Root Jumper by Justine Felix Rutherford

Author:Justine Felix Rutherford [Rutherford, Justine Felix]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781475937794
Publisher: Author Solutions Inc.
Published: 2012-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

Traveling Old Roads

I love to travel old roads. There is nothing better on a Sunday afternoon than to get on an old road and let the memories wash over you. Curt and I do this often. For instance, we live on Union Ridge which is an old road. If old roads could talk, what tales they could tell.

I think about people who lived here many years ago. Starting on the eastern end of Union Ridge, there were the Bakers—a lovely family. As a child, I went to Sunrise Methodist Church with them. Coming this way lived the Gebhardts. They owned a grocery store and ran the post office. They also were farmers. This began the area of the German people. There were the Dilleys, who were farmers. Then there was the Felix family, of whom I am a descendant. My grandfather, Arnold Felix, was born in Switzerland in 1843. His family was of German descent. He came to America sometime in the 1840s with his parents James and Julie Salome Felix. They settled on Union Ridge sometime in the 1840s. He and his father were surveyors and painters.

There were the Telgerniers. My husband’s great grandmother, Agnes Telgerniers, came from Austria—Germany as it was called at that time. I remember Doyle telling me this story about his great grandmother. The Germans loved mushrooms. They always picked the wild ones, and sometimes they were a little unsure if they were getting the good ones. Her granddaughter lived with her. Grandma had picked these beautiful mushrooms, but she was a little unsure. She told her granddaughter to eat some and if they didn’t hurt her, then she could eat the rest. The reason she would let her granddaughter eat them was that she knew how to doctor her if the mushrooms were bad. She herself might die, and there would be no one with her granddaughter. The granddaughter ate some mushrooms, and they were fine.

There were also the Miller and Oswald families. These people had large fruit orchards. They also were farmers. They sold fruit from their orchards, but much of their fruit was given to the community. People came to Union Ridge to get fruit to can and to make apple butter. The peaches were so lovely. People have told me how delicious their fruit was.

My dad and mother, Walter and Julia Felix, lived here for a short period of time during this period. I have heard my family speak of John and Flora Miller and of how good the Millers were to them. The German fences always seemed a little straighter and the barns a little sturdier. As a child, I walked all over this area barefoot.

Leading from Union Ridge to the left was Hoop Pole Ridge. It is now known as Fairview Ridge. This ridge was where workers cut hoop poles for making barrel hoops. These were tall straight hickory timbers which the hill people would cut and put in bundles of approximately fifty to take to the river for shipping.

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