Do you remember earlier this year when I talked about the “vagabonds” visiting this area in 1918?
Those wandering adventurers – Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone – were actually wealthy and well-known Americans who decided to embark on some pioneering automobile excursions in the eastern U.S. In 1918 their excursion included West Virginia, and western Virginia including the Shenandoah Valley.
I asked readers if they had any local lore about the visit made to the area by those famous men.
Well, I heard from Helen Smith Jordan and her husband Russ who gave me some interesting information about that visit as well as some fun information about themselves and our community’s history.
I had a delightful visit with the Jordans, learned about their deep roots in the area, and saw an antique coffee grinder that connected them to the vagabonds’ visit in nearby Bath County a hundred years ago.
The 1918 itinerary for the vagabonds ran from August 18 until August 30. The entourage left from Pittsburgh and on the fifth day they arrived in Bath County, Virginia, where they camped at Bolar Springs on the night of August 23. They departed at 9:30 a.m. the next morning. It was not until August 30, the last day of the trip, that the group arrived in Staunton after having gone all the way to Knoxville.
A photograph from the book that Burroughs published about that year’s excursion shows the campsite in Bath County. Clearly the men were not “roughing it.” They were actually staying on the grounds of the Bolar Springs Hotel, a famous resort where people came to bathe in and drink the mineral waters from the springs as the water was considered very healthy.
The expansive hotel contained 22 rooms where travelers could stay, but many people, including the vagabonds, camped on the 100-acre site to partake of the waters. The hotel would often serve food to the campers as well. That stop in Bolar Springs is the connection that links an antique coffee grinder to that overnight camp out in Bath County.
Helen’s mother, Frances (Fannie) Gertrude Stinespring, was born in Harrisonburg, but Fannie’s mother died when she was a month old and she was adopted by her aunt and uncle who ran the Bolar Springs Hotel. So Fannie, who eventually married Richard Smith from Churchville, grew up in the “hotel and restaurant” business so to speak. Fannie was born in 1890 and grew up watching her adopted parents run the hotel. Eventually she married Richard Smith of Churchville and they ran the hotel until the 1930s.
The Smiths had three girls and two boys with Helen, who was born in 1928, being the youngest. She remembers with fondness her early years at the hotel. “My mother was the main bread winner and ran the hotel,” Helen recalled. “I remember being at the hotel and being in snow over my head. My father would take me to gather maple sugar water on the grounds.”
Although the vagabonds stayed overnight on the hotel grounds, the event occurred 10 years before Helen was born. Nonetheless the visit made an impression on the family, especially Helen’s mother. “A lot of celebrities came to the springs, especially people with skin disorders because it was supposed to be healthy. The spring came right out of the mountains and was so cold it would give you cramps,” Helen said.
“People would come by horse and buggy and many would arrive on the mail hack and stay for two or three months,” recalled Helen’s mother in a 1968 newspaper article the day after the hotel burned to the ground.
Helen remembers her mother telling her how Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and their group were at the hotel and camped in tents nearby. Her mother ground coffee for them in the coffee grinder that Helen now owns. Her mother also baked bread for the campers. “My mother was a really good cook,” she said.
She went on to talk about the small grinder with its hand crank. “I have known the story of the coffee grinder since I was little and before my mother passed in 1976 she told me that she would like it to be kept in the family. My oldest son has said that he wants it,” she added.
Of course the grinder was not just used for the celebrities who stopped by. Fannie Smith would make coffee for anyone staying at the hotel or camping. In the article about the hotel burning, Fannie recalled other famous visitors such as Cyrus H. McCormick and one of the famous watch making brothers from New York City, Robert Hawley and Charles Henry Ingersoll.
The recollections passed down from mother to daughter match well with the official notations that Burroughs put down in his publication about the 1918 trip.
“August 23rd, we made camp at Bolar Springs – a famous spring, and a beautiful spot. We pitched our tents among the sugar maples, and some of the party availed themselves of the public bath-house that spanned the overflow of the great spring. At breakfast I heard someone ask Edison if he would have prunes. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I was once a telegraph operator and lived in a boarding-house.’ I think it was here that Mr. Edison gave several children standing about a nickel each. When asked if they knew his name, a little girl answered, ‘Yes, Mr. Graphophone.’”
By the time Helen was in second grade, the family had moved back to Augusta County to live on the Churchville farm of her paternal grandparents. Eventually the family landed in Staunton where Fannie continued to run boarding houses, the most significant one being Esseton on Fillmore Street. She operated that establishment until 1949 when the landlord died and the house was torn down to build the telephone company.
The Smiths rented out rooms (people who lived there were called “roomers”) and served meals (people who just ate there were called “boarders”). As a child Helen would help clean rooms and wait tables. After the Esseton House, her mother operated a boarding house on Frederick Street. In those days a lot of people of all different socio-economic levels lived in boarding houses. Such was the case with Staunton’s Mayor Grubert and his wife. They followed the Smiths and lived with them for many years.
“My mother was a wonderful person. Sometimes the roomers were sick and she would stay up all night to take care of them. She was a good cook and baked her own bread,” recalled Helen. Fannie Smith died in 1976.
The Smiths were in Staunton all through World War II and Helen’s brother perished in that war. Helen remembers as a teenager dating a couple of the soldiers at the nearby Woodrow Wilson hospital and playing cards and badminton with them.
She graduated from Lee High in 1947 and began working for a local attorney. Soon another Stauntonian would grab her attention. Russ Jordan was born and reared in Staunton. He attended Staunton Military Academy and, after graduating, he and Helen were married on August 19, 1950. He served in the Korean War and got degrees in administration and education from Bridgewater and Madison Colleges.
From there he spent most of his career as a probation and parole officer and then an officer of the court.
Helen ended up at National Valley Bank and worked in the trust department for 25 years before retiring.
They have two sons, one of whom will inherit the antique coffee grinder, as well as some wonderful stories to go along with it.