Hurricane Helene’s effects have finally reached my area so while I listen to trees beat against the side of the house and rain pelting the roof, I thought I’d put down some memories in writing. This has been a difficult week for me personally, sort of the “icing” on a very sad cake. It began in June with the death of my mother, a death we’d been expecting and preparing for, but a serious loss nonetheless. Then came the deaths of five individuals in my circle of friends and family, all in the same week in August. Mentally, I struggled but readjusted my Big Girl Panties and moved on. It’s due to my age, I reckoned.
The final blow came when on the evening of Sunday, September 22, I learned that my alma mater was in flames. I knew, due to its dilapidated state from years of neglect, that this was the end of the old building. There really wasn’t anything for firefighters to save other than the surrounding forest and nearby structures. Honestly, it set off a period of mourning in my soul: Mourning for the end of an era and, quite possibly, my newly acquired role of “adult orphan.”
Memories overwhelmed me, haunted me, really. I valiantly fought the humpteen urges to call Mom, call Dad, and tell them the school was on fire! The photos of its collapsed floors and ceilings, broken windows, crumbling plaster, and library books strewn throughout made me physically ill. The old Mountain State Schools (nee Alderson Bible College) building is, I believe, the reason I “took a shine” to architecture in the first place. It’s hardwood floors throughout – which I’d be willing to bet were milled at the Meadow River Lumber Company in Rainelle – those massive oak staircases, newels and spindles, doors and facings, and of course, the grand stained glass window that was providentially spared from destruction, having been removed years ago to the Alderson-Broaddus University at Phillipi. In my mind, I was remembering each and every room on each and every floor: The “apartments,” the classrooms, the hidden hallway, even the “hidden” elevator used to haul tools, materials, and equipment used to access and “tar the roof.”
So, I wrote my girlfriend, a fellow roommate and graduate, to share in my recollections.
Behind the main U-shaped building was another smaller building where the coal furnace, bin, and boiler were housed. In cold weather, a fire was built that made the water boil. The hot water, maybe the steam, would heat the radiators in ALL the rooms/dorms in the building. Some nights, the hissing sound from steam was indistinguishable from the squeaky sound that bats make – to a teenaged girl anyway.
The winter of 76/77, it “snowed oats.” The snow was at least a foot deep and even deeper in the drifts. The Davis boys, and maybe my cousin Phil, had found an innertube out of an old bus tire and filled it with air. Ginny Holtzapfel Simpkins and I joined them in using it as a sled. We started near the top of the hill to the left behind the main building in the photo. So we were between the “coal house” and the main building. What you also can’t see is that on the far right of the photo, at the back and side of the building, is the property line and fence just above Blue Sulphur Springs Road. From the left to the right is all downhill.
So we all pushed then piled onto the innertube. And I swear to you, that thing was airborne for a few seconds. We. Were. Flying! With the fence – and Blue Sulphur Springs Road just below it, and certain imminent pain looming up ahead, we all rolled off the tube. The tube of course hit the fence, did a double-back flip and came to rest, ready for another run.
It was as if the memories would restore the building, my youth, a lost era. From the late 60s to late 70s, I think every summer with few exceptions were spent here. Bible Camp one week, Youth Camp another. We’d go down and “swim” in the Greenbrier most afternoons. As a family, we lived there for several weeks my junior year waiting for the house my parents purchased to be vacated by the current owner so we could move in. During our stay that fall, my brothers and my cousin painted one of the dorms without anyone’s knowledge. When Dad got wind of it, he investigated. I’ll never forget his vivid description of the color choices: “Baby Poop Green and Cut Your Head Off Red.” Maybelline would be thrilled.
Good memories came flooding back and lifted my spirits. I’ve decided that I prefer to remember the good and not the bad. I’m getting too old to dwell on bad stuff anymore or drag things like a ball and chain everywhere I go. I ain’t got time for that: Like the Book of James says, Life is but a vapor.
For further photos see:
YouTube Pics by the Realtor, 2011
Stained Glass Window
JPG Stained Glass Window
MinskysAbandoned
AbandonedOnline – Alderson Academy
Alderson’s Store on FB has photos of the fire.
