[at-l] Fw: Ms Tillie passed away

[Jan Lite]

Thanks, Chainsaw.
This news makes me sad and nostalgic, both. Her woodsy loft and dining
table  was a welcome respite in a looooong state. I look back on that time
with fondness.

A memory from my trail journal:

"Sandal and I hike on together, discussing science and philosophy. He is an
interesting young man, very bright and centered. After a little hunting, we
locate Wood's Hole Hostel, an AT classic - an old homestead belonging to Roy
and Tillie Wood. Roy is dead now and Tillie lives mainly in Atlanta. But she
returns for April and May to turn her lovely log barn/ hostel into a welcome
spot for hikers. Her nearest neighbor is a mile and a half away.

The old barn has a common area for lounging and cooking, and hefty, plastic
mattresses in the loft. My hipbones spy the latter and sigh with relief -
they are hating this light but thin Z-Rest I am carrying.

I use the phone in the house, also log - huge, chestnut logs to be exact. I
learn that the chestnut root systems still live on in the mountains, sending
up juvenile sprouts, sometimes even getting large enough to reproduce before
the chestnut blight knocks them down again.

I have never seen a chestnut tree, the blight starting in the '30s, but a
few huge chestnut logs still lie rotting in the mountains, and they are
impressively huge. It must have been quite a tree to be around.

I sign up for her $3.50 breakfast.

Frog Caller is here, I met this section hiker last March when I went out.
Here she is again.

The White Brothers are here too, so Sandal and I are #4 and #5 on the Tillie
Wood breakfast list. Hurray! She only feeds 8 around her table.

Later Raisenette and Two Dogs, Load Runner and Apricot join us on the porch.
Two Dogs claims the hammock on the porch.

Tillie Wood is sharp as a tack, and has two hiker-volunteers here to help
her run this lovely homestead property. There is a shelter in Georgia,
"Woods Hole Shelter," named after Tillie and Roy.

Not courageous enough to brave the solar shower, which I hear is "uh,
invigorating...", I again go unshowered. Another factor is the cold wind
which is blowing through - Sandal and I got here just before a storm.
It pours off and on all night. We are very grateful, given the thunderous
volume of water, to be under this loft's tin roof."

and

"First flame azalea, a blaze orange one

The first bell at Wood's Hole rang at 7 am. The second, at 7:30 am, called
us lucky eight to breakfast in the main house.

A fire was crackling in the hearth on this chill morning, and Southern
hospitality was the rule. We untidy, unwashed thru-hikers were treated to a
table set with napkins, china plates, silver - not grandma's best, but nice,
homey things.

Remember, we hikers are all used to cooking and eating from one pot, and
eating with a lexan spoon. Then scraping the leavings with a little filtered
spring water, then drinking the pot liquor. This was high cotton.

Our breakfast eggs, biscuits, sausage, OJ, grits and coffee were inhaled.
Let it be known that Mrs. Tillie Wood makes the most melt-in-your-mouth
biscuits on the Trail.

"No one leaves until all the biscuits are gone," said Tillie with a smile.

I did my share."

And here was another most excellent Virginia day, shortly after, juiced up
by a truly stupendous lamb dinner feast and good lister fellowship:
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=33177


>Message: 6
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:34:16 -0400
From: "Carla & Dave Hicks" <daveh at psknet.com>
>Subject: [at-l] Fw: Ms Tillie passed away
To: "~~~AT-L List" <at-l at backcountry.net>

>Here is the first one I tried to get on the list earlier.
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