A City Child’s Visit to Cashiers: History

Written By: Jane Gibson Nardy - Cashiers Historical Society | Issue: 2021/11 – November

T.R. Zachary and his second wife, Aunt Mary Rogers who was living at the Old Zachary Homeplace in 1930s and 1940s.

A city child, waking up in Atlanta in the late 1930s and early 1940s, could hear the sounds of automobile motors, horns honking, streetcars rattling, the milk man leaving bottles of milk at the front door, a farmer in an old pickup truck, moving slowly down the street calling out the identity of the  garden vegetables he had to sell. 

 Nearer lunch time the sound of a bell ringing would come from the refrigerated cart being pushed by the Hunkie Man (a “Hunkie” was vanilla ice cream on a stick, dipped in chocolate).  Every child in hearing distance would run out to the street with some money in hand, watching that man pushing a cart full of ice cream get closer and closer.

That city child, who was yours truly, would have a different experience upon waking up in Cashiers. 

In the second floor bedroom, the window was cracked and a slight cool breeze came in along with the bright sunshine. The sound was cow-bells, with the cows moving outside the barn after being fed and milked. They were actually starting their daily walk around town as there was no law about farm animals having to be fenced in. That was called “free range” and late in the afternoon, when the animals got hungry enough, they just came back home where they were milked and fed and shut up in the barn for the night.

A mountain breakfast was quite ample and although no grits were offered, hot applesauce was served. There was a big apple orchard outside and year round; apples were always on the table, in one form or another. One of my favorite places was the spring with a spring-house built over it. It was only a short walk from the house. The spring house served as a refrigerator and the milk, the butter, and anything else that needed to be cool was kept there. Hanging on a branch, just above the spring, was a dipper with a long handle. You could just reach up, get the dipper, fill it with some cold spring water, have yourself a delicious drink and then hang the dipper back on the branch. Everyone used the same dipper.

All day you played outside in the woods and in the shallow streams. Salamanders of various colors could easily be caught and on rock banks along trails, there were spots thick with what was called isinglass (mica), which could be peeled off in huge sheets and kept as a treasure. When night came, the oil lamps were lit as without electricity there were no lights to turn on – very exciting for a child. As you walked from room to room or climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, you had to carry an oil lamp with you.

After the end of World War II, the old Zachary House, which some of us call “the old place,” was modernized and wired for electricity and even today, a Zachary descendant  lives there, just up the road from my home.