployment.

“So I started using my friends as guinea pigs,” Maria says. “I’d cook for them. They’d come over and I’d say ‘Try this;’ and sometimes they’d eat terrible food, and sometimes they’d tell me it was really good.” By the time she had graduated from Shepherd, she was ready to get started. “The night I graduated I walked into this tiny little alleyway shop that used

to be a juice shop, and I started painting the walls,” she says. “I was literally painting in my graduation dress.”

That original shop was tiny—like really, really tiny. Five feet wide and 25 feet long, to be exact. Obviously, running a restaurant out of the space was a challenge; they didn’t even have room to store and wash dishes so all the food was served “scrunched in a little foil container.”

But Maria says the food was better for it. For example, one of the trademarks of Maria’s is an almost obsessive focus on fresh ingredients.

That’s partly because Maria wants to serve good, fresh food, of course. Operating in that tiny space, she was never even tempted to cut corners as many restaurateurs are. “Being in that space for five years really trained us,” she says. “First of all, you’re in a tiny place and you want to make a good impression. But we also had nowhere to store meat and vegetables—it’s not like we had a walk-in cooler in the back.” For the first five years, Maria got fresh batches of food every day simply because she didn’t have room to store a week’s worth of ingredients. She’d buy as much food as she could stuff into the tiny restaurant kitchen in the morning, cook it all up, and serve it to people until she ran out.

The relationship Maria and her employees had with their regular customers was uniquely close. “We knew all of our customers by name; we knew their order. It was so small and unique,” she says. “You weren’t putting your order in with the register person and never seeing the cooks. When you’re in there, you’re talking to the cooks the whole time while you’re waiting for your food.”

Last year Maria’s moved into a larger space in Shepherdstown—it’s still not huge, but there’s room for 28 seats, real plates, and a cooler for beer and wine. But even in this new space with its big kitchen and refrigerator, the owner is trying to stay true to the roots that made Maria’s so special to begin with. She’s not ditching fresh ingredients—though she is using all that space to experiment with new dishes—and she has designed the restaurant so the first thing a customer sees when he or she walks in the door is a friendly face. “We didn’t expand so much that we lost our intimacy,” Maria says. “We just finally offered all the people who had supported us for so long some places to sit down.” maria’s taqueria

108 East German Street, Shepherdstown, 304.876.3333 written by shay

maunz bowman

photographed by nikki

wvliving.com 19

SPOTLIGHT

must see

A Second Childhood

The Marx Toy Museum in Moundsville remembers the region’s colorful past. when you enter the marx toy museum in Moundsville, it’s hard not to smile. The atmosphere just declares, “This is a happy place.” Colorful toys line every shelf. You walk through a timeline of playthings: metal wind-up toys from the 1920s, plastic action sets from the 1950s, each with dozens of pieces, and the modern Big Wheel. Trains, fire trucks, dollhouses—it’s like visiting Santa’s workshop.

Toys, specifically Marx Toys, have fascinated museum owner Francis Turner since he was a child. Launched in New York City in 1919, Marx Toys was at one time the largest producer of toys in the world.

It’s owner, Louis Marx, became known as the “Henry Ford of Toys” among some and the “Toy King” among others. “In 1955 one of every three toys made in America was

made by Marx,” Francis says; and most of those were created in Glen Dale, just outside Moundsville in Marshall County. There, in the early 1930s, Marx acquired an old Fokker aircraft plant and turned it into the largest of his three manufacturing facilities. At one point the toy plant employed thousands; but by 1980, after a series of company sales, it closed.

While the plant remains empty today, Francis has kept its memory alive with a museum collection of thousands of Marx toys. Located on Second Street, just minutes away from the Glen Dale plant, the museum is home to toys dating as early as the 1920s and as recent as a Big Wheel once owned by country superstar and Glen Dale native Brad Paisley. “This is the only museum in the world dedicated to preserving the names

of Marx Toys and Louis Marx and the people who worked there,” Francis says. He started collecting in 1988, and the toys began to add up. “I decided to open a museum,” he says. That was in 2001, and though Francis is slowing down his collecting now—he’s looking only for a skyscraper and a firehouse from 1954—the museum takes most of his time.

“Big Bruiser was advertised on TV,” Francis notes as he walks through his museum. “A lot of people know about that toy.” He says, “We have a store display of the Johnny West figures. You’d see these in Sears and Roebuck in 1968.” Farther into the museum you’ll find riding toys and even prototypes and adult action figures made for Marx’s closest friends and business partners.

“We have three of eight figures Louis Marx made of himself,” Francis says. “He never sold them; he gave them to his friends. We’ve only been able to find Louis Marx as Chairman Mao, as a famous Chinese warrior, and as Napoleon. There’s also Louis Marx the sumo wrestler and Louis Marx as Sherlock Holmes.

They’re really difficult to find.”

What isn’t difficult is discovering their stories. For every question about a toy in the wvliving.com 21

SPOTLIGHT Francis Turner opened the Marx Toy Museum in

downtown Moundsville in 2001 to show off his

large collection of Marx Toys dating as early as the 1920s.

museum, Francis has an answer. Likely the world’s foremost expert on all things Marx, a visit to his museum is a must for any toy collector and child-at-heart. “We’re not a private museum anymore,” he adds. About four years ago, Francis had several special visitors to his collection. One was Louis Marx Jr., the son of the “Toy King” himself, who was impressed.

“When he finally got done touring the museum he wanted to help us out,” Francis says. The museum became a nonprofit with generous donations, and Francis found what he calls his second childhood.

The Marx Toy Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. April through December. Call in advance for holiday hours. Tickets start at $8.50 for adults and $5 for children. marx toy museum

915 Second Street, Moundsville, 304.845.6022 marxtoymuseum.com written and photographed by katie

22 wvl • winter 2015

griffith

event

Lost Highway

COURTESY OF JOHN SELLARDS

More than 50 years after Hank Williams’ death in Oak Hill, fans are still keeping his memory alive. when the young driver pulled over at a gas station in Oak Hill, he found the country music star dead in the back seat. Hank Williams was just 29 years old. Fans of classic country music, even those who were born long after the singer died, still grieve his death. “Hank Williams was a hero to people,” says Charlestonbased singersongwriter John Lilly.

That’s why, for the last 13 years, a group of Hank Williams devotees have gathered to remember the Hillbilly Bard.

John and his friend Rob McNurlin held the inaugural tribute back in 2002. “We had so much fun, we really wanted more people to hear it,” he says.

The tribute has since found a permanent home—and a faithful audience—at the Clay Center in Charleston. The band includes John and Rob on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Ritchie Collins and Rob Shafer on electric guitar, and Grand Ole Opry veterans Kayton Roberts on steel guitar, Buddy Griffin on fiddle, and Roger Carroll on bass.

The concert usually begins with some of Hank’s more obscure songs, followed by what Lilly calls “greatest hits.” “We do all the songs people want to hear: ‘Your Cheating Heart,’ ‘Lovesick Blues,’ ‘Kaw-liga’—all the songs people can sing along to,” he says. “If I could ever write a song that’s as good as that, I’d die a happy man.

And he wrote dozens of them."

The Hank Williams Tribute Concert will be January 9, 2016, at the Clay Center in Charleston. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the Woody Hawley Concert Series website. woodyhawleyconcerts.com written by zack harold

wvliving.com 23

SPOTLIGHT

shopping

Discount Heaven Gabe’s, the former Gabriel Brothers, got its start in West Virginia half a century ago as one of the pioneers of deepdiscount fashion. there’s nothing like the shopping thrill of a great find at a spectacular price. And no store delivers that thrill as consistently as West Virginia’s own Gabe’s.

James and Arthur Gabriel opened their first Gabriel Brothers discount retail shop in Morgantown in 1961. Their father, Lebanese immigrant Z.G. Gabriel, had gotten his start in retailing in the 1920s in the coal towns of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, so the company legend goes, peddling clothing out of a truck outfitted with shelves and 24 wvl • winter 2015

drawers. He went bankrupt in the Great Depression, then, in the 1940s, opened a shop in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where he sold factory overruns.

So when Z.G.’s boys opened their shop on Walnut Street in Morgantown, they adopted their father’s model of selling brand-name goods at a discount. That first building has since been demolished—it’s now the site of the Monongalia County sheriff ’s office—but it’s remembered as a place with creaky wooden floors and great bargains on

everything from ladies’, men’s, and children’s fashions to housewares.

The shop must have been a hit because the brothers opened their second store in Fairmont in 1962. Their business model was great for customers. “We weren’t just an off-price retailer—we were a big discounter,” says Gibby Gabriel, son of James. “We always bought close-outs and distressed merchandise and our goods were always as much as 70 percent off.” It was also a new business model that only a few other companies were pursuing at the time. “It was a struggle when we were small,” Gibby says. “We would go to all these big New York manufacturers and work with them to get their distressed goods or close-outs, and we were just a nobody in the early years.”

Careful attention to relationships and growing buying power made it easier over time for the company to get good deals.

Some brands were unfamiliar in this market at first, Gibby says. West Virginia

SPOTLIGHT

A Family History with Gabe’s

With a 2013 rebranding, longtime West Virginia discount mecca Gabriel

Brothers became Gabe’s and introduced a fresh new look.

didn’t have department stores like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, where shoppers could be exposed to big-name designers. “But then they’d see the brands advertised on TV, in newspapers and in magazines; and once they recognized them they came in and bought them.” Although he’s humble about Gabriel Brothers’ influence, he does concede, “We brought the latest fashion to West Virginia and made it affordable for everybody to buy.”

James and Arthur involved their sons in the family business. They expanded their Gabriel Brothers’ stores into Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 1980s and into Ohio and Virginia in the 1990s, established discount chain Rugged Wearhouse in 1996, and eventually grew their deep-discount empire to more than 100 stores in 11 mid-Atlantic states. In 2012 the family sold controlling interest of the company to A&M Capital. Its headquarters remains in Morgantown.

In 2013 the company’s new management rebranded the stores with the nickname its loyal, affectionate following had long used—Gabe’s—with reorganized shopping floors, updated fitting rooms, refreshed color schemes, and faster checkout technology. But the model of brand names at deep discounts is unchanged and continues to draw new customers.

“It was fun building the company,” Gibby says. “We thank the people of West Virginia very much for making us who we are today.” written by pam

kasey bowman

Lifelong Morgantown resident Susan Hardesty remembers her family shopping at Gabriel’s in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, when she was growing up. “They specialized in coats, as I recall, and I think probably most of my coats came from Gabriel’s,” she says.

Susan outfitted her own children from the first Gabriel Brothers’ store at the corner of Walnut Street and University Avenue in Morgantown in the 1960s. “That original one, it was two levels, as I recall,” she says.

“It had a wooden floor and a lot of children’s clothing—our children were raised in Gabe’s sleepers.”

Housewares were also big. “My sister lived in Texas. They always owned a lot of apartments they rented, and she would come to Gabe’s and go home with suitcases of carpets and towels and things to put in bathrooms.”

A stop at Gabe’s was a ritual whenever the family returned from a trip to Charleston, Susan says, and a shopping spree there was a great gift for a family college student. “But honestly, to me it was and is a place for housewares,” she says. “I still put rugs from Gabe’s at my front door. Sometimes you can find things there you couldn’t find anyplace else.”

photographed by nikki

wvliving.com 25

people

The Fossil Peddler Prehistoric Planet of Marion County supplies replica fossils to institutions, researchers, and collectors around the world. not everyone who wants a dinosaur fossil can have the genuine article—there simply aren’t enough to go around. Enter Prehistoric Planet of Barrackville, a supplier of replica fossils to institutions and collectors everywhere. “We call ourselves ‘the museum where you can purchase every exhibit,’” says co-owner Ray Garton.

A Webster County native, Ray worked earlier in his career as a geologic consultant. But his passion was paleontology and, in the mid-1990s, paleontologist friends persuaded him he could support that passion by selling replicas. “There are only a handful of semi-complete T. rex skeletons in the world,” Ray says by way of example. “Even the Smithsonian, their T. rex, their Triceratops, those are fiberglass replicas.” And some types of research can be done just as well with less fragile, less precious versions, he says. “Some paleontologists will get research-quality casts to measure and photograph. So replicas play a very important role in scientific research.”

Ray had worked as a preparator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, where he saw enough molds made to figure out how to do it himself. By 1999 he established Prehistoric Planet’s online store, Prehistoric Store, to sell his own fossil replicas.

Fifteen years later Prehistoric Planet offers more than 1,000 replicas online and can supply thousands of others on request. It’s a market dominated by three or four large companies, several of which make museum-quality pieces—a distinction that comes

26 wvl • winter 2015

mostly in the painting. “They do superb work and they charge a lot of money,” Ray says. “We have a T. rex skeleton at $60,000— the next closest is probably over $100,000.” Some of Prehistoric Planet’s inventory is museum quality; but most items are more affordable casts made from original specimens by any of a dozen suppliers, often purchased unfinished by Prehistoric Planet and painted in-house.

His most popular item is a replica megalodon shark tooth for $20.

“That really becomes crazy during (Discovery Channel’s) Shark Week,” Ray says. Also very popular are replica T. rex teeth, ranging from a miniature 1.5 inches long and a few dollars to a life-size 15 inches that sells for $80. Casts of velociraptor claws, at $10, satisfy lots of customers, too. Prehistoric Planet’s most expensive item is that $60,000 replica skeleton of a 30-foot-long juvenile T. rex.

Ray’s company fills 2,000 or so orders each year from two jampacked Marion County warehouses. It’s a small team: just Ray, his wife, and one employee who paints replicas. Among the company’s clients are the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.; the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh; the television shows CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The X-Files; along with museums, educational institutions, and individual customers Ray is sure hail from all 50 states as well as countries as far away as Australia, Chile, Korea, the Netherlands, and Thailand.

Amateur geologists and paleontologists across the state are invited to contact Ray for help identifying their finds. “A family was delivered a pile of gravel, and this kid was playing in it and found a chunk,” he recounts, just one example of a common amateur find. “It ended up being one of the very best shark spines I’d ever seen, five by three inches, pretty blue bone. It’s on exhibit now at the Geological and Economic Survey. So it’s not necessarily the professionals who find the stuff. And people don’t just have to watch it on the Discovery Channel. It’s happening right here in West Virginia.” prehistoricstore.com, garton@prehistoricplanet.com written by

pam kasey

photographs courtesy

of ray garton wvliving.com 27

SPOTLIGHT from left to right Zach Johnston, Bradley Jenkins, Zack Owens, PJ Woodard (kneeling), Max Nolte, Brad Goodall

music

Ona Their Way

A Huntington-based band is catching wind—even though its members try not to think about it. things are going well for the guys in the Huntington-based rock group Ona. In 2014 they released a cassette single of their song “Ides of July” to enthusiastic reviews. Last summer the song appeared on a listener favorites’ playlist compiled by National Public Radio’s All Songs Considered. When Ona’s new album American Fiction debuted on October 23, it was the topselling rock album on the indie music website Bandcamp.

For more than a year, the five-piece band has spent almost every weekend on the road. They recently made a run to Chicago, by passing through Louisville, Indianapolis and Cincinnati before driving straight back from the Windy City. They got home at four in the morning. Everyone had to be at work by nine.

“Everybody woke up and was texting each other, freaking out. We were just in Chicago, and now I’m here spreading mulch,” says lead singer Bradley Jenkins.

28 wvl • winter 2015

Such is the life of a weekend warrior band.

The group has started to establish a fan base outside its local music scene, but Ona isn’t quite big enough for its members to quit their day jobs. “Many nights you play to the next band and their girlfriends. It sounds like a joke, but it’s true,” says lead guitarist Zack Owens.

But the band is seeing dividends from all that hard work, even if its members’ bank accounts don’t show it. The more they play together, the better they sound. “We’ve gotten really tight,” Zack says. For proof, look no further than their new album.

The band spent more than a year working on the album with producer Bud Carroll, recording on off hours from work and touring.

The tracks were all captured the old school way with every musician in the same room and

playing just as he would onstage. It’s about authenticity, Bradley says. “We want it to be stuff we can replicate live.”

Each track on American Fiction pairs thoughtful lyrics with arrangements that sound like 1970s classic rock and ‘90s indie bands like Wilco or The Jayhawks. It’s a vibe that references the past but remains totally fresh. “A lot of the sound of the band is kind of mine and Zack’s heads colliding. He’s a trained musician.

He was always into like Radiohead and experimental sounds. I came from the acoustic guitar,” Bradley says.

When the two met through a mutual friend in 2011, Zack had just returned to Huntington from Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied music performance and songwriting.

Bradley, a former athlete, turned to music in his senior year of high school, after his father died.

Although they come from disparate musical backgrounds, it didn’t take long for the pair to recognize their creative chemistry.

They formed the band in 2013 to supplement that sound—with Zach “Jeter” Johnston on bass, Max Nolte on drums, and P.J. Woodard on keyboards—and named the group after Bradley and Max’s hometown in Cabell County. “You go anywhere else, and it’s just a word,” Zack says. “We were joking we could just get t-shirts from the Little League and just sell those as merchandise— which we still might do.”

Two years later and on an upward trajectory, Bradley says the band tries not to think too much about the increasing possibility of success.

“We don’t talk about it. We don’t say ‘Oh, a year from now we might not have to have a job.’ We just show up and practice," he says.

He worries that, if they think or talk too much about what’s possible, it will take the focus away from the music. “I think the creative process would get botched,” he says. “(Coming from) West Virginia, nothing’s going to come to you.

People are going to look straight over you. So you have to work even harder.” written by

zack harold courtney holschuh

photographed by

bookworm

Historic Recipes Take a culinary trip into the past with modern renditions of historic recipes. i first met martha and dick hartley when I stayed at their Log House Homestead Bed and Breakfast. They had built their immaculate cabin with hand-hewn logs from their property by using pioneer techniques.

As I stepped through the door, I was shuttled back in time to the early 1800s. And when I awoke the next morning, I was treated to a meal I’ll never forget. Tucked tastefully into a large basket and delivered to my doorstep were items made from historic recipes. My breakfast fare included the Log House Homestead Meat Pye, a hearty combination of roasted chicken, ham, onions, and mushrooms, folded into a perfectly flaky 30 wvl • winter 2015

homemade crust; Lemon Apples, a recipe Martha converted from a 1732 “receipt”

by Eliza Smith in The Compleat Housewife; and a wide array of “little cakes”— cookies to us.

The Hartleys are dedicated food historians.

They have spent a lifetime collecting recipes, learning old cookery skills, converting the recipes using today’s ingredients, taste-testing, and photographing their creations.

There are many cookbooks, but this one is special—it provides information not available anywhere else. To my knowledge, it is the first to celebrate the food that sustained the pioneers who settled West Virginia's frontier by taking 200-yearold recipes and converting them to modernday equivalencies.

Our ancestors had to be resourceful. They had only basic ingredients to work with: the food they harvested, pickled, and preserved themselves. What our people ate in the past and their evolution over the years to what we eat today tell an important story—one filled with cultural, religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic significance. This book is a treasure trove of information that not only offers more than 100 regionally meaningful recipes adapted for your home kitchen but also information about state historic sites in the state, like Blennerhassett Island, Prickett’s Fort, and Henderson Hall.

Reading the recipes and historic insights contained in the book is a delight, but preparing the foods and then enjoying them are experiences meant to be shared. So pull out your cast iron cookware and join the Hartleys on a culinary trip into the past. wvhearthcook.com written by nikki bowman

SPOTLIGHT

local flavor

Say Cheese!

This little shop in Monroe County packs in a lot of cheese—and a lot of other things too.

everybody loves cheese. Think about it; it’s true. You love cheese, don’t you? And therefore, everybody is practically guaranteed to love Cheese ’N More in Monroe County.

Call it the “transitive property of cheese.”

Cheese ’N More is a sweet little shop on Route 3 in Gap Mills, outside of Union.

From the outside it looks like something out of a picture book—red roof, stone exterior, wood rocking chairs on the porch. It’s been in business for 32 years, although the building is much older. “It’s an old store,” says Ethan Fisher, who has owned the store for the last 11 years. “We’ve got the original creaking wood floors, and the countertops are from back in the 1940s. It’s just kind of out in the middle of nowhere, and people just really like the feel of it.”

Cheese ’N More boasts more than 40 varieties of cheese, nearly all of which are sliced on the spot and sold by the pound. Most are sourced from Amish cheese makers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. There are also around 20 varieties of lunch meat and sausage, dried fruit, nuts, coffee, baking items, cookbooks, knives, and homemade baskets. They even sell high-end outdoor furniture and playsets for children. “We try to keep all high-quality products in here,” Ethan says. “I wouldn’t say that we carry any low-quality products because people can get those anywhere else so we don’t need to.” You can also have a sandwich made

up on the spot and enjoy it with homemade potato or macaroni salad.

In all, it’s a quaint kind of shopping experience that stands in stark contrast to the fluorescent lighting and long aisles at a big box grocery store.

And just the fact that it’s lasted for 32 years is proof positive that it’s good. After all, it’s so out of the way that it couldn’t possibly have stuck around that long if it weren’t worth the trip. cheese ’n more 25521 Sweet Springs Valley, Gap Mills, 304.772.5211 written by

shay maunz nikki bowman

photographed by

wvliving.com 31

shopping

A Better Box of Chocolates Holl’s Chocolates makes a classic even better.

the story behind holl’s chocolates almost sounds too perfect— too adorably quaint—to be true. It’s like what a team of professional marketers would come up with if they sat down to brainstorm the ideal background of a box of chocolates: Swiss boy in the 1940s with the perfect name of “Fritz.” An apprenticeship in his uncle’s chocolate shop. A small business born years later in America, and then passed down from father to son. If you read that story in a pamphlet, you might roll your eyes and dismiss it as myth or hyperbole. But here’s the thing about the story of Holl’s Chocolates: It’s all true.

The company was started by Fritz Holl in 1986, but its creation story begins long before that, in Switzerland in the 1940s. That’s where Fritz learned to make Swiss chocolate as an apprentice in his uncle’s chocolate shop, a skill he brought with him to the United States when he immigrated to Marietta, Ohio, in 1958.

For years, though, he made chocolate only at home and spent his days working for a dairy. “When we were little, my dad would pretty much only make chocolates at Christmas and Easter,” says Dominique Fritz, the president of Holl’s Chocolates today. “I remember those holidays really well. There was always chocolate around. wvliving.com 33

SPOTLIGHT

And that’s how he stayed in touch with what he really loved to do.”

When Fritz retired from the dairy business in 1986, he started making chocolates in his kitchen at home and selling them around town. They were so delicious that the business took off immediately: A local wine shop sold 400 pounds of Holl’s chocolates in the first eight months, and Fritz soon opened a storefront in Parkersburg. A few years later Holl’s moved to a larger location in Vienna, where the 34 wvl • winter 2015

headquarters are today. There’s also a second, smaller shop in Charleston.

“My dad had done his apprenticeship in the 1940s and then had not worked in the chocolate business for 40 years so there was a connection to that time,” Dominique says. “He wasn’t doing things like a modern Swiss chocolate maker would. He was doing it the old-fashioned way.” Since Dominique took over the business, Holl’s has modernized a bit; but he’s taken care to do it deliberately without sacrificing the quality his dad worked so hard to achieve.

“The changes we have made are all ones that, in addition to improving efficiency, also improve quality,” he says. For quality control, Dominique always looked to his dad. Fritz passed away in 2010, but Dominique says he was happy with the direction Holl’s was going. “He would always say that the quality of the chocolates we’re making today is better than what he was making back in 1940,” Dominique says. “I believe him.”

The other thing that makes Holl’s special is its incredible customer service, which has been a big part of the business since the beginning.

Dominique’s mom, Elisabeth, had her own apprenticeship back in Switzerland at an upscale flower shop. “So she was used to providing very good customer service, a kind that’s uncommon anymore,” Dominique says. As each and every customer walked in the door, she greeted them with a smile and a sample of chocolate—she knew, from memory, which was their favorite.

“She was the more gregarious of my parents,” Dominique says. “And people loved shopping with her.” Elisabeth doesn’t work in the Holl’s stores anymore, but she’s managed to instill her regard for customer service in each and every Holl’s employee—although these days they use computerized lists to help them remember each customer’s favorite.

Holl’s makes all the standard confections— their main product is a traditional box of mixed chocolates—but they somehow make them better. The chocolate itself is rich and ridiculously smooth, and the various nut and fruit combinations they’ve put together are elegant and delicious. Everything that comes out of Holl’s is beautiful: The chocolates themselves are these lovely little morsels finished with a drizzle of dark chocolate or a simple dot of white; and the packaging is refined and tasteful. For the holidays Holl’s offers a handful of specialty items: chocolate-covered gingerbread cookies, Christmas stollen, chocolate lollipops in holiday shapes. “But, really, at Christmas time we sell a ton of boxed chocolates,” Dominique says.

“They’re perfect for Christmas, when people are frequently buying for friends or acquaintances— it’s not like Valentine’s Day when you’re buying for someone you know very, very well. At Christmas you’re buying for a lot of people that you know kind of well.” Chocolate is perfect for that because everyone loves chocolate. holls

2001 Grand Central Avenue, Vienna, holls.com written by shay

maunz witt ford

photographed by carla

SPOTLIGHT

winter wonderland

Route 32 Road Trip 2

Travel along one of the most visited winter routes in West Virginia. Here are eight highlights in the Canaan Valley region.

1. CANAAN VALLEY RESORT STATE PARK This 6,000-acre state park is a winter sports playground—ski, tube, snowshoe, ice skate, snowboard, and then stay at the new lodge. canaanresort.com

2. MONONGAHELA NATIONAL FOREST hugs WV Route 32 and is an outdoorsmen’s dream.

1

3. WHITEGRASS Cross country skiing at its finest. Wrap up the day at the café with wholesome natural foods. whitegrass.com

2 6

BEN’S OLD LOOM BARN

7

CANAAN VALLEY RESORT STATE PARK

32/16

3

37 32

5

4

TIMBERLINE FOUR SEASONS RESORT

35

4. TIMBERLINE A favorite skiing destination with 39 slopes at an elevation of 4,268 feet with 1,000 feet of consistent vertical. Check out the Cherry Bowl—a north-facing gladed bowl that naturally captures both natural and manmade snow with a Western feel. timberlineresort.com

WHITEGRASS

8

BEAR ROCKS PRESERVE 45/4 76

NIKKI BOWMAN

19 5. COZY UP IN A CABIN From large and luxurious to quaint and cozy, rent a vacation home. Best of Canaan, bestofcanaan.com; Canaan Realty, canaanrealty.com; Mountain Top Rentals, mountaintoprentals.net; Timberline Four Season Realty, t4sr.com

6.SHOPPING DETOUR For a unique shopping experience, visit Ben’s Old Loom Barn.

209 Cortland Road 304.642.4161

7. BEST EATS Looking for good food? Stop at Sirianni’s Pizza Cafe in the lower level of Landis Realty.

Open Wednesday through Sunday. Cash only.

8. BEAR ROCKS PRESERVE Brave the elements on a crisp, cool day for views you’ll never forget.

wvliving.com 35

Let’s Face It

There’s no better way to celebrate West Virginia’s heritage than by bringing handcrafted masterpieces and artisanal food products into your home.

CARLA WIIT FORD

PICTURED: SANTA FACE JUG, JUGHEAD POTTERY, PAGE 43

wvliving.com 37

morgantown » shopping

•

dining • and so much more !

A Modern Home Away From Home This Reedsville guesthouse offers cozy amenities and a chance to reconnect in the Preston County highlands. written by katie

griffith • photographed by carla witt ford

HER ITAGE | Lodging

reedsville, a hamlet situated at the junction of Routes 7 and 92, has long been known as a picture-perfect rest stop for travelers heading into the highlands of Preston County. Neighbors include the historic New Deal town of Arthurdale to the southwest; Preston County’s seat, Kingwood, to the east; and Morgantown to the north, making the brick- and flower-lined Reedsville an epicenter of in-state travel. But it wasn’t until recently that travelers had a reason to stay.

Opened in 2014, the Homestead Inn sits dead center in Reedsville, across from its mother business Modern Homestead.

Formerly known as Tathams—a gardening mecca for North Central West Virginians— Modern Homestead is one of the oldest family-owned businesses in Preston County and has been revamped under the leadership of third-generation owner Lucas Tatham and manager Trellis Smith. “Over the last five years we’ve taken over Tathams and rebranded to include the guesthouse, coffee shop, and expanded our gifts,” Trellis says. “We wanted to create a place that focuses on home, on food, and creating a place for people who have connections with the area to come back and visit family and friends and to reconnect with the community.”

Lucas and Trellis met in Trellis’s hometown of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. After the disaster Lucas returned home to help his parents with Tathams and took over the business with Trellis’s help a little while later. The two already had plans to rebrand and to usher in a more contemporary feel at the always-bustling garden center, but Trellis says offering a guesthouse came about by happenstance. “We didn’t always know that we wanted to start an inn, but I’m from New Orleans, and in New Orleans bed and breakfasts and guest houses are common,” Trellis says. “It’s a good way to take larger homes and use them for commerce.”

In 2007 they purchased the home that would become the inn, a 1930s property that was built by the Zinns, a Reedsville family that also built the garden center house in the early 1900s. “Our goal was to preserve the history around us,” Trellis says. “We’ve been in Reedsville about 10 years, and at least once a year we get the original residents who lived in the houses we own or who have some connection to the community, and they always tell us stories about the gardens that lined the houses or trees that lined the road.”

Today the inn property, known as the Smith House after the last family to live there, 40 wvl • winter 2015

boasts modern furnishings, three guest suites with contemporary and vintage décor, private baths, and laundry. An additional guesthouse property known as the Born Cottage opened in 2015 next door to the garden center and added another two suites to Modern Homestead’s overnight offerings. “The Born family was the last family that lived in the house so we named it after them,” Trellis says. “We try to pay homage to the people who lived there before and who took care of the properties.”

Inside the properties that make up the Homestead Inn, everything from the furnishings to the artwork is a mix of styles— vintage period pieces to more modern designs.

“Some of the rooms feature photos and artwork from local artists. It’s an eclectic mix that

we use to create that home-away-from home experience.” The Born Cottage also highlights more architectural features like wood floors and exposed brick and beams.

While guests can visit the coffee shop at Modern Homestead for house-made pastries plus handcrafted drinks and gifts, suites also come with fully equipped kitchens and kitchenettes, depending on the size of the units. “They all have different configurations, but they’re all set up for those extended stays,” Trellis says.

Because of the inn’s proximity to Morgantown and Mountaineer sporting events, and Kingwood, a haven for buckwheat breakfast foods, not to mention the myriad outdoor activities available throughout the

Lodging | HER ITAGE

The Homestead Inn in Reedsville opened in 2014 with overnight accommodations offered by Modern Homestead, a revamped garden center and one of the oldest family-owned businesses in Preston County. The inn features contemporary and vintage dÊcor throughout a historic Reedsville home that has been renovated to create three guest suites. A second property, called the Born Cottage, adds another two guest suites to the inn’s offerings.

wvliving.com 41

HER ITAGE | Lodging

Preston highlands, a vacancy at the Homestead Inn can be hard to find. “Our weekend travel is normally leisure travelers in town to visit family and friends,” Trellis says. “We have a lot of professionals who stay with us to work at the hospitals during a residency or internship, and then we have a lot of people from the area who want to come back to reconnect with family and friends—whether it’s the Buckwheat Festival or the Forest Festival—and they might stay with us for a month at a time.”

Guests have visited the property from as far as Saudi Arabia, England, and Canada; with people coming in from all over, suites can fill up six months to a year in advance for the big events—festivals and Mountaineer football games.

But for those looking for a leisurely weekend in the highlands, reservations made a few weeks in advance will do. “It’s really a reflection of this community and how people have branched out and moved across the country,” Trellis says. “Folks came into town a couple weeks ago to attend a family reunion. Their grandfather owned the general store in Reedsville that has been torn down, unfortunately, and they were just coming in to reconnect with family. They lived in Oregon; another cousin in Washington, D.C. It’s amazing how the community grew so many people to be able to travel around the world, but they still feel connected.” modern homestead

41 South Robert Stone Way, Reedsville, 304.864.4333, mymodernhomestead.com written by katie

griffith witt ford

photographed by carla

42 wvl • winter 2015

Making Faces For more than 20 years, Ed Klimek of Jughead Pottery has embraced and elevated an old Southern tradition. written by zack

harold • photographed by carla witt ford

HER ITAGE | Art

shinnston-based potter ed klimek didn’t set out to become a professional artist. “I wanted to be a professional student, but that didn’t work out,” he says. The Duluth, Minnesota, native was studying art at the University of Wisconsin and had just started graduate school when Uncle Sam came calling.

Ed spent eight years in the military, including stints in Vietnam and at the Pentagon.

When he got out of the service Ed and his wife, Mary, settled in West Virginia. He took some general construction jobs, installing windows and building decks, before winding up as a pattern maker in a foundry. When he was laid off after six years, Ed felt it was a good opportunity to do something he’d always thought about: trying to make a living from his art.

Although he’d dabbled in many creative forms, Ed had become fascinated with the Japanese pottery called raku. He realized the commercial appeal of this style might be lacking, however, so he began looking for something else. For a while he didn’t know which way to go. “Ceramics, you can spend a whole lifetime and not get everything. You have to fall into your niche.”

His wife suggested he try making face jugs, a traditional Southern handicraft with dubious origins—depending on which legend you believe, they were invented either to scare children away from their daddy’s moonshine or to be grave markers that would reveal the eternal fate of recently deceased loved ones. Ed wasn’t interested. “I told her, ‘I’m not making those ugly things.’” The original face jugs were crude approximations of a human face—not exactly something most people would want on their mantles. Yet he kept coming back to the idea. “So finally one day I was sitting there, fooling around with it. The light bulb went on,” he says. Ed realized he could make cartoonish faces on the jugs, sort of like the cartoons he used to draw when he was in the service.

Jughead Pottery was born.

His first face jug didn’t turn out very well.

“It looks like a third-grader made it.” But Ed kept practicing, and each jug turned out better than the last. After about four months his jugs were juried into Tamarack in Beckley, where they immediately began selling. That was 1997. “I was kind of amazed. Ever since then it’s kind of snowballed,” he says. Ed doesn’t know exactly how many face jugs he has made but estimates the number must be in the thousands. And they’re still as popular as ever.

The look of the jugs has not changed much in the past two decades, although Ed has 44 wvl • winter 2015

started putting ears on them now, along with hairlines and the occasional beard. His process remains the same, too.

It takes him about three hours to throw and glaze the jugs—longer if it’s a portrait piece and he has to work from a photo. He begins just as he would with any other vessel: throwing the clay on his potter’s wheel. Once he has formed the jug, Ed begins to shape the face—denting in the clay, pushing it from the inside, pinching here, smooshing there. “I kind of just wing it.

I’ll make his cheeks a little bit chubby here. I can squeeze them to make them to make them a little thinner.”

He seldom has a plan when he begins making a face. Usually it just starts with an emotion. The happy jugs are the most popular, but Ed’s creations express the whole spectrum of human emotion. “It can’t be happy-happy

Ed’s face jugs come in all the time. You have to several sizes, including be sad about something large and small once in a while,” he says. whiskey jugs, mugs, and shot glasses. He is “They’re all different. also an accomplished They’re just like people.” jewelry maker.

Sometimes he subconsciously models the jugs after people he knows. Once, after finishing a small whiskey jug, Ed realized the face looked oddly familiar. “It kept bothering me for a week or so,” he says. Then he remembered the meat packing plant where he’d worked during college.

“It dawned on me: That looks like Vic I used to work with in the bacon department.”

Other times the likenesses are just coincidental. When Ed does a commissioned portrait jug, he often makes two jugs and picks the one that most resembles his subject. He sends the other to Tamarack or to one of his

Art | HER ITAGE

Ed says his smiling jugs are the most popular, but his work expresses the whole range of human emotion. “It can’t be happy-happy all the time.” His own emotions often creep into the pottery,

too. The jugs start out looking like any other piece of pottery—until Ed begins pinching, pushing, denting, and sculpting the face. A large jug takes about three hours to complete.

wvliving.com 45

HER ITAGE | Art Although he was initially reluctant to attempt the art form,

Ed is now one of the nation’s foremost face jug artists.

other retailers. One day Ed received a photo of a girl holding one of these rejected portrait jugs. The girl had black hair, and so did the jug. And although Ed had never seen the girl before, she bore a striking resemblance to his jug. “I’ll be damned if the jug wasn’t named Jessica and her name was Jessica,” he says.

Although there were only a few contemporary face jug makers when Ed started, there are now dozens of potters all across the country embracing the art form. “Some of these younger potters reference the man in West Virginia that does face jugs as an influence on them,” he says.

Whether they know his name or not, they’re talking about Ed. “I think that’s pretty cool.”

His work is popular with collectors, too. Ed knows of at least 10 people who collect his work—although there are certainly many more—and some collectors have more than 20 jugs.

Now 70, Ed remains a devoted student of the arts and continues to dabble in different creative pursuits. He enjoys turning interesting pieces of firewood into rolling pins on his wood lathe. He’s a barbecue enthusiast. He’s also an accomplished jewelry maker—you can find some of that work at Tamarack, too. But he’s not going to stop making face jugs anytime soon. “I’ll be doing them ‘til I kick off.” facejugs.phanfare.com, 304.592.2170

46 wvl • winter 2015

wvliving.com 47

A Historic Holiday

Ed Keepers’ home in Sabraton is a showcase of history and holiday splendor. written by laura

wilcox rote • photographed by carla witt ford

HER ITAGE | Celebrations

walking into ed keepers’ home on Listravia Avenue in Sabraton is like walking into a museum. The first floor and much of the second are decorated to make you feel as though you’ve traveled back to the mid-19th century, when the house was built. Classical Christmas music plays in the background and there’s a slight smell of cinnamon. On every wall and in every corner are the relics of legends—from Abraham Lincoln and George Washington to Clara Barton and Charles Dickens. Beside a coat rack sits a worn black umbrella. “That umbrella was used at Lincoln’s funeral by the mayor of Bristol’s wife,” Ed says. “I used to live in Bristol and someone said, ‘You have to have this.’ It’s so weird. It’s like I was predestined to get all of this stuff.”

Ed has been collecting all his life and has lived in the house in Sabraton for 10 years. He spends his days doing interior design at Classic Furniture and evenings working on one of the myriad projects around the house—ripping up carpet or restoring doors and built-ins. The two-story Federal-style home with Classical Revival details is one of Morgantown’s oldest, built in 1852 according to some documents, though it’s believed a smaller house must have been on the land when Philip Harner bought it in 1850.

“There are many important people who lived here,” Ed says.

In 1885 Philip and Sarah Harner sold the house and 100-plus acres to their son, William T. Harner, who 17 years later sold the property to George Sturgiss (later a U.S. Congressman) on the condition that he and his family live in the house until November—when the house he was building next door was complete. Experts disagree as to whether Sturgiss lived in the house, as his wife Sabra, who Sabraton is named after, died in 1903. Ed says Sturgiss ran a law office from the house and certainly had many meetings there that probably included a good bit of entertaining. Sturgiss also used the Harner and adjoining farms as the base for Sturgiss City, now Sabraton.

Long a history and preservation buff, Ed knew he had to have the home when a friend brought its sale to his attention. The house had sat vacant for years and was split into apartments and office space at one time. Ed bought both the grand house and the green cottage behind it. Both are on the National Register of Historic Places. “This house was prominent. It was known for its entertaining,” says Ed, standing in the left room off of the entryway—a room decorated for Christmas as it would have been in the 1860s.

Ed starts decorating for Christmas every year in October.

At one time, the area was a Russian and Ukrainian enclave.

In January, Ed pays homage to that heritage by hosting a Twelfth Night party. He puts each garland and centerpiece together by hand—twig by twig. “This is how they did it.

Nothing comes out of a box,” he says. “It takes a long time,

An antique silver punch bowl is periodappropriate for entertaining. This clock was in the movie

Lincoln and the hands are arranged at the hour of his death.

A portrait of Clara Barton hangs over the

50 wvl • winter 2015

mantle in the parlor.

The house has eight fireplaces, four of which are operational.

Celebrations | HER ITAGE Ed’s Christmas dÊcor was inspired by A Christmas Carol. A lithograph of Charles

Dickens pays homage. The Tavern Room is a popular congregating spot during The Twelfth Night Party.

The home is filled with historically significant antiques.

For mor e photos v isit wvlivin g.com

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HER ITAGE | Celebrations The Tavern Room is a little more colonial than the rest of the house. A Civil War rifle issued out of

Harpers Ferry hangs over the mantle. Lisa Phillips dishes out regional food at the Twelfth Night Party.

but it’s really worth it.” Ed is careful to decorate his home as if it were the 1850s or 1860s. “I hang garlands from the ceiling,” Ed says. “I was inspired by a woodcut from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.”

The decor isn’t the only attraction during Ed’s Twelfth Night party. Lisa Phillips, previous owner of Sam and Betty’s Restaurant, catered the event with an array of regional foods. The midnight dessert buffet, featuring her infamous crème brûlée, has become a tradition.

Over the years Ed has put a lot of work into the house. He restored all of the American chestnut floors by hand and had to do a lot of painting— inside and out. “When I bought this place the paint was curling off,” he says. Inside, almost everything was painted white. He put the ceiling back the way it was and returned the walls to their former colors. “I’ve got the second floor to finish and then the house is done,” he says.

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In the dining room, Ed reveals one of the finished floors and tells the story of the Allerton Blue Willow china—fragments of which he’s found when digging on the property. “This room is where you’d really be entertained,” he says.

Allerton was an English company from the mid19th century. “I find all kinds of fragments and I always save them because they are just too cool,” he says, turning one small blue and white piece over in his hand.

Perhaps his favorite piece in the dining room, though, is an 1850s clock used in the film Lincoln. Ed waxes poetic whenever he talks about the Civil War-era hero. He loves to tell the story of the Christmas season in 1863 when, according to legend, a congressman from the Restored Government of Virginia, Jacob B. Blair, showed up at the White House and knocked on the door, but it was locked. Blair is said to have climbed

through the window to find the president there in his nightshirt and slippers. “He said, ‘Merry Christmas,’ and handed him the legislation that would create the new state of West Virginia,” Ed says.

In general, Ed says many people don’t realize how prominent the old house on Listravia would have been in the 1850s and ’60s, positioned as it was in what was then western Virginia. “This really was the house of decision. You can imagine the heated arguments,” he says. “These were the shakers and movers of their time.”

Ed says it’s important to bring the house back to its former glory. “I see myself as the caretaker of this property. It is important to this town. I want future generations to enjoy this house because there’s so little of our history left in Morgantown.”

Toasted and Roasted This season more than chestnuts are roasting on an open fire. We’ve tried everything from soup to nuts. photographed and styled by

carla witt ford

HER ITAGE | Food

Hardy winter vegetables don’t have to be bland. You can

create a tasteful and flavorful feast by putting your oven to use, roasting and toasting everything from Brussels sprouts to cauliflower to pears to nuts.

Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts 1¼ pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved lengthwise 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste 1 teaspoon pepper, or to taste ¼ cup balsamic reduction plus more for garnishing 1 tablespoon light brown sugar, packed Parmesan cheese, optional for garnishing 1. Preheat oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

2. Add the Brussels sprouts to the baking sheet, drizzle evenly with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss with your hands to coat evenly. Arrange the sprouts with the cut-side down and bake for about 18 minutes, or until the tops of some of the sprouts are turning light brown.

3. Remove baking sheet from oven, flip sprouts over with tongs, drizzle evenly with balsamic, and sprinkle evenly with brown sugar. Place a tiny pinch of sugar on the top of each sprout.

4. Return baking sheet to oven and bake 10 to 15 minutes, or until sprouts are as caramelized and browned, as desired. Baking times will vary based on the size of the sprouts used. Brussels sprouts burn easily; test for doneness often.

5. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.

6. Serve warm.

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Roasted Vegetables 1 medium-sized butternut squash, peeled, cut into cubes 3 cups broccoli florets 3 cups cauliflower florets 1 large red onion, halved, thickly sliced 1 clove garlic, minced 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

¼ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon ground pepper 1. Preheat oven to 425° 2. In a medium-sized bowl toss butternut squash with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a small amount of garlic. Repeat with broccoli and cauliflower in a separate bowl. Lastly toss the red onion in a bowl with the remaining olive oil and garlic.

3. Arrange the vegetables, each in their own sections, on a large baking sheet; sprinkle

with salt and pepper; roast on the middle shelf of the oven for 20 minutes or until the vegetables begin to brown.

Turn the vegetables 2 or 3 times during cooking to prevent burning.

4. Remove pan from oven when vegetables are tender and golden brown.

HER ITAGE | Food

Roasted Cauliflower White Cheddar Soup 1 large head cauliflower (2 –2½ lb.), cored and chopped into small, bite-sized pieces 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt and freshly ground black pepper 3 tablespoons butter 1 cup yellow onion, finely chopped 3½ tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 clove garlic, minced 3 cups milk 1 (14-ounce) can low-sodium chicken broth ½ cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon dried parsley or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh ¼ teaspoon granulated sugar 4 ounces shredded sharp white cheddar cheese (1 cup), plus more for serving if desired 1 ounce Parmesan cheese, finely grated (slightly packed ¼ cup)

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Place cauliflower on baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and toss to evenly coat, then spread in an even layer and season lightly with salt and pepper. Bake in preheated oven until golden, about 25 minutes.

2. Remove from oven and set aside.

3. In a large pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until tender, about 4–5 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly 1½ minutes; add garlic during last 30 seconds of cooking. While whisking, slowly pour in milk followed by chicken broth and cream. Add parsley, sugar, and roasted cauliflower; season soup with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, then reduce heat to low.

Puree 3 cups of the soup in a blender (with care, as you are working with hot liquids) and return soup to pot. Remove from heat and stir in sharp white cheddar and Parmesan cheese.

4. Serve warm garnished with additional shredded white cheddar and with fresh bread or croutons if desired. yield: About 4 servings 58 wvl • winter 2015

Food | HER ITAGE

Roasted Pear Upside-Down Cake 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick) separated into two 4-tablespoon portions 1 cup sugar, separated into two ½-cup portions 3 medium pears, skins on, cored and cut into wedges ¾ cup medium- to fine-ground cornmeal ¾ cup all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon baking powder ¼ teaspoon baking soda 1½ teaspoons salt 3 large eggs ½ teaspoon vanilla extract ½ cup heavy cream (or half and half) Confectioners’ sugar for garnish (optional)

Honey Roasted Almonds 2 cups whole almonds ¼ cup white sugar ½ teaspoon kosher salt 3 tablespoons honey 3 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon almond oil or vegetable oil 1. Spread almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet and place pan in a cold oven.

2. Turn oven on to 350°. Bake almonds, stirring occasionally, until light tan and fragrant, 12 to 15 minutes. The nuts will continue to cook after removing them from the oven.

3. Meanwhile, mix sugar and salt together in a small bowl; sprinkle about 1 tablespoon sugar mixture into a large bowl.

4. Stir honey, water, and almond or vegetable oil together in a saucepan; bring to a boil.

Add almonds; cook and stir until almonds absorb all the liquid, about 5 minutes.

5. Transfer coated almonds to the large bowl sprinkled with sugar mixture. Sprinkle

remaining sugar mixture over almonds; toss to coat evenly.

6. Spread almonds onto waxed paper to cool completely. Store at room temperature in a tightly covered container or plastic bag.

Cinnamon Roasted Pecans 1 egg white 4 cups whole pecans ¼ cup sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1. Preheat oven to 300°. Lightly grease an 11x17-inch baking sheet, or line a pan with parchment paper.

2. Lightly beat the egg white until frothy but not stiff. Add the nuts, and stir until well coated. Mix the sugar, salt, and cinnamon and sprinkle over the nuts. Toss to coat, and spread evenly on the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 30 minutes; do not stir. Allow to cool. Store nuts in airtight containers.

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Melt half the butter (4 tablespoons) in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, making sure to coat the sides. Add half the sugar (½ cup) and cook until the butter starts to melt and turn golden brown—about 3 minutes. Add pear wedges, forming a circle pattern over the entire bottom of the pan. Place the skillet in the oven for 15 minutes or until pears are tender. Set aside.

3. While pears are in the oven, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Separately, in a mixing bowl, beat the other 4 tablespoons of butter (medium-high speed) and the other ½ cup of sugar, until fluffy.

Reduce speed to medium and add eggs, one at a time; be sure to scrape sides of bowl as you go along. Next, add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Finish by adding vanilla extract and heavy cream. Batter should be on the thick side.

4. Drop spoonfuls of batter over pears in the skillet. Coat pears evenly. Ideally pears should be entirely covered with batter and not visible. Bake until golden brown and a tester comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. note: For maximum coverage a 9x10inch skillet is recommended.

5. When done, let stand for 10 minutes, then run a knife or spatula around the cake’s edges and invert onto a large cutting board or platter. Inverting can be a challenge because of the weight of the skillet.

6. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.

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HER ITAGE | Food

Oven-Roasted Beef with Root Vegetables 1 teaspoon olive oil 1 (3 lb.) boneless chuck roast, trimmed 1 teaspoon kosher salt ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 cups coarsely chopped onion 1 cup dry red wine 4 thyme sprigs 3 garlic cloves, chopped 1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium beef broth 1 bay leaf

4 large carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into 1-inch pieces or 20 baby carrots, unsliced 2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces 2 stalks celery, cut into 2-inch sections

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chuck roast with salt and pepper. Add roast to pan; cook 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides.

Remove roast from pan. Add onion to pan; sauté 8 minutes or until tender.

3. Return browned roast to pan. Add the red wine, thyme sprigs, chopped garlic, beef broth, and bay leaf to pan; bring to a simmer. Cover pan and bake at 350° for 1½ hours or until the roast is almost tender.

4. Add carrots, potatoes, and celery to pan.

Cover and bake an additional hour or until vegetables are tender. Remove thyme sprigs and bay leaf from pan; discard. Shred meat with 2 forks. Serve roast with vegetable mixture and cooking liquid.

Toasted Coconut Macaroons 3 tablespoons water ⅔ cup granulated sugar 1 tablespoon light corn syrup ½ teaspoon salt 1 (14-ounce) bag sweetened, shredded coconut 2 egg whites, room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375°.

2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

3. Combine water, sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a small saucepan.

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4. Bring to a boil over medium- 8. Use a cookie scoop to high heat, stirring frequently measure golf ball-sized to dissolve sugar. Remove mounds of the coconut from heat. mixture. Space the 5. In a medium-sized, heatmacaroons 2 inches apart proof bowl, combine on the baking pan. shredded coconut and 9. Bake until golden brown, hot syrup, stirring until 15–18 minutes, rotating distributed evenly. Let baking sheet if necessary. mixture cool for 20 minutes.

Place baking sheets 6. In a separate bowl, whisk egg on racks and let cool whites and vanilla together completely. until foamy and thick.

10. Store in an airtight container.

7. Gently fold in the coconut mixture.

EAT + DRINK + BE LO CA L |

The Monroe House A historical 19th century farmhouse becomes a Victorian holiday showcase. written by julie

perine • photographed by carla witt ford

HER ITAGE | Spaces

it was 2001 when brenda monroe first laid eyes on the late-19th century home atop Virginia Avenue in Bridgeport. “I knew it was the house for me,” says Brenda, who was living in Shinnston with family at the time. “It had that great big front porch, and it looked so warm and inviting.”

The house wasn’t even on the market, but she still called her husband, CJ, who was working in Virginia and visiting on weekends.

She told him all about the beautiful Victorianstyle house, which, in reality, was a former farmhouse, built circa 1872.

Before long, the Monroes became owners of the home and delved into learning about the home’s history. Neighbors told them that the home had originally belonged to John Lodge. They read in historical accounts that Lodge worked in the timber and oil industries and was influential in creating the community of Lodgeville.

The house needed a lot of work. “And we knew, with our income, we were going to have to do all of it ourselves,” says Brenda, adding that her former work with Home Depot came in handy.

For the past 14 years, the couple has worked to restore the home’s interior. “We didn’t want to do anything that would ruin the integrity of the house,” Brenda says. Still intact were the original walnut and oak trim and the staircase built from wood timbered on the property’s one-time 84 acres.

To replicate the original poplar floors, the couple chose white pine plank flooring, which they stained, stenciled, and varnished. After stripping away eight layers of wallpaper, they discovered walls of horsehair plaster. Some received fresh wallpaper; others a fresh coat of paint. In choosing colors, Brenda and CJ stuck with those on the historical color list.

The kitchen and bathrooms were completely gutted and remodeled. Gas lines were installed so they could fire up two of the home’s original fireplaces. The old windows were replaced with more energy-efficient ones, but still with a look that reflected the 19th century.

As the house shaped up, it drew attention.

Among those stopping by were two of the home’s former owners, who not only filled in some missing pieces of the property’s history but also offered some original furnishings —a painting and pair of chairs, included. One of those former owners, Helen Jones, suggested the house be included in the September 2014 tour of historic homes to raise money for the North Central West Virginia Coalition for the Homeless. Many who participated in 64 wvl • winter 2015

“It had that great big front porch, and it looked so warm and inviting.” brenda monroe

that tour shared a common request. “A lot of people said they would love to see the house at Christmastime,” Brenda says. So the Monroes dressed their home in Victorian-style holiday décor and opened their doors to the public.

Again, it was a labor of love. Stores—from mall retailers to antique boutiques—were

searched for just the right accents to fill every nook and cranny.

Brenda says it was fun to come up with themes for each room and for each of the 18 Christmas trees throughout the house.

One of her past favorite room themes is the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.

Spaces | HER ITAGE

Holiday decorating at the Monroe House means a special touch is found in every nook and cranny.

Dishes are swapped out for

those with a festive red and white pattern and bedrooms each feature a theme with a Christmas tree as the focal point. Shown is a bedroom

showcasing whimsical rag dolls, snowmen, and even peppermint pillows, all accented with red details.

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HER ITAGE | Spaces

Proudly displayed in the presidential room are U.S. flags, a patriotic tree paying tribute to our nation’s presidents, and plenty of Americana flair. Victorian-style furniture graces the room year-round.

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Spaces | HER ITAGE

That bedroom is embellished with white trees decorated in whimsical past, present, and future designs. On the “Christmas past” tree are vintage handmade ornaments. The “Christmas present” tree is elegant, adorned in white and gold. Representing future dreams, a “Christmas yet to be” tree is dressed in baby clothes and topped with a wedding veil.

Furnished with a Victorian cameo-back sofa, wing chairs, and 19th century pump organ, the living room has become the presidential room, adorned with Americana décor and flags. The Christmas tree features U.S. presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, who led our country when the Monroe House was built.

The large, inviting front The attic features a porch is trimmed in pine children’s theme. Greeting garland and accessorized visitors are dollhouses and with everything from bird houses to antique ribbon-wrapped books. ice skates and steelRaggedy Ann dolls and runner sleds. Dressed in ornaments hang upon the white, this bedroom is a step back in time, all Christmas tree. furnishings reflective of The entire home the late 19th century. overflows with Victorianstyle holiday cheer. Attention is given to every little detail. “We even switched out our blue and white dishes for red and white ones,” Brenda says. Greeting guests are wreaths of pine and grapevine accented with plaid and burlap ribbons and bows. Nestled in one corner of the front porch is a sled. In another

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ore For m isit sv photo .com ing wvliv

Situated at a wellis a nest full of eggs. Adding extra warmth are jingle bells and twinkling traveled residential lights and randomly placed hand-knitted mittens and vintage ice skates. intersection, the Those who step inside the doors of the Monroe House are welcome to take Monroe House greets their time enjoying the décor and then relax in the gazebo with hot chocolate, Bridgeport residents and visitors alike. apple cider, bread pudding, and other festive treats.

Each year, Brenda targets Thanksgiving for completing her holiday decorating. “Thanksgiving and Christmas are two of the best holidays because they’re all about food and family. We usually have a lot of people in for Thanksgiving and being in a home that’s nicely decorated gives guests a warm feeling, so then they go directly home and start decorating their own houses.”

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home marketplace

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home marketplace

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A Sweet Lifestyle West Virginia may be thawing to its maple syrup potential. written by pam

72 wvl winter

5

kasey • photographed by carla witt ford

Living Local | HER ITAGE

sugaring, in the minds of many, is a quaint and rustic pursuit. Galvanized buckets hang on trees, catching the dripping sap. Friends and neighbors gather to boil the sap down in a cauldron over a roaring wood fire, taking turns with long-handled spoons, ladling ribbons of the thickening confection onto the snow as a treat for the kids.

That’s a romantic notion. But commercial production of maple syrup—a potential West Virginia has barely tapped—is another kind of quaint and rustic altogether. John Dalen at Dry Fork Maple Works in Randolph County is showing how it’s done.

One might be forgiven for seeing John, with his white head and sturdy Scandinavian

frame, as a bit of a wizard. It’s a fitting image for a man who turns sap to syrup at an industrial scale four miles from any paved road—a location determined by family history.

After the Civil War John’s great-great-uncle John McClure of Franklin, still known as the Cattle King of West Virginia, amassed some 15,000 acres. John’s daughters inherited 1,200 of those on Dry Fork of the Cheat River, a blank spot on the map southwest of Whitmer.

Amish friends persuaded John that sugaring there could make a good income, but he’d only ever cooked a little sap down in a soup pot on a wood stove. He picked the brains of Mike Rechlin at the Future Generations graduate school in Franklin,

John Dalen holds up a a longtime teacher of syrup sample that will sustainable forestry. He be used for grading befriended a Cornell by color. Wooods crew member Jason Brooks University maple demonstrates tapping. specialist. He toured Drawn into the sugar operations in topshack by the two blue-green vacuum producing Vermont. pumps, raw sap spills And then he designed into a vat. a modern, $500,000 operation.

A now-and-again carpenter and boilermaker, John built his sugar shack from timber he felled and milled on the property. It’s far off the grid so he set it up with propane for cooking and with diesel generators for electricity. Workers hung the intricate sap

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HER ITAGE | Living Local Dry Fork's evaporator, which turns the mild sap into sweet syrup, becomes a member of the family with the addition

of googly eyes. Finished syrup leaves the evaporator hotter than 200 degrees.

collection system on the slopes above the creek, 54 miles of luminous blue polyethylene tubing suspended at chest height: narrow droplines at the trees and bigger branchlines along the slopes, all gathering into 10 sturdy mainlines.

Pulling Sap Downhill The 2015 sap run was Dry Fork’s second season. In January and February 2015 the woods crew tapped spiles—those are the spouts—into 19,000 trees. The steep hillsides were still deep in snow. “It gets pretty treacherous. We’ve all taken some rolls downhill,” says woods crew member Jason Brooks with a game grin. The crew can tap 600 trees to a man on a good day, 200 on a rough one. They finished just before a frigid snap in late February.

In March the sap began to flow. A vacuum pump gently pulled the sap from two networks on the north and south hillsides above the creek through the droplines, branchlines, and mainlines into the sugar shack in the valley.

Sap gushed into two truck-sized vats with a faintly metallic-resinous aroma—nothing like maple syrup. John worked long hours at the height of the sap run to get it from tree to barrel in under 24 hours. “The warmer the sap 74 wvl • winter 2015

gets, the more bacteria and yeast start to affect it,” he says.

First, he processes the raw sap. “We’re essentially squeezing the water out—going from a percent and a half or 2 percent up to 12 or 13 percent,” he says of the sugar content.

That step saves a lot of propane. Still, the evaporator is where the alchemy happens. The room fills with a rich maple savor as sugar concentrations step up in a roiling, 200-plusdegree churn, to about 60 percent. He filters the finished syrup and pumps it into barrels he seals so hot, it’s days before they cool off completely.

A former high school science teacher, this sugarmaker is a chemist by nature. But he’s equal part woodsman. He tells a story about life in these woods. “The other day we caught a cub bear,” he begins. The dogs started barking, and a worker spotted the cub hobbling up from the creek, slow and sickly. “I picked him up by the scruff and put him in a toolbox,” John says.

A game warden he called told him he couldn’t keep a bear so he put it in the outhouse with dog food and water and left the door ajar. The next day officials took the cub to the State Wildlife Center at French Creek. “Cute little rascal,” he chuckles. “You gotta be ready for anything out here.”

Tapping West Virginia West Virginians, like Vermonters, may one day enjoy real maple syrup on their diner pancakes. There’s a lag in the numbers, but Dry Fork’s operation may have taken the state’s production from around 1,200 gallons a year to more like 6,000. In 2016 Dry Fork plans to tap about 21,000 trees. And it’s not the only producer that’s ramping up. “Others, like Frostmore Farm and Family Roots Farm, have invested in infrastructure in the past five years,” said the West Virginia Department of Agriculture’s Cindy Martel in mid-2015.

“And operations like Cedar Run Farm are actively adding taps and increasing efficiencies.” While Connecticut held the bottom spot in the USDA’s top 10 producing states by volume in 2014, at 16,000 gallons, West Virginia has far more maples and could top that.

Many more producers could earn a good living in the highlands in John’s opinion. Plus, there’s the lifestyle. “It’s kind of like a fantasy—living in the woods, wool pants, tough-soled boots, hatchets and axes, being outside when it’s 15 below,” he says. “It’s pretty neat. It’s really neat.”

Where to buy the syrup Dry Fork Maple Works sells most of its production to wholesalers, but limited quantities are available locally.

Look for its syrup at the Great Valu market in Franklin or at the Highland Food & Farm Market in Davis. wvliving.com 75

Living in

Keyser

A native shares why her small town has been deemed the “Friendliest City in the USA.” written by Mara Boggs photographed by Carla Witt Ford

Proclaimed the “Friendliest City in the USA,” Keyser is full of history and smalltown charm.

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W

hen you cross the Memorial Bridge and drive through Keyser, you are greeted by a time-worn sign proclaiming the small town the “Friendliest City in the USA.” The sign may be showing some age after decades of service, but the friendship and welcome Keyser extends to every visitor is as warm and fresh as ever.

The small town is home to 5,439 people—friends, neighbors, and family. To paraphrase the late President John F. Kennedy’s remarks about all of West Virginia during one of his visits to our great state, the sun doesn’t always shine in Keyser, but the people always do. It is a place where residents have known each other most of their lives, and if someone doesn’t know you, he or she knows your granny or your sister. It's a place where people discuss the state of the world over breakfast and at ballgames, and where 911 calls are answered by neighbors as well as paramedics. Cool autumn nights are lit up at the high school football field, and chests swell with “Keyser Pride” for the Golden Tornado sports teams.

Hidden Gems of History

Keyser began as a quiet rural community known as Paddy Town. But the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad arrived in 1852, transforming the town into a thriving industrial center named New Creek Station. During the Civil War, its leadership is said to have changed hands 14 times. Fort Fuller, a Civil War stronghold atop the hill where Potomac State College now sits, was an important gateway to the South Branch and Shenandoah Valleys—and critical for Union troops to retain control of the railroad. There were two notable commanders of Fort Fuller: Major Lew Wallace, who wrote the novel Ben Hur, and Major Benjamin Harrison, who would become 23rd president of the United States. Finally, in 1875, after the battles of the Civil War subsided, the town was incorporated as Keyser after William Keyser, the railroad’s vice president.

The Awesome Might of the Mountains in its People

Keyser is just east of the point where the Allegheny Front crosses the Potomac River. So it is no surprise that the character of Keyser has been shaped by what our very own, author Catherine Marshall, called “the awesome might of the mountains.” Keyser has touched so many souls in addition to Marshall’s—some famous, some known by few other than loved ones.

One of our nation’s greatest presidents may have lineage to the Keyser area. The mother of Abraham Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, is said to have been born near Keyser. Many decades ago the state tucked a marker into

Loyal followers frequent The Royal Restaurant on Main Street for small talk over

morning breakfast.

Orbital ATK is one of the major employers.

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Family -owned businesses line Main Street and Route 220, including Reed’s Drug Store which recently expanded its

location and gift shop.

Country Classics Ladies Shop has been styling and accessorizing women for 36 years.

The Candlewyck Inn is a Keyser staple with its “Wyckedly” good cupcakes and famous Beesting cake.

the foot of New Creek Mountain near her purported birthplace. Since then historical commissions and legislators have paid homage to her ties to the area and her significance to the nation.

That a woman born in the rugged Appalachian frontier could have a son who would rise to be one of the most revered American presidents shows that anything is possible in America, especially when you have the steel spine of a West Virginian. In Keyser we celebrate America and pay homage to those who step forward in military service. Abraham Lincoln’s words about honoring dedicated veterans ring especially true in Keyser: “Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.” Flags fly in the shadow of World War II Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Ed Kelley’s memorial, and a high school senior is honored every year in his memory. The annual Ed Kelley Award commemoration, a several-day affair, draws 500 or more veterans, supporters, and alumni.

Jack Rollins, who wrote the iconic holiday tunes Frosty 80 wvl • winter 2015

the Snowman and Here Comes Peter Cottontail, grew up and is buried in Keyser. Former Major League baseball star John Kruk, now an ESPN analyst, honed his athletic skills on the baseball fields in Keyser. And historian and Emmy Award-winning journalist Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. started his scholastic career at Potomac State College in Keyser.

Thriving Community

Jobs in Keyser are steady, and the unemployment rate in the town and surrounding Mineral County is consistently below the state average. Nearly 1,500 work at Allegany Ballistics Laboratory at the manufacturing plant Orbital ATK or at the IBM federal data center. Automated Packaging, Mineral Fabrication, and the nearby Verso paper mill are also major employers. Teachers are respected in the community, and the Board of Education is the second-highest employer in the county. Respect for educators is literally seen in the beauty of the schools; the land surrounding the high school is some of the prettiest in the state. The Mineral County Technical Center, or Votech, was the first in the state. Fifty years ago my

History buffs can visit the World War II Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Ed Kelley’s memorial or Thomas Carskadon’s House, a monument to the influential politician who formed much of Keyser.

From the desserts to the lasagna, everything at Castiglia’s is cooked in the authentic, old-

fashioned Italian way.

The large portions leave patrons feeling full for days.

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West Virginia University has roots in Keyser, including Potomac State College, a division of WVU, and the local Potomac Valley Hospital, a recent addition to the WVU Healthcare System.

grandfather Dick Campbell became the first director of the Votech, which is what brought my family from Greenbrier County to settle in Keyser.

Mountaineer Pride is strong in the town, especially because West Virginia University has such a large presence in Keyser.

Potomac State College offers both two- and four-year degrees as part of the WVU family. Recently the local Potomac Valley Hospital became part of the WVU Healthcare System.

Local Haunts Bring You Home

The city is a gem for restaurants, which line Route 220, the town's thoroughfare. Rose and Jerry will welcome you home to Castiglia’s for high-quality Italian food. Their large portions will keep you fed for a week. When you travel around the state and mention “Keyser,” more times than not people will ask about Castiglia’s and will rave about the food, especially the salads, lasagna and pizza.

As Rose will tell you, Jerry cooks in the authentic, oldfashioned Italian way; he doesn’t even have a microwave in the restaurant because he values quality. Rose and Jerry recently renovated the premises to accommodate more customers and invested in custom stonework. Much like the food, the stonework is a work of art in this restaurant.

Another mainstay of Keyser is the Candlewyck Inn. Fred and Sharon Engle, along with their children, Cole and Anna, have made The Candlewyck a staple for 31 years with American fare and “Wyckedly” good 82 wvl • winter 2015

cupcakes. Fred and Sharon know how to keep traditions going, but are always looking to innovate and bring new tastes and ideas to Keyser. They recently started “guest chef ” evenings and host renowned chefs for fine dining on the weekends. The Engles are keeping the tradition of Warner’s Restaurant “Beesting” cake alive too. Warner’s Restaurant in nearby Cresaptown is long-closed, but at one time it was known for its Beesting Cake. President John F. Kennedy reportedly ordered dozens of the Beesting cakes from Warner’s to be served at the White House. Now Fred and Sharon serve Beesting cakes and cupcakes, which are just as good as the fabled Beestings of Warner’s.

The Royal Restaurant has a loyal following, especially for morning breakfast and conversation. Artie Hartman’s Stray Cat Wing Shack has the best buffalo chicken dip you’ll ever eat, and many swear by his chimichangas. West Virginia heritage is celebrated at The Mountaineer, which specializes in great burgers. There’s even a pu—Clancy’s —that serves great Irish food and warms your spirit too.

El Jinete Mexican restaurant offers a nice atmosphere reminiscent of Samson’s restaurant that once occupied the same location.

Keyser is well worth a trip for the shopping. Betty Howell and her daughter Tonya have been dressing generations of women for 36 years at Country Classics Ladies’ Shop. Women come from all over to buy their clothes and accessories at Country Classics and to leave a

The mountains and valleys provide an outdoor playground for sportsmen and nature lovers alike.

Anglers enjoy fishing the world-class trout stream in nearby Barnum.

Martie’s Hot Dog Stand, and Soda Pops Sandwich Shoppe.

Reno Calemine, who is 89 years old, has shined shoes in the family-owned Calemine’s Patriotic Shoe Shop for decades by following in the footsteps of his patriotic father, Domenico Cosimo Calemine.

There’s much more to do in Keyser than eat or shop, whether you are a history buff, sportsman, or outdoor enthusiast. The Civil War era is of such importance to the formation of Keyser that “McNeill’s Rangers” bring the Civil War alive in McNeill’s Rangers’ plays at Larenim Park. Thomas Carskadon’s House, built in 1866, is a monument to the influential politician who formed much of Keyser and who was active in state and national government. Sportsmen fish the world-class trout stream in nearby Barnum on the North Branch of the Potomac River; and there’s plenty of fishing, golf, hunting, hiking, biking and canoeing in the nearby mountains and valleys. Newly constructed Corridor-H runs near Keyser, and businesses are coming on strong. A new adventure resort, Blackrock, is drawing adventure seekers and sports enthusiasts for races and outdoor activities.

Country Roads Bring You Home

wish list so that husbands always know the right thing to buy for Christmas. whether you are looking for something to wear around town or for a high-level business meeting, Betty and Tonya will make you feel at home with their warm Keyser way and will help you look your best.

Family-run Reed’s Drug Store recently expanded its location and gift shop. And if you like to go antiquing, many small stores and thrift shops can keep you coming back again and again to Main Street.

Keyser’s Main Street has had its ups and downs like so many other main streets in West Virginia. Through the years it hasn’t lost its charm. Holidays are marked by parades on Keyser’s Main Street, and several festivals occur throughout the year. The staples of a small town are found on Main Street: a library, the economic development agency, Chamber of Commerce, and the Farmers and Merchants Bank. And there are the Mane Street Studio Hair Salon, the Keyser Decorating Center, a music shop, two florists—Christy’s and Minnich’s, and some good restaurants like the Smoke Ring,

I’m proud of my hometown. Yet, it wasn’t until I was near the end of a military career that I fully appreciated just how special Keyser is. I've had the great fortune of living across the world and country, including two years in Iraq and multiple trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and throughout the Middle East, Europe and Central America. Through some very dangerous times, I have found strength by remembering my roots, as well as my family and friends who love me. All the roads that I’ve traveled lead right back to where I started: Keyser, my hometown.

I hear anecdotally that West Virginians are leaving our great state in droves. To that, I always offer my story of hope for those who don’t want to leave: My husband and I worked an entire military career to come home to West Virginia and to raise our children here. I’m so fortunate that I came home to work for our state’s senior senator. In my role as Senator Joe Manchin’s State Director, I traveled with him to all 55 West Virginia counties last year and saw firsthand that each county is special in its own way. But everywhere I went, I was reminded of my hometown because Keyser is like so many places in West Virginia: full of good, hard-working, patriotic Americans who put in an honest day’s work to provide for their families.

As we all know, “there’s no place like home.” That place, for me, is Keyser. And when I’m there–when I cross that bridge into the “Friendliest City in the USA”–my heart swells with happiness and Keyser pride. I invite you to come for a visit and soak up the “awesome might of the mountains.” wvliving.com 83

Voted 2013 & 2014 “Best Festival” and 2015 Charleston “Best Arts Town” WV Living magazine

FestivALL Charleston “A CITY BECOMES A WORK OF ART”

June 17—26, 2016

10 DAYS, 130 EVENTS 360 PERFORMANCES

Including major music concerts, Mountain Stage, dance, theater, visual art, literary events, one of West Virginia’s largest art fairs, a national chili cook-off, riverboat rides and hours of free family entertainment!

ARTIST: JUDE BINDER PHOTOGRAPHY: CHASE HENDERSON

festivallcharleston.com

Winter Fun for EVERYONE Don’t spend this winter hibernating! Make room on your calendar for these ways to overcome winter doldrums. written by Nikki Bowman

get cultured The West Virginia State Museum at the Culture Center is a must for every West Virginian. The museum’s state-of-the-art displays and collections will keep you and yours entertained for hours. Inspire your children with a trip to The Parkersburg Art Center, or give them a history lesson at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine. wvculture.org/museum/State-Museum-Index.html; parkersburgartcenter.org; beckley.org/exhibition_coal_mine

Snow Day for Kids

Don’t let cold weather turn you blue. Here are 10+ suggestions on ways to transform snow days into special memory-making moments.

paint the day From the WOW Factory in Morgantown to The Pottery Place in Beckley, Charleston, Huntington and Vienna, spend the day exploring your creative side at paint-yourown businesses. It is as much fun for adults as it is for children. wowfactoryonline.com; thepotteryplace.biz

bowling alleys Don’t forget about this old-fashioned way to have family fun. Bowling is back. Support your local bowling alleys around the state.

indoor worlds of fun For North Central West Virginia families, Valley Worlds of Fun in Fairmont is a winter lifesaver. With a large arcade, indoor laser tag, bowling alley, and amusement rides, it will keep children of all ages entertained. Parents in Charleston head to Southridge Grand Prix & Family Fun Center for indoor roller skating, go karts and laser tag to keep their families entertained on cold winter days. valleyworldsoffun.com; srgpskate.com

children’s museums

get SMART

The Clay Center's Avampato Discovery Museum in Charleston houses two floors of hands-on science exhibits featuring more than 12,000 square feet of nonstop fun.

In Wheeling The Children’s Museum of the Ohio Valley is a place to let the young ones roam and play. The Children’s Discovery Museum of WV, located inside the Mountaineer Mall at 5000 Greenbag Road, has hands-on, interactive exhibits that are fun and educational. theclaycenter.org; cmovkids.org; thefunfactor

What do dinosaurs, space, and ice cream have in common? The SMART Centre Market, located in Wheeling’s historic Centre Market District at 30 22nd Street—a fun store with interactive science demonstrations and activities, starwatches, and science presentations. smartcentremarket.com

skating rinks

head to the caves

From ice skates to roller skates, this is a great way to trick kids into exercising and leaving the television behind.

You don’t have to worry about the weather at Smoke Hole Caverns, located near Seneca Rocks. Open year-round with guided tours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the unique formations of stalactites and stalagmites will transform your day into an otherworldly experience. smokehole.com

sledding parks

a star party

Bundle up with a thermos of hot chocolate and head to the hills. Sledding parks like Chestnut Ridge Park near Coopers Rock State Forest outside of Morgantown and Blackwater Falls State Park in Tucker County are perennial favorites. chestnutridgepark.com; blackwaterfalls.com

Explore the universe like never before! Once a month the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank treats guests to views of the night sky through optical telescopes, beginning at 5 p.m. If Greenbank is too far away, you can see planetarium shows using state-of-theart technology in the Clay Center's newly renovated Digital Dome. Watch the cosmos come to life with live looks at the night sky combined with new shows that will open your eyes to the science of the stars. pocahontascountywv.com; theclaycenter.org

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7 ❅

fiery FOODS

Visit West Virginia Marketplace in the Capitol Market in Charleston for a wide selection of West Virginia products that will heat you up on cold winter days.

1. Ramp Wing Sauce, Fish Hawk Acres, Rock Cave, wvfishhawkacres.com, $9 2. Italian-style Peppers, Oliverio Peppers, Clarksburg, oliveriopeppers.us, $7.59 3. Habanero Sauce, Blue Smoke, Anstead, bluesmokesalsa.com, $5.50 4. Salsa, Fire Creek Salsa, Kenna, firecreeksalsa.com, $9 5. Chili in a Bottle, Uncle Bunk’s, Sisterville, unclebunks.com, $5 6. Hot Pepper Butter, Thistledew Farm, Proctor, thistledewfarm.com, $6.50 7. Chili Mix, Ordinary Evelyn’s, Clay, 304.587.7109, $3.99 8. Meat Varnish, Lem’s Meat Varnish, South Charleston, $10.99

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TEA TIME Gather the young ones and take them to a tea party they’ll always remember.

Mrs. Claus will be visiting the The Tea Shoppe at Seneca Center to collect letters for Santa. Enjoy a festive afternoon tea with games, songs, and other activities. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the WVU Children’s Hospital. December 6 and 12. Seatings at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. $20 per person.

Handblown Balls Allen's Art Glass ornaments adorn trees all over the state. $25 West Virginia Marketplace

Capitol Market, 800 Smith Street, Charleston

Stately Ornament This West Virginia-shaped ceramic ornament is available in different glazes. $15 PATINA 117 East Washington Street, Lewisburg

Tree of Light This small dichroic glass tree on a wooden base designed by artist Tom Milne of Morgantown will brighten any space. $55 APPALACHIAN GALLERY 270 Walnut Street Morgantown

Slopeside Spa Pamper yourself after a day on the slopes at The Spa at Snowshoe. Located in the Village, this 3,600-square-foot spa offers therapeutic massage, body scrubs, facials, pedicure, and full salon service. Call 304.572.4700 or visit snowshoemtn.com/ events-and-activities/the-spa.aspx.

Tree Time Valerie Hinkle, owner of Patina in Lewisburg handcrafted these felt trees, available in assorted colors. $16 PATINA 117 East Washington Street, Lewisburg

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Let There

Be Light

Driving through elaborate holiday light displays is a tradition that never gets old. Here are a few of our favorites from every corner of the state from Mason to Mercer Counties.

Aaron’s Fork Road, Elkview

BLUEFIELD Bluefield Holiday of Lights Festival

POINT PLEASANT WV State Farm Museum’s Light Show

This holiday of lights display plus Christmas Village festivities takes place at the Bluefield City Park on Stadium Drive from November 26 to December 31. New displays have been added to this 40 plus acres of 700,000 twinkling lights. Sunday though Thursday, 6 to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m. On December 6, 13, 20, and 27, walkers can stroll through the park and enjoy a unique perspective from 5 to 6 p.m. visitmercercounty.com

From December 11 until December 20, every tree, shrub, and building is decorated at the Farm Museum, located at 1458 Fairgrounds Road, with more than 3 million lights. Check in with Santa Claus in the Country Store and grab a cup of free hot chocolate and cookies for kids in the Country Kitchen. Admission is free. wvfarmmuseum.org

ELKVIEW Aaron’s Fork Road Getting to this light display on Aaron's Fork Road is half the fun.

Located off I-79 in Elkview, Kermit and Joann Tyree transform their family farm into a winter wonderland with more than 500,000 lights that rivals some of the more well known displays. Kermit even dresses up like Santa and hands out candy canes. From Elkview exit off I-79, drive seven miles on Aaron’s Fork Road.

FAIRMONT South Fairmont Rotary Club’s Annual Celebration of Lights Drive through Morris Park’s 1.3 miles of Christmas displays on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from November 27 through December 27, 5 to 9 p.m. There are even special walkers’ nights on Monday, November 30 and Thursday, December 10. Cost is $10 per carload at the gate or you can purchase tickets in advance from the South Fairmont Rotary for $5.

POINT PLEASANT Krodel Park Christmas Fantasy Light Show With new additions each year, this unique light display in Point Pleasant includes Santa Claus, a sternwheeler, the Mothman, and a twenty-foot windmill. Visitors drive through the park to view the lights. No admission fee. Open nightly from November 20 to December 31, 2015, 5:15 to 9:15 p.m. masoncountytourism.org

WHEELING Oglebay’s Winter Festival of Lights Oglebay’s Winter Festival of Lights is the granddaddy of all light displays. From November 13, 2015 to January 3, 2016, visitors can view the Winter Festival of Lights Sunday through Thursday until 10 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m. Visitors will be treated to 80 awe-inspiring displays—including cartoon caricatures and an enormous polyhedron star consisting of more than 2,000 lights—along the six-mile driving tour. Trolley tours are also available and offered several times each night beginning at Wilson Lodge.

“The Winter Festival of Lights at Oglebay has been bringing smiles to young and old for 30 years and we are delighted that so many have made the annual light show a holiday tradition,” said Caren Knoyer, Marketing Director at Oglebay Resort & Conference Center. “The Festival of Lights started in 1985 with just five light displays and has grown into one of America’s largest holiday light shows with more than 80 displays and a million lights over 300 acres.

We look forward to the next 30 years!”

The renowned light display has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a spot on the American Bus Association’s Top 100 Events in North America and AOL Travel’s 10 Best Christmas Light Displays in the U.S.

Great Gifts to Give (and receive)

WOODEN CAUSE Richwood Creations makes high-end wood products and rustic décor. It is also a non-profit that funds Young Life Ministries in Richwood. From trivets to turntables, to chopping boards to coasters, these gifts keep giving. $8 and up; richwood-creations.com LEATHER LETTERS Morgan Rhea’s handcrafted leather accessories are unique and timeless, and tell stories—literally.

Personalized messages— from letters to poems—are engraved into everything from briefcases to clutches to keychain fobs. These gifts will be treasured for a lifetime. $45 and up. morganrhea.com

ORIGAMI CARDS Everyone loves to receive a handwritten note. These blank origami cards designed by Carton Seaton of Mother Wit make the message all the more meaningful. $6.50; Studio 40, 130 West Washington Street, Lewisburg SLATE OF STATE This West Virginia-shaped slate can be used in a variety of ways— as a serving platter, chalkboard, wall décor, or cheese tray. $30 WV Marketplace, Capitol Market, 800 Smith Street, Charleston

BEARD BARD If No Shave November has become Dry Beard December for someone in your family, Mountaineer Brand has what they need. The Shepherdstown-based company offers beard oils, balms, and shampoos along with mustache wax, shaving soaps, hand lotions, and more, all made from natural ingredients. $10.95–$45 mountaineerbrand.com

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❆ COZY

UP ❆ With a Cup of Joe

Leave Starbucks behind, and enjoy a mug or two at some of the best coffee shops around the state.

Black Dog Coffee

The Grind

Lost Dog Coffee

Sister’s Coffee House

8001 Charles Town Road Shenandoah Junction

168 Willey Street Morgantown

134 East German Street Shepherdstown

1606 West Main Street Princeton

Butter It Up

Hot Cup

Moxxee

Tip Top

210 11th Street, #13 Huntington

201 Stratton Street Logan

301 Morris Street Charleston

216 East Avenue Thomas

Cathedral Café

Joe N’ Throw

Righteous Brew Coffee

Trout’s Hill Coffee

134 South Court Street Fayetteville

323 ½ Adams Street Fairmont

180 East 2nd Avenue Williamson

524 Hendricks Street Wayne

Centre Cup Coffee

Kissel Stop

2201 Market Street, #1 Wheeling

23rd Third Street Elkins

Shepherdstown Sweet Shop Bakery

CARLA WIIT FORD

100 West German Street Shepherdstown

Wild Bean 119 East Washington Street Lewisburg

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Tour de Force

Get into the holiday spirit by touring a historic home.

Bramwell Christmas Tour Bramwell

This home tour in Bramwell, which once touted more millionaires per capita than any other town in the United States, occurs on the second Saturday in December starting at 5 p.m., and it is truly special. Each tour begins at the Bramwell Presbyterian Church, patterned after a Welsh cathedral, where visitors may purchase tickets for $15 while admiring the church’s breathtaking architecture. Take the time to appreciate the locally quarried bluestone that imparts an unusual aesthetic—coal dust provides the stone’s blue coloring. Visitors are free to meander in and out of the homes and buildings included on the tour and are greeted by residents dressed in period clothes. Because many of the homes are private residences, the lineup is always evolving, guaranteeing that even if you’ve seen it once, you’ve certainly not seen it all. bramwellwv.com

Henderson Hall Plantation Williamstown

Henderson Hall Plantation will be open for Christmas tours beginning November 21.

The majestic mansion will be beautifully decorated for the holidays, and Christmas music will be played on the 1875 piano, which has been in the possession of four generations of Hendersons. Cost for the Christmas tours is $5 for adults and $4 for children 6–12.

Children under 6 are free. Refreshments will be served along with a tour of the hall.

Henderson Hall will be open for tours Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m.

Julia Ann Square

NIKKI BOWMAN

Parkersburg

The 16th annual Victorian Christmas Homes Tour and Tea will take place December 5–6, 2015. Experience five homes in this amazing historic district in all its holiday Victorian splendor. Tours and Teas will begin at the First United Methodist Church (10th and Juliana Streets) at 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and the Candlelight Tour at 6 p.m. Tour-goers should arrive at least thirty minutes early. For a special treat on Saturday, December 5, the tours will be escorted

Adaland Mansion

by guides in period attire, homeowners will share the history of their homes, and guests will attend a lavish Victorian Tea as part of the $15 donation. On Sunday, December 6, from 1–4:00 p.m., the tour will be self-guided, and there will be no tea. Tickets will be sold at each house. The cost is $10. juliannsquare.org

South Charleston’s Annual Christmas Historic Homes Tour South Charleston

Another popular event is the South Charleston’s Annual Christmas Historic Homes Tour on December 5 from 6 to 9 p.m.

The tours begin at the St. Albans Historical Society building at 404 Fourth Avenue.

Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students. http://stalbanshistory.com/homes-tours.html

The Adam Stephen House Martinsburg

Enjoy a Colonial Christmas at the home of Adam Stephen, the founder of Martinsburg.

This house, located at 309 East John Street, is restored to the 1780–1790 period and is decorated with live evergreens, wreaths, fruit, and candlelight. Enjoy holiday music and light refreshments on December 5-6 and December 12–13. Admission is free. orgsites.com/wv/ adam-stephen

Adaland Mansion Philippi

With unique, individually decorated trees throughout Adaland, built in 1872, you're sure to walk away with lots of ideas and holiday cheer. Visitors will find garlands, poinsettias, velvet bows, twinkling lights, Santas, Christmas balls, and other special decorations. On Saturday, December 5, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. guests may walk through the house with no admission charge. Refreshments for sale. adaland.org

Marion County Historical Society’s Annual Holiday Historic House Tour Fairmont

On Saturday, November 30 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Marion County Historical Society will be having their 20th Annual Holiday Historic Home Tours. New to the tour this year is the restored Morgan-Pickney House, built in the early 1800s. Daniel Boone was a frequent visitor here. Most of the homes on the tour are decorated for Christmas and serve tasty munchies. Some have live music.

The cost is $16 in advance or $18 the day of the tour. journeyfairmont.info

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Ride the Rails North Pole Express Excursion

300 Jefferson Street, Moorefield

Take a magical ride from Moorefield to the North Pole with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, while enjoying cookies, hot chocolate, story time, and sing-a-longs. heritageweekend.com Train Departures: November 27 and 28, 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

December 4 and 5, 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Ticket prices: Children 12 and under – $12 13 and older – $20

The Polar Express

Railroad Depot, Elkins

The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad’s THE POLAR EXPRESS™ train rides are based on the holiday feature film from Warner Bros. and the beloved children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg about a doubting young boy who takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Set to the sounds of the motion picture soundtrack, pajama-clad passengers relive the magic of the story as this nighttime train whisks families away for an unforgettable ride to the North Pole. During the journey, the conductor will punch tickets and dancing chefs serve hot chocolate, followed by a reading of Van Allsburg’s classic. At the North Pole, Santa will board the train and greet the children and offer a gift for those who truly believe—a silver sleigh bell. All passengers receive their own souvenir cocoa mug and bell. (Be sure to make your reservations early as these trains always sell out.) mountainrailwv.com Train Departures: November, 5 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.

December, 5 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.

Snowflake Express With Santa

South Side Depot, Petersburg

A popular family-friendly train event, children can visit with Santa while drinking hot chocolate and eating cookies. You will enjoy listening to Christmas carols while taking in the beautiful ride to Welton Park to see the “Festival of Lights.” Santa will be available for photos before and after each train ride inside the South Side Depot. A wonderful experience that will become a tradition for you and your family. southsidedepot.com Train Departures: December 12 and 13, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

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Ticket Prices: Children 12 and under - $10 13 and older – $12

Feaste the

In Fairmont the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival is a time for family, friends, and food. written by Shay Maunz

photographed by Carla Witt Ford

The Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival combines Italian Christmas traditions with all the best parts of a community street fair.

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E

very Christmas Eve in America, Italian American grandmothers stand over the stove, stirring giant pots of fish stew. Uncles toss chunks of calamari into a deep pan filled with popping, sizzling oil. Aunts arrange dried, salted cod on a platter, turning it this way and that in a losing battle to make it look appealing.

Kids are tasked with setting the table with all the dishes, bowls, and utensils the family will need to devour a decadent spread with many courses.

This is the Feast of the Seven Fishes, the traditional Italian American seafood feast that takes place on Christmas Eve. In any culture the recipe for the ideal holiday meal is always the same: one part friends and family, one part decadent and delicious foods that you don’t see any other time of year, and just enough pomp and circumstance to make the whole thing feel really special. The Feast of the Seven Fishes is no different; it just includes more seafood than most Christmas dinners.

No one is quite sure how exactly the Feast of the Seven Fishes came to be. Certainly it originated in the southern part of Italy, near the coast, but the tradition is practiced more often—and with more gusto—here in America than it is back in the old country. It probably has something to do with the fact that Catholics abstain from eating meat

on the eve of certain holy days, including Christmas. But no one is quite sure why the feast includes that particular number of fish. For the seven sacraments? The seven days it took God to make the world? The Seven hills of Rome?

For most Italian Americans the tradition is so deeply ingrained that the reasoning doesn’t matter. And the more fish the better, anyway.

That was the thought Shannon and Robert Tinnell had a decade ago, when they started the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival in Fairmont. The husband and wife both have Italian heritage; and Robert’s family, especially, has held a big seafood feast every Christmas Eve. In 2005 the couple published a comic novel called “Feast of the Seven Fishes: The Collected Comic Strip and Italian Holiday Cookbook.” In it Robert tells the story of a big Italian family preparing the big holiday feast, and Shannon provides recipes for traditional Italian dishes. “After the book came out, we got to talking with people in town,” Shannon says. “And we said we have this book and we know all about the feast, and we don’t have any kind of festival in Fairmont. Why don’t we do one?”

Every year since, on the second weekend in December, thousands of people have descended on Fairmont to toast to the Christmas season with good cheer—and a lot of fish. Fairmont is an Italian American hub in West Virginia so it was a natural fit. “The Italian heritage is

Mr. and Mrs. Claus arrive from the North Pole to visit with children.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes celebrates good food, friends, and family.

Mark your calendar and

make this event a part of your family's holiday traditions.

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Clockwise: Locals fry up a batch of frittis, Italian doughnuts. The festival aims for an old-world

Italian feel. Wine tastings are a signature part of the event.

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Pita piata, a traditional Italian dessert, is a favorite.

The festival strives to only include traditional Italian

fare that would be appropriate for the Christmas season.

really big here,” says Jackie Fitch, the festival’s event planner. “It all started when the Italians came over to work in the coal mines and made their homes in Fairmont and Clarksburg. So all these years later we have all these people with Italian heritage and a lot of Italian traditions in the community.”

The centerpiece of the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival is an evening-long cooking demonstration on Friday. The feast is one of the most intimidating projects a home cook can encounter so Shannon breaks it down into brief cooking lessons and live demonstrations, with the help of some local experts.

“We have professional chefs; we have some people who do it every year. And sometimes it’s just that old lady from down the street who really knows how to cook,” Shannon says.

Attendees pay an entrance fee that covers their entertainment for the evening—two Italian gentlemen from Fairmont sing and play polkas on the accordion— plus a glass of wine and hefty samples of every dish.

“It’s very important to me that people be eating while they’re there,” Shannon says. “If you go into any Italian household, you’re going to eat.” The idea is to try to recreate the joy of a family’s Feast of the Seven Fishes on a larger scale while giving locals lessons on the best way to prepare authentic Italian dishes for Christmas Eve. “It’s like getting a cooking lesson from your Italian wvliving.com 101

Everything sold at the festival—from artisanmade gifts to baked

goods—is high-quality and made by hand.

For more photos visit wvliving.com

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grandmother or aunt,” Shannon says. “The objective is to preserve those traditional Italian food ways and to have some fun with it.”

To keep it interesting, they’ll sometimes include variations on a classic dish. Last year, for example, there was a demonstration on making a gluten-free version of traditional Italian cookies. But for the most part, the goal is to showcase only authentic Italian dishes that are appropriate for Christmas Eve. “The other day someone said, ‘I want to make flambé,’” Shannon says. “And I’m like, ‘But that’s French.’ Yet the friend argued that it would make a great presentation. And it might—but it’s French so we can’t do it. We try to keep it traditional.”

On that Saturday Monroe Street in downtown Fairmont is taken over by a big street festival, complete

with arts and crafts, music and dancing, and food. There’s also a market where local artisans sell their wares—the perfect place to pick up a last-minute Christmas gift. The Festival is selective when it comes to admitting vendors, and nothing for sale is mass-produced. It’s all high-quality work made by hand, mostly by locals. The Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival is dedicated to ensuring that every part of the festival is authentically Italian or at least a central part of the Italian American experience and that everything is high quality and local. This is the place to go if you want homemade cannoli and a latte or some Italian sausage with hot peppers. “We want the old world feel,” Jackie says. “When you come to downtown Fairmont, we want it to be filled with the old Italian traditions.” marioncvb.com/feastofthesevenfishes

THE PA RTING SHOT

Simplicity Carla Witt Ford Fresh greenery from Modern Homestead in Reedsville is all you need to spruce up your door. photographed by

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