LITHIA’S STORY
© 2007, Wanda L. Harrell
The 6,285 foot high Roan Mountain and all the smaller mountains in what is now Mitchell County, North Carolina stand tall and proud, their dark silhouettes seeming to rise up from the lowlands to softly support the blue of the sky. These mountains are close, a family of sorts, and like every family, each one has its similarities and differences, a sort of personality, characterized by: height, shape, density and types of foliage, and of course, rivers, creeks and streams. It was amidst this family of mountains, many of my families long ago settled.
Early in the 19th century, when traveling remote mountain trails was on foot or horseback, the Stanley and Garland families were two of many that found their way to these mountains’ secluded valleys, coves and hollers. Although natural dangers like wolves, bears, panthers, cougars, and the deadly rattlesnakes and copperheads lurked around every corner, these hearty pioneer people were determined to make a life for themselves and their children in the shadow of the towering Roan summit.
So it was amidst these mountains, up a cove on the banks of Bad Creek, a small tributary of Big Rock Creek that these two families thrived. There, they cleared land for crops, built small, but sturdy log cabins, and eventually houses, along with barns and sheds. Until, and after, domesticated farm animals were brought in, wild game abounded: duck, pheasant, turkey, deer, bear, rabbit, squirrel and a few buffalo. The rivers’ bounty was, among other fish, the prized rainbow trout. And last, but not least, the land was abundant with wild grapes, huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries and herbs and roots for tea like sassafras.
Both families were firmly established in the community known as Bad Creek by the time 1820 rolled around. 1820 was the year the tomato was proven to be non-poisonous, the year when Daniel Boone died quietly at age 85, and the year Spain sold part of Florida to the United States for $5 million dollars. It was also the year that Guthridge and Bridget Hampton Garland’s daughter, Nancy Lithia, married William Thomas Stanley, one of Rickles and Olivia Howell Stanley’s boys.
Floods and blizzards were and are the two most feared natural occurrences in that part of the country. Too many years have passed, so no one knows the exact year of the blizzard Lithia Garland Stanley never forgot. That detail was lost down through the years of storytelling. No children were mentioned in the story I heard. With that fact also unknown, we just have to surmise it was on a wintry night sometime about 1820 that the fierce, bone chilling wind howled around the corners of the cabin while the snow fell, eventually leaving somewhere between eight inches and a foot of the wintry white on the ground.
The sounds the wind made whipping around the corners of the cabin allowed little sleep for Lithia. Her husband had come down with fever a few days earlier, so between that haunting noise and concern for William, she was uneasy. Not wanting to disturb her husband, she cautiously tossed and turned on the combination feather and straw mattress of their rope bed.
Before daylight, Lithia slipped from underneath the numerous handmade quilts that had kept her warm through the night. While William slept, she was up and about. As quietly as possible, she stoked the fire, adding a couple of oak and pine logs to warm up the room and boil a pot of coffee. Sitting in her rocker, she nervously tapped her feet on the rough, but better than dirt, floor. Holding her blue enamelware cup tightly within her hands, she warmed herself and gazed into the crackling blaze. Finally, she picked up her knitting from the wooden bowl on the puncheon table William had crafted, whiling away the lonely hours until daylight finally broke.
Finally, a shaft of daylight made its way through the lone, frost-covered window. After scratching the layer of ice from the distorted glass, she peeked outside to see little but how the wind was whipping the fallen snow into drifts. The snow had stopped falling, but the ferocious wind had not died down at all. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of the rope they had carefully strung between the cabin and pole barn. Whipping wildly back and forth, appearing as if it were slicing the very wind that drove it, her worries for William were replaced with worries for their milk cow, Bessie.
Milking Bessie was Lithia’s responsibility, but when heavy snows came, William usually handled that particular chore for her. However, William’s fever made that impossible on this particular morning. While Lithia watched the rope fling about, she realized her lifeline was only a rope, a rope that could break or come untied. And to make matters worse, her William was sick and sound asleep, completely unable to assist her if worse came to worst. Lithia’s heart pounded. She didn’t want to leave William and the warmer confines of the cabin, but knew she had no choice. The young woman had to make her way to the barn. Bessie had to be fed and milked, even if Lithia couldn’t manage to bring the wooden bucket of milk safely back to the cabin. If she didn’t go, Bessie’s udder would become gorged with milk. The gentle natured milk cow would be in immense pain, and that was a thought Lithia could not bear.
With her shoes laced all the way up and covering herself from head to ankle with her heavy coat, only her eyes were visible after she wrapped a shawl about her head and placed a pair of William’s woolen socks on her hands for mittens. Removing the well worn bar from the cabin door, she stepped outside while pulling the cabin’s heavy door closed, quickly locking it with the latch pin. Then, Lithia hurriedly grabbed hold of the flailing rope with both gloved hands. The wind both stung her eyes and made it almost impossible for the slight woman to see or hold onto her lifeline, but somehow she kept going. With snow up to her knees, she continued, one painful step at a time, to Bessie. The barn door was a beautiful sight when she finally reached it. On a normal day, Lithia left the barn door open while she went about her chores. But, this was not a normal day. This was a bitter cold, blustery day so she decided a shut door might help keep out some of the gusts and weather.
Once inside, she was still cold, but safe from the wicked wind beating her to death. As she removed the shawl from her face, her sigh of relief froze in the air. It was already cold enough, so Lithia didn’t want to make Bessie flinch from the touch of her icy cold hands. So, she removed William’s socks and rubbed her hands together to generate some warmth, all the while discussing the snowstorm with Bessie. From the hay mow, she pitched sustenance for Bessie into the feeding trough. Within a few minutes, her blood was circulating, making her hands somewhat warmer. With the pail in place and sitting on the small stool, she began milking. From out of the blue, she heard a faint, but strangely, familiar noise mingled with the howling wind. Gradually, the voice grew stronger, and she realized it was her father-in-law calling her name. Much to her amazement, she turned her head to see him as he opened the barn door.
Out of breath from fighting the wind and tramping through the deep snow, the older man staggered, but still managed to cry out, “Lithia! Lithia! Are you all right?”
Bewildered, she replied in a meek voice, “Yes, I am.”
“Thank God above!” he exclaimed.
Confused and questioning, Lithia shook her head from side to side.
Still panting from physical exhaustion, Rickles Stanley closed the barn door behind him before explaining. “Lithia, with the storm outside and William feeling poorly when I got up this morning, I told Olley I should come check on you two. Then, as I came up on the other side of the ridge, I spotted fresh tracks in the snow.”
“Tracks? What kind of tracks?” she questioned.
“Panther!” the older man replied with a matter of fact tone to his voice.
As Lithia stood up, she felt a chill go down her spine, one more chilling than the frigid weather. Her eyes widened as she heard her own voice exclaim, “A panther!”
Rickles Stanley began to explain in more detail when he exclaimed, “Yes! Yes! Comin’ out of that cluster of pines on the other side, I noticed real fresh tracks. I hurried as fast as I could to get to the top to look down here, and there, not 50 yards ahead of me, was a panther, the biggest I done seen ‘round here. That black coat of his stood out against the white ground.”
Lithia uttered not a word, but her wide eyes spoke volumes.
Her father-in-law took another breath before adding, “He didn’t struggle not a bit; that varmit somehow seemed to leap through the snow.” Rickles paced about the small barn as he continued, “I yelled your name over and over, but I guess you couldn’t hear me for the wind.” Rickles took a deep breath before declaring in a voice that resonated through the barn, “It’s a miracle! I do declare it’s a real miracle like in the Bible! That cat didn’t turn back toward me. Lithia, I didn’t bring along my shotgun. Both of us was as helpless as new birds, totally helpless while I watched that black devil get closer and closer to you. I could see you tryin’ to get to the barn, and girl, he was only a little ways following you when you opened that door.” He sighed deeply. “Lithia, if you had not closed that door that panther would have…” He didn’t have to finish his thought out loud. Lithia knew.
As the news began to sink in, the young woman’s knees grew so weak she had to once more sit down on the milking stool. Her voice quivered as she admitted, “I was afraid of the storm and the wind, but what could have killed me was a panther…something I had not considered.”
Lithia, if you had not closed the barn door, you’d be a goner, and that’s for sure.”
Wide-eyed and pale as a ghost, she said, “A body never knows when their time is up. This very day could have been the day for me to meet the Maker.”
Her husband’s father nodded in agreement.
After calming down a bit, Rickles Stanley finished milking Bessie and carried the milk inside for his daughter-in-law. Following checking on his son, warming his old bones by the fire while sipping on a cup of Lithia’s strong, hot coffee, the wind finally subsided enough for Rickles to make the strenuous trek back over the ridge to his cabin home. William’s fever broke about as quickly as it had come on. It took a couple of weeks, but the snow eventually melted. As for Lithia, her close call with the panther on Bad Creek became an indelible memory of “almost” meeting her Maker, one that she frequently shared with her children and grandchildren over the years.
Lithia Garland Stanley lived a long and full existence, partially because she had done such a simple thing as shut a barn door. But, like all living things before and after her, the time did come for her to ultimately meet her Maker. For Lithia, that meeting did not take place on Bad Creek in North Carolina, caused by a panther or storm, but was from natural causes. And it did not take place on Bad Creek, but in faraway Fannin County, GA, and instead of a cold wintry day, it was on an early spring day in the year 1881.
*"This man and his wife moved with all their children and grandchildren to Georgia in 1842 from a farm on Bad Creek, a tributary of Big Rock Creek." A Rough Road in a Good Land, by Lawrence L Stanley, page 36.
NOTE: Based on fact, this fictionalized account was written by Wanda L. Harrell, one of Nancy Lithia Garland Stanley’s scores of great great great granddaughters.
