Pictured is a one-room schoolhouse in the Blue Ridge Mountains that was used in the late 19th century.
This week I have stopped our series on Ancestors of Adams County to insert a story about a little boy named Ottie C. Powell. Since we talked about the town of Glasgow, Virginia, last week, I wanted to share a story with you that captured my heart. It is a true story, occurring in the fall of 1891, close to Glasgow, Virginia, in the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was originally written as a newspaper article by J.B. Huffman in 1925, which I found later in a book about Glasgow, Virginia.
Little Ottie was the son of Rev. E.M. and Lillian Powell. The Powell family had eight children with little Ottie being the youngest. Rev. Powell was a minister of the Gospel and worked odd jobs around the countryside to supplement their income.
The story began on November 9, 1891, as Mrs. Powell was waking up her children to get ready for school. The days were starting to get cooler and the trees were turning their beautiful fall colors. With breakfast over, all the children were off to attend the Tall Mountain one-room schoolhouse except for little five-year-old Ottie. Ottie had stopped by one of the local farmer’s farms where his father had been since the break of dawn shucking corn. Rev. Powell took one look at little Ottie and said, “What is wrong, Ottie?” Ottie looked down at the ground while using his hand-me-down shoes to push the dirt around. Ottie looked up at his dad and said, “Do I have to go to school today?” “Can’t I just stay home with you?” “I can help you shuck corn; I am really good at that.” Rev. Powell said, “I know you are but you need to go to school and learn how to read and write.” “When you get home from school we can throw the ball around.” Ottie hung his head and kicked the dirt on the ground in front of him and headed off to school.
The Tall Mountain one-room schoolhouse lay at the bottom of Bluff Mountain part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Miss Nannie Gilbert was their teacher. She was a medium-sized lady with a kind smile and a loving personality. She had all eight grades in one room. She had a difficult job but was an excellent teacher and was loved by all her students. The day was going as usual and as was customary at that time the students were given a short break in the afternoon. The girls were given a five-minute recess to play outside followed by a five-minute recess for the boys.
That particular afternoon was warm and sunny, but Miss Gilbert thinking it was going to be cold the next morning decided to send the boys after some kindling wood to get the fire going the next morning. As soon as it was time for the boy’s recess, Miss Gilbert asked the boys to gather some kindling wood from the grove of trees behind the schoolhouse. The mountains behind the school were covered with trees and finding kindling wood would be an easy task. The older boys took off running at top speed. Little Ottie being small for his age hurried to catch up. He wanted to make Miss Gilbert proud. He was going to gather more wood than anybody else.
As boys will be boys they ran deep into the woods as they played soldiers using the sticks they were picking up as swords. Soon the boys
had their arms loaded with firewood and were ready to return to school. Ottie was trying to hurry and get his arms loaded with sticks to take back to Miss Gilbert but he kept dropping them. When he finally looked up all the boys were gone.
Next week we will continue our story of little Ottie Powell.
