The Photograph

The Photograph

Paul Shoemaker handed his camera to his younger brother Peter and sat down on the lush summer grass next to Simone. Peter framed the shot per his brother’s instructions - with the couple offset to the right, Paul’s flourishing garden in the background, and the summer sun shining with approval on the faces of a young couple in love.

Peter pressed the shutter release … and time stood still …

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The Bee Man of Flat Rock

The Bee Man of Flat Rock

As a young boy growing up in northern Virginia, Will Garvey was drafted to help with his father’s hobby of beekeeping. “I didn’t like it,” he recalls. “I got stung a lot.” Now, nearly five decades later, Will is the Volunteer Beekeeper for The Park at Flat Rock and a vocal advocate for the many ways individuals can help care pollinators and for the natural world around us.

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Memories of RBG

Memories of RBG

Fifty years ago this month, a healthy baby boy was born to Stephen and Paula Wiesenfeld in Edison, NJ. Within hours, however, the celebration of birth turned into unimaginable tragedy when Paula suffered an amniotic embolism and died on the same day her son was born. It was June 5th, 1972.

Although he had no way of knowing, Stephen Wiesenfeld was about to embark on an amazing legal journey that involved confronting an archaic statute of federal law. It also led him into a lifelong friendship with perhaps the most iconic female jurist in our country’s history - Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

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A Creative Hush

A Creative Hush

When Robin Hawkins Anderson arrived in Henderson County in 2015, she was still recovering from the upheaval caused by the dissolution of her marriage. A friend recommended spending time on the trails of the Carl Sandburg Home to find perspective and perhaps discover a new path forward. Seven years and over 7000 photographs later, Robin has published her first book, Uncommon Sanctuary, a photographic diary featuring Carl and Lillian Sandburg’s Connemara home in the mountains of western North Carolina.

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A Love of Lifelong Learning

A Love of Lifelong Learning

During a recent Blue Ridge Center for Lifelong Learning course, instructor Paula Withrow did more than just teach history. She brought it to life. Dressed as Mata Hari, Withrow recounted the life and exploits of one of the most famous female spies in history. Her mastery of the subject material was captivating and her sartorial commitment to the topic gave additional life to an already fascinating subject.

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102 Years of a Living History

102 Years of a Living History

As I stepped into the small Oakland Cemetery on the easternmost edge of Flat Rock, I could see her recent grave still adorned with memorial flowers. It was a cool, gray Saturday morning and the only sounds were the birds chirping in trees that border the modest cemetery on three sides. The grass was wet. The red clay, unearthed to prepare for her internment, still visible around the gravesite.

I’d come to this hallowed ground to pay my respects to a woman that I never met. To honor and reflect on a woman whose life was more intricately bound to the history of Flat Rock than perhaps almost any other living soul in the Village.

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From Mondamin to Munich

From Mondamin to Munich

By the time John Burton was 11 years old, he had dislocated his left elbow six times and undergone three surgeries in an attempt to repair the problematic joint. John’s early medical misfortunes, however, turned out to be a bit of fortuitous fate that helped launch him on a course from the waters of Lake Summit in Tuxedo, NC to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

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Growing Up at Flat Rock Playhouse

Growing Up at Flat Rock Playhouse

Growing up in Flat Rock wasn’t the most “kid-friendly” place. There was no late-night hang-out spot (because everything closed by 8 pm), there wasn’t a park at that time, and most of the church community was above the age of 65. However, there was one location that brought children of all ages together. A place that inspired and encouraged creativity. A place that drew people in not only from Flat Rock, but Asheville, Hendersonville, Greenville, etc. This place is the great Flat Rock Playhouse, the State Theatre of North Carolina.

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Memories of Flat Rock Summers

Memories of Flat Rock Summers

Beginning in the 1830s, Flat Rock became a flourishing summer colony as a number of prominent families made an annual trek from the low country of the South Carolina coast to the elevation and cooler temperatures of the mountains of western North Carolina. The tradition of spending summers in Flat Rock has continued for multiple generations and stories of those earlier summers live on in the memories and recollections of Flat Rock residents today.

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From Tuskegee to East Flat Rock: The Rosenwald Schools

From Tuskegee to East Flat Rock: The Rosenwald Schools

The Rosenwald Schools are the inspiring story of two hardworking, successful men who gave back to the country in which they prospered. Conceived by African American educator Booker T. Washington, the Rosenwald School project was a massive effort to improve black rural schooling in the Jim Crow-era South when minority students received vastly inferior education and sometimes no education at all. An effort that eventually reached all the way to East Flat Rock …

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Bonclarken: 100 Years of Good Clear Vision

Bonclarken: 100 Years of Good Clear Vision

As he stood on the Heidelberg Garden terrace in August of 1921, Robert Galloway placed himself squarely at the intersection of two extraordinary chapters in the history of Flat Rock. Behind him, and representing the past, stood the magnificent structure and intriguing history of Heidelberg House. Stretching out before him was the future … his dream of a spectacular new home for the summer Bible conference of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

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