Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 24, 2006 18:27:32 GMT -5
Forever red, never dead
www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060122/LIFESTYLE/601220307/1024
HALLWOOD, Va. -- No one yet has ever won a battle with Father Time,
but a few country folk here are doing their best to keep him from
stealing their heritage.
Membership of Assawoman Tribe No. 42 Improved Order of Redmen is down
to a precious few, just eight, and they are trying to keep a huge
chunk of their Eastern Shore heritage and lives alive by keeping
their lodge going.
So far they seem to have beaten the odds. Of the dozen or so lodges
once on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, theirs is the last operating.
In a block building on Broughton Street -- with no wall insulation
and a few bare bulbs -- members preserve the artifacts of the past
when the lodge had almost 50 members and was the most important
social center in this part of Accomack County.
For Calvin Maddox, 79, the tribe's sachem, or chief, the fight is
getting harder all the time, as the male membership is now primarily
made up of his sons, grandson and a grandson-in-law.
Fifty years invested
Maddox and his wife, Alma Blanche (of Degree of Pocahontas White Faun
Council No. 9) have half a century invested in the lodge.
"(Alma Blanche's) daddy, John Roger Groton, was one of the founding
members in 1929 and the youngest," explained Calvin. "I joined in
1951; he signed me up. I didn't have the $5, so he paid it so I could
get in. Now I'm the oldest one."
The monthly dues then were just $1. Today, 55 years later, the dues
remain at $1.
"Our mom pays our dues for us," said the Maddoxes' son, Jimmy,
54. "It's one of the cheapest membership dues in the world."
The family is determined that their tribe will remain strong enough
to maintain the eight members required to keep its state charter.
Now, on a good lodge meeting night, maybe three members show up, all
Maddoxes. "We have a better turnout at the family Sunday dinner, here
at the house, than we do at a lodge meetin'," Jimmy said.
The ladies council is faring better with 17 members, but the men,
historically, embody the strength of the tribe.
Today, the men making up the tribe include Maddox, his sons George,
50, Billy, 53, Jimmy, 54, and John, 44; his grandson, John Maddox,
21; his grandson-in-law, Douglas Theirfeldt; and his brother-in-law,
Calvin Gladding, 68.
Lodge was social center
The lodge is home to this tribe, yet its real pull is the memories of
a strong family and the social power it once embodied for Hallwood
folks.
Calvin Maddox remembers the early years of the lodge. "It was a very
popular thing in those days. People didn't have TV; a lot of them
didn't have radios or cars. (The lodge) gave them somewhere to go one
night a week, just to get together," he said.
It also gave them a place to go on weekends, when the lodge was used
for community dances.
"We had square dancin' near 'bout every Friday and Saturday night,"
alternating with progressive rook parties, Calvin said. "There was
banjo and guitar playin' and the undertaker's daughter played the
drums. People came from miles around to the dances. We even took up a
collection to give the bands expense money," Maddox said.
"Jay Linton walked all the way from Saxis," Jimmy said, "and always
wanted to sing the song he loved as the last song of the
night, 'Crying Time Again.' When he started to sing you knew the
square dances were over with, that was the farewell song."
"For the generation before me," said George, "the townspeople were
really in it (the Redmen) big time, but it has been fizzling out in
my time."
Times changed
As times changed, families moved, members died off and the town's
main employer, the Taylor Packing Co., closed along with Hallwood
National Bank. The lodge was in trouble. Worse, said George, morals
changed and entertainment had become hi-tech.
"Other organizations like this are offering beer and booze and
gamblin' and partyin' and stuff like that, but our lodge restricts
any kind of alcohol. Basically what our lodge is, is just good old
people; and it's fizzin' out because people don't have an interest.
It doesn't draw people. If you are joinin' it here, you're join' it
for the idea that's just what it is," George said. "Kids now aren't
interested in joinin'. This has become a living piece of Eastern
Shore history.
"It's our fault we aren't involving our children like our parents did
us. It's our fault. We are just too busy gettin' that dollar to get
ahead. It's pitiful, sad the way things are today. Lodges and stuff
are gettin' forgot about. Churches are failin' (in membership) too. "
Member in absentia
Jimmy Maddox, a pastor at Colonial Beach United Methodist Church in
Colonial Beach, Va., joined the Redmen when he was 16. "It was
something fun, something you wanted to be a part of," he said. "I
learned to appreciate what Redmen and Pocahontas stood for, the
traditional values of what most Americans had come to know at that
time. Everything we did was family-oriented. It was the greatest
thing in a small town to bring people together."
For 32 years he has served as a preacher, starting when he was 18.
Living in Colonial Beach for the past 22 years, he has been unable to
attend lodge meetings in Hallwood, but his membership enables the
lodge to stay open.
"We can get our children and sign 'em up and keep their names on the
book, but there's more to it than that ... A name on a piece of paper
isn't goin' to keep it goin' ... I bet the chances of hittin' the
lottery and the lodge bein' reborn are almost the same. But there's
always hope, and that's what Mom and Dad sees," George said. "They
could have given up on it a long time ago and it would be dead today,
dead and gone and forgotten."
"We still have get-togethers and some fund-raisin' money so we can
help the community at Christmastime and earn enough money to pay the
insurance," Calvin said.
Much of the income now comes from the North Accomack Lions Club,
which holds its monthly dinner meeting at the lodge.
"We furnish them a meetin'-house place and the women feed 'em,"
Calvin said.
"Once a year we sell take-out dinners," George said. "When I was a
kid they gave us a home for the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and even a
place for the church." It was through support of the Redmen that the
former Eastern Shore Academy (now St. Paul's Episcopal Church
preschool program) became a reality about 1970.
'It's come down to family'
As the years pass, Alama Blanche holds tighter to the memories of
yesterday, determined that, at least on her watch, those dear
memories will not leave her grip and disappear.
She's hoping her grandson and great-grandchildren will eventually
take over and keep the lodge going. Now, at 21, her grandson, John,
is the tribe's youngest member.
"It's come down to family. You see organizations closing every year.
For us, this is family, it's ancestry, it's history," Jimmy said.
"I don't think we will ever see the glory days like we did when they
had square dances here, because our culture is going in a different
direction. Simple family entertainment doesn't cut it anymore,"
George said.
"Will the lodge ever be like it was in its glory day? You don't know.
But it still has something for me, the nostalgia of that family-
oriented era. When I look at all those old pictures I can still hear
my grandmother calling the square dances, the Virginia Reel, the Paul
Jones ... It will be a part of my life forever," Jimmy said.
"Everybody in the lodge played a role, but Pete Marshall and our
grandfather, Roger Groton, were the heart and backbone of the lodge.
They loved it. Pete was once the Great Sachem of the state of
Virginia, president of the state lodge," said George.
"We do what we do because we don't want to see it die, because that
part of them dies with it," said Jimmy. "As long as there is a lodge,
their heart and soul are still here, still in it."
"You could feel what the lodge stood for," he continued, "and as long
as you can hold onto it, you hold on to that good old time feelin'.
We just had good times."
www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060122/LIFESTYLE/601220307/1024
HALLWOOD, Va. -- No one yet has ever won a battle with Father Time,
but a few country folk here are doing their best to keep him from
stealing their heritage.
Membership of Assawoman Tribe No. 42 Improved Order of Redmen is down
to a precious few, just eight, and they are trying to keep a huge
chunk of their Eastern Shore heritage and lives alive by keeping
their lodge going.
So far they seem to have beaten the odds. Of the dozen or so lodges
once on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, theirs is the last operating.
In a block building on Broughton Street -- with no wall insulation
and a few bare bulbs -- members preserve the artifacts of the past
when the lodge had almost 50 members and was the most important
social center in this part of Accomack County.
For Calvin Maddox, 79, the tribe's sachem, or chief, the fight is
getting harder all the time, as the male membership is now primarily
made up of his sons, grandson and a grandson-in-law.
Fifty years invested
Maddox and his wife, Alma Blanche (of Degree of Pocahontas White Faun
Council No. 9) have half a century invested in the lodge.
"(Alma Blanche's) daddy, John Roger Groton, was one of the founding
members in 1929 and the youngest," explained Calvin. "I joined in
1951; he signed me up. I didn't have the $5, so he paid it so I could
get in. Now I'm the oldest one."
The monthly dues then were just $1. Today, 55 years later, the dues
remain at $1.
"Our mom pays our dues for us," said the Maddoxes' son, Jimmy,
54. "It's one of the cheapest membership dues in the world."
The family is determined that their tribe will remain strong enough
to maintain the eight members required to keep its state charter.
Now, on a good lodge meeting night, maybe three members show up, all
Maddoxes. "We have a better turnout at the family Sunday dinner, here
at the house, than we do at a lodge meetin'," Jimmy said.
The ladies council is faring better with 17 members, but the men,
historically, embody the strength of the tribe.
Today, the men making up the tribe include Maddox, his sons George,
50, Billy, 53, Jimmy, 54, and John, 44; his grandson, John Maddox,
21; his grandson-in-law, Douglas Theirfeldt; and his brother-in-law,
Calvin Gladding, 68.
Lodge was social center
The lodge is home to this tribe, yet its real pull is the memories of
a strong family and the social power it once embodied for Hallwood
folks.
Calvin Maddox remembers the early years of the lodge. "It was a very
popular thing in those days. People didn't have TV; a lot of them
didn't have radios or cars. (The lodge) gave them somewhere to go one
night a week, just to get together," he said.
It also gave them a place to go on weekends, when the lodge was used
for community dances.
"We had square dancin' near 'bout every Friday and Saturday night,"
alternating with progressive rook parties, Calvin said. "There was
banjo and guitar playin' and the undertaker's daughter played the
drums. People came from miles around to the dances. We even took up a
collection to give the bands expense money," Maddox said.
"Jay Linton walked all the way from Saxis," Jimmy said, "and always
wanted to sing the song he loved as the last song of the
night, 'Crying Time Again.' When he started to sing you knew the
square dances were over with, that was the farewell song."
"For the generation before me," said George, "the townspeople were
really in it (the Redmen) big time, but it has been fizzling out in
my time."
Times changed
As times changed, families moved, members died off and the town's
main employer, the Taylor Packing Co., closed along with Hallwood
National Bank. The lodge was in trouble. Worse, said George, morals
changed and entertainment had become hi-tech.
"Other organizations like this are offering beer and booze and
gamblin' and partyin' and stuff like that, but our lodge restricts
any kind of alcohol. Basically what our lodge is, is just good old
people; and it's fizzin' out because people don't have an interest.
It doesn't draw people. If you are joinin' it here, you're join' it
for the idea that's just what it is," George said. "Kids now aren't
interested in joinin'. This has become a living piece of Eastern
Shore history.
"It's our fault we aren't involving our children like our parents did
us. It's our fault. We are just too busy gettin' that dollar to get
ahead. It's pitiful, sad the way things are today. Lodges and stuff
are gettin' forgot about. Churches are failin' (in membership) too. "
Member in absentia
Jimmy Maddox, a pastor at Colonial Beach United Methodist Church in
Colonial Beach, Va., joined the Redmen when he was 16. "It was
something fun, something you wanted to be a part of," he said. "I
learned to appreciate what Redmen and Pocahontas stood for, the
traditional values of what most Americans had come to know at that
time. Everything we did was family-oriented. It was the greatest
thing in a small town to bring people together."
For 32 years he has served as a preacher, starting when he was 18.
Living in Colonial Beach for the past 22 years, he has been unable to
attend lodge meetings in Hallwood, but his membership enables the
lodge to stay open.
"We can get our children and sign 'em up and keep their names on the
book, but there's more to it than that ... A name on a piece of paper
isn't goin' to keep it goin' ... I bet the chances of hittin' the
lottery and the lodge bein' reborn are almost the same. But there's
always hope, and that's what Mom and Dad sees," George said. "They
could have given up on it a long time ago and it would be dead today,
dead and gone and forgotten."
"We still have get-togethers and some fund-raisin' money so we can
help the community at Christmastime and earn enough money to pay the
insurance," Calvin said.
Much of the income now comes from the North Accomack Lions Club,
which holds its monthly dinner meeting at the lodge.
"We furnish them a meetin'-house place and the women feed 'em,"
Calvin said.
"Once a year we sell take-out dinners," George said. "When I was a
kid they gave us a home for the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and even a
place for the church." It was through support of the Redmen that the
former Eastern Shore Academy (now St. Paul's Episcopal Church
preschool program) became a reality about 1970.
'It's come down to family'
As the years pass, Alama Blanche holds tighter to the memories of
yesterday, determined that, at least on her watch, those dear
memories will not leave her grip and disappear.
She's hoping her grandson and great-grandchildren will eventually
take over and keep the lodge going. Now, at 21, her grandson, John,
is the tribe's youngest member.
"It's come down to family. You see organizations closing every year.
For us, this is family, it's ancestry, it's history," Jimmy said.
"I don't think we will ever see the glory days like we did when they
had square dances here, because our culture is going in a different
direction. Simple family entertainment doesn't cut it anymore,"
George said.
"Will the lodge ever be like it was in its glory day? You don't know.
But it still has something for me, the nostalgia of that family-
oriented era. When I look at all those old pictures I can still hear
my grandmother calling the square dances, the Virginia Reel, the Paul
Jones ... It will be a part of my life forever," Jimmy said.
"Everybody in the lodge played a role, but Pete Marshall and our
grandfather, Roger Groton, were the heart and backbone of the lodge.
They loved it. Pete was once the Great Sachem of the state of
Virginia, president of the state lodge," said George.
"We do what we do because we don't want to see it die, because that
part of them dies with it," said Jimmy. "As long as there is a lodge,
their heart and soul are still here, still in it."
"You could feel what the lodge stood for," he continued, "and as long
as you can hold onto it, you hold on to that good old time feelin'.
We just had good times."