2009 Foxfire/Julia Fleet Scholarships

As a young girl, Julia B. Fleet
developed an affinity for the North
Georgia Mountains and their residents.
Ms. Fleet came to Foxfire in 1989
while searching for a way to contribute
something significant back to the
area where she had spent so
many pleasurable days.

For over 30 years, Rabun County High School students involved in Foxfire programs have received scholarship funding from The Foxfire Fund, Inc. These scholarships are currently funded by an endowment established by philanthropist Julia B. Fleet. The Julia Fleet/Foxfire Scholarships are awarded based on four main criteria—student participation in Foxfire programs, each student’s potential for success, their demonstrated financial needs, and their academic achievements.

After their time in the Foxfire Magazine classroom, helping preserve the heritage of Southern
Appalachia while building ties to the community and their elders, five graduating Rabun
County High School seniors were awarded new Foxfire/Julia Fleet Scholarships for 2009.
(L to R) Krystal Harkins, Viola Nichols, Samantha Fountain, Anna Phillips, Casi Best.

2009 Event Schedule

The Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center is offering two Children's Heritage Day events this summer, for kids ages 7-12, from 9am to 2pm on Saturday, June 27th and Saturday, July 25th. Children will participate in hands-on activities and make projects to take home. They will see demonstrations of daily living over a hundred years ago in Appalachia, including blacksmithing, woodworking, weaving, and more. Children will also participate in old-timey games and activities and make a toy typical of the time period to keep. Drop-off and pick-up is at the Foxfire Gift Shop at 200 Foxfire Lane, off of Cross Street in Mountain City.

The cost of the event is $30 per child, with $5 discount for additional siblings. Parents are welcome to stay and observe and assist at no extra cost. Snack and lunch are provided for children only. Please make your payment early to reserve your child's space - each date is limited to 12 children. Mail payments to Foxfire, PO Box 541, Mountain City, GA 30562, or drop off your payment at the Museum gift shop. Call 706-746-5828 for more information. The registration form can be downloaded here. Events to be held rain or shine.

Join Foxfire from 10–4 at the Old Dillard School in Dillard, Georgia (6 miles north of Clayton, Georgia, on U.S. Highway 441). Meet the students responsible for The Foxfire Magazine and talk to some of the ‘contacts’ - the folks whose lives are presented therein. Watch demonstrations of many traditional skills and talk with the folks who enjoy keeping these skills alive. Crafters on hand are usually displaying pottery, wood carving, handmade musical instruments, blacksmithing, spinning and weaving, folk art, basket weaving, cornshuck dolls, coopering, broom-making, and much, much more. Lunch will be available on the grounds (until sold out), there will be games for the kids, and live bluegrass and gospel music from local artists on stage throughout the day. The Festival’s massive one-of-a-kind raffle often features as many as 80-100 unique and interesting items donated by area businesses, usually including gift certificates, decorative knickknacks, paintings, pottery, and much more. Come learn about traditional skills, enjoy the music and fun, and help support the students of Rabun County and the preservation of their Southern Appalachian heritage. Admission is $4 for ages 11 & up, $2 for ages 6—10, 5 & under free.

All proceeds from the raffle and gate admissions help to fund Foxfire’s student work programs right here in Rabun County, helping our students further their education and work experience while allowing them to build stronger ties to their community and heritage.

2009 Living History Days

This year’s Living History Days was an even more expansive hit than last year, with well over 500 people visiting the Museum during the event’s two days, Friday and Saturday, April 17—18. Scores of families and curious adults came to watch and take part in the wide array of activities presented by local home-school families and friends of Foxfire. Dressed once again in their period clothing, the demonstrators gave everyone a glimpse into the traditional Appalachian settler’s life of 200 years ago.

Twisiting together a short piece of rope with
the vintage hand-powered rope maker was just one
of many hands-on activities that kids (and adults) could
try during this year's Living History Days event.

Living History Days attendees watch woodworker Claud Connell construct
a wooden bucket, as his new apprentice, current Foxfire Magazine
student Keifer Phillips, works a different project on the "shaving horse"
bench they constructed together a few days prior to the event.

While following the tour trail through the grounds, visitors again saw the Museum brought to life by mountain folk cooking in a stone fireplace and working iron in a coal-fired forge. They were able to participate in children’s games and traditional church services, and try their hands at quilting and making rope from twine. There were many new attractions added to this year’s event, too. Several folks were scattered around the Museum, sharing information and tales of Appalachia and the Museum’s artifacts with curious visitors. Other new demonstrations were in place, as well— dyeing wool yarn with natural plant materials, crafting toy dolls from corn shucks, and making fine wooden buckets were among the new ideas that the home-school families and others brought to Living History Days this year. Once again, both the enthusiasm of the demonstrators and the event’s attendance and reception by the public are the truest validation of the care and hard work invested by Foxfire students over the last four decades, in order to preserve the knowledge, methods, and tools of their charismatic and resourceful Appalachian forbearers—so that others may enjoy it for generations to come.

2009 Classes offered by The Village Weaver

Resident artist Sharon Grist offers these classes at the Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center in Mountain City, Georgia. Classes are led by Sharon unless otherwise noted.

Pre-registration and payment are required no later than 10 days prior to class date.
Call Sharon at 706-490-0332 for more information or to register.

The Foxfire Book of Winemaking

Our Newest Release, September 2008

Taken from student author Kelly Shropshire's introduction:

"Blackberry wine is good for
the tummyache and it's a
good cure for diarrhea, too.
My mother used to keep it all
the time. It only took a little—
I'd say a quarter of a cup."
—Mary Pitts

For many people of the Appalachian mountains, winemaking is as much a part of their culture as the mountains themselves. Made from the fruits and berries native to the land, homemade wine has been used for everything from curing stomachaches to cooking and, of course, just plain drinking.

Many early settlers came to the South and brought with them the ancient methods of winemaking. Despite admonitions against the evils of strong drink by Bible Belt preachers, winemaking caught on. Over the years, many unique winemaking methods, as well as types, have evolved. There are those like Lawton Brooks, who use the natural yeast on the fruit itself to make their muscadine wine. And others, like Granny Toothman, who refuse to make their wine in anything but a stone jar. Blackberry, dandelion, corncob—the types of Appalachian wines are as diverse as the people who make them.

"Wine is the most wholesome
beverage in the world. That
goes back to the Bible.
The Lord gave Paul grapes
and told him to make wine."
—Bill Park

We first became interested in winemaking during preparation of The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery. We began learning of mountain people who still made their own wines at home from the fruit they had grown themselves. Here was something we’d never done before—a documentation of winemaking in the southern Appalachian mountains. Toting tape recorders and cameras, we set out on our interviews—and we usually found ourselves directly involved in the winemaking process. We gathered grapes for Bill Park, crushed blackberries for Harry Pitts, and gutted a pumpkin for Effie Lord. We found that the various types of wine were endless—as John Bulgin puts it, “You can make wine out of anything but a rock.”

Now, we offer to you our finished product. This is a book for the amateur winemaker interested in learning the skill, as well as for the experienced winemaker interested in unearthing the roots of winemaking in this region. And most important, in the tradition of Foxfire, this is a book intended to preserve a small piece of our heritage and to pass along the traditions of the people of the southern Appalachian mountains.