LENOIR, N.C. – In the mid 1990s, I worked at the Lenoir News-Topic as a reporter. As such, I was afforded numerous opportunities to write feature articles on dozens of people from Caldwell County. I included many of those interviews in my book, “The Hillbilly Highway,” which was a tribute to mountain people here and beyond. It was published in 1997.

A quarter century later, it is as relevant as ever, with wisdom, local history, humor and a love for community being common themes shared by the voices emanating from its pages. So, I’m re-publishing several of those stories. Each article is reprinted as originally published except for minor editing corrections.

I hope you enjoy meeting – or reconnecting – with some folks from Caldwell County’s not-to-distant past. I know I enjoyed their company when we sat down the first time to chat. Decades later, I am even more thankful that I had an opportunity to meet these Caldwell County Gems.

This installment is the chapter “A ‘Wonderful’ Life,” based on a conversation with Jennie Yount of Granite Falls.

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When Jennie Yount says that raising 10 children through the Depression and beyond in this unpretentious town has been “a wonderful life,” it is said with such confidence and conviction that one senses she coined the phrase.

Though up in years now, the lady who often greets passers-by from her small front porch on “the best street in Granite Falls” is the matriarch of more than a growing and close-knit family. She and her husband, the late Wallace “Tode” Yount, were parents to many, many more youngsters who gathered at the couple’s store on South Main Street.

When folks older than 35 or so, who grew up in the town, are asked about the old Yount Grocery & Sporting Goods store, the inquisitor had best be prepared to hang around a while, for a fond remembrance of the gathering place is about to be shared.

It’s easy to see why.

Mrs. Yount welcomes visitors to her home, often greeting them with the phrase, “I’ve been thinking,” the same words she used above her column that she wrote years ago for three local newspapers.

“I can remember when I was working so hard on the newspaper. If I’d say I wanted to interview someone, that would kill them. But if I said I wanted to talk, well, that was fine.

“So we’ll just talk.”

She did – at ease – and at length.

She talked about raising her 10 youngsters, about the store, about “Tode” and others with nicknames, about a once bustling town and about the newspaper business. But most importantly, about living and loving.

“I didn’t have any problem with these children. They just came along,” muses Mrs. Yount.

The first four – all boys – were born in Illinois. The rest, four girls and then two more boys, were born in Granite Falls.

“I was pregnant all the time. I was the most contented pregnant woman that ever lived. It never worried me. It never bothered me,” she insists.

Apparently, that same calmness impressed Wallace.

They met west of Chicago, in Barrington, where Mrs. Yount and her family lived on a small farm. “When he met me, he was on the way to California hopping box cars,” she reveals.

He never made it.

“I put an end to that. I was a senior in high school. I looked as good as any of them,” she professes bluntly.

Mr. Yount had gotten a temporary job on a nearby relative’s farm. Mrs. Yount’s family was visiting, and the men were playing cards, she said. When they got ready to leave, she says, “Tode came out and picked up my overshoes, put them on me, and buckled them. I wasn’t use to that.

“From that time on, we were for each other. We hit it right off from the start. And it lasted all those years.”

She adds, “He was done hopping. When he met me, that was the end of that.”

He may have been done hopping boxcars, but with 10 children, he and his bride were not done hopping, especially after they returned to Granite Falls – Mrs. Yount’s home town – in the early ‘30s.

He started driving a laundry truck for $13 a week. “We thought we were in heaven,” offers Mrs. Yount.

He then opened a cafe and pool room in downtown, but decided later he “wanted to be closer to home,” so he opened the store on South Main Street.

Soon, it was a gathering post.

They opened it at 7 a.m. and didn’t close until midnight. They also opened on Sundays – after church. But it wasn’t uncommon for a hunter to come by as early as 4 a.m. and wake up the Younts for ammo or other gear.

It was a good experience for the children, remarks Mrs. Yount.

“Dad put all the boys to work.” After earning some pocket change, they would “disappear” though. “Every time I’d miss some of the kids. I knew they’d be at the barbecue. They had saved 25 cents.”

Other youngsters would gather at the store, and often, after leaving town as they grew older, would stop by the “gathering place” first upon returning home to catch upon on all the news.

There, the children would often earn nicknames. In fact, said Mrs. Yount, everyone had nicknames. Her husband’s had been “earned” when he was a child. However, Mrs. Yount found it not to be proper and insisted that the spelling not reflect its intention. “Now isn’t that a stinking thing to put on a kid?” she asks.

During the ‘40s, she began writing for the Hickory Daily Record and then the Charlotte Observer and finally the Lenoir News-Topic. Eventually, in the ‘50s, she became the editor of the Granite Press.

“It was so cold in the winter, I about had to type with gloves on,” recalls Mrs. Yount.

Eventually, the paper went the way of the movie theater, the grocery stores and other businesses. They fell victim to regional shopping malls and urban growth.

“It used to be a busy little town. We had a train going through here three or four times a day. Now you never see a train. Once in a long time you hear a whistle.”

Still though, one thing remains unchanged about this little town, she says. “We are neighborly.”

As she reflected upon that thought, her mind came came to her youngsters, as it often did throughout our conversation.

Pushing herself up on the edge of her sofa, she says with a grin, “It’s wonderful to have a big family, to be proud of them, to know they’re growing up to be good men and women.”

Two that are still “growing up,” Lynn Bean and Debby Annas, joined in on the conversation.

The first thing they did was make sure all of their siblings were mentioned. In addition to Lynn and Debby, there is Evan Jr., Paul, Jim, David, Barbara, Fred, Judi and Steve.

Lynn says, “She instilled in us her great love of reading. She was an avid reader and still is.”

Today, Debby works in the Granite Falls branch of the Caldwell County Library – which her mother lobbied hard to get. And Steve had had a novel published, “Wandering Star.”

Also, recalls Lynn, “She gave us all a great sense of competition, never letting us win. We always know if we won against mother, we had earned it. And so we savored it. We are all today very competitive people. And we’ve passed that on to our own children.”

Mrs. Yount picked up on the thought, bragging briefly about her grandchildren, and then as she had started the conversation, she ended it: “It’s been a wonderful life.”

© Michael M. Barrick, 1997.