THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Reid chairs
bring Christmas memories
Sarah Souther Dyer is
shown at age 100. Her favorite chair (not this one in which she sat for
her
100th birthday picture in 1957) was a Jason Reid-made straight chair
which she
sat in by the window of her living room and looked out toward New
Liberty
Baptist Church. From the Reid-made straight chair, she also entertained
children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with stories of "the
old
times" which she remembered so well.
The old Reid-made chairs were
utilitarian
pieces, bought from Jason Reid or his sons who were the chair makers of
"Upper" Choestoe region of North Georgia.
My grandmother, Sarah Evaline
Souther Dyer
(1857-1959) had her favorite chair. It was always beside the fireplace,
positioned so that she could be warmed by the fire and at the same time
look
out the small window to the right of her fireplace in the 1850 house
built by
her father and occupied by Sarah herself and her husband, Bluford
Elisha Dyer
(1855-1926), the house where they reared their fifteen children—that
is, those
thirteen who made it to adulthood.
But back to the Reid-made chairs
and how
people came to own them and how the chairs bring back Christmas
memories.
Jason Reid (20 Sept. 1851 - 27 April
1934) knew the chair-making trade from the inside out. He had a
workshop at his
farm in the vicinity of Union Baptist Church in the Choestoe District
of Union
County. He would select the best of the wood from the forest from which
to make
the chairs, have it sawed and let it cure. He fashioned the posts and
framework
of the chairs by hand, deftly making the parts in his workshop.
He made the seats of the chairs
by weaving
them from white oak strips soaked in tubs of water to make them
pliable. He
taught his sons how to make chairs. Later, the boys had the advantage
of a
lathe and other more modern tools as they continued the work of
chair-making.
Helping Jason by taking care of the house and children was his loving
wife,
Martha J. Reid (24 March 1857 - 14 March 1919).
The Reid family made chairs long
before
their products were considered craft items. Sales of the chairs did not
bring
in lucrative money to the Reid business. The straight chairs, and maybe
sometimes rocking chairs, made to order, were produced in the Reid
wood-working
shop. People came to the Reid house from nearby homesteads to buy
chairs as
they had the money to do so. Later on, the word about Reid-made chairs
spread
beyond Choestoe. The products were hauled by covered wagon over the
Logan
Turnpike to the market in Gainesville to be sold and distributed from
there.
My Grandmother Sarah Souther
Dyer had her
favorite chair. We all knew it as "Grandma's Chair." My grandmother
would have been 75 from my earliest memory of her, and from then on
until her
death at 101+ years, she held court from her Reid-made chair in her
special
corner as my family and her many other family members and friends
visited her.
She had been a Choestoe mid-wife and a woman who kept up with national
and
world affairs by reading the newspaper. Her impaired hearing prevented
her from
listening to radio broadcasts (after she got his modern convenience in
her
home), although I can remember her straining to hear President Franklin
Delano
Roosevelt in his "fireside chats" during World War II. Reading,
trying to listen to radio, or entertaining family and friends were all
done by
Grandma as she sat in her straight-back Reid-made chair.
She was definitely the matriarch
of the
family. When she spoke, we listened. I can't remember that she made
much
"to-do" over the Christmas holidays, for I never remember seeing a
Christmas tree in her little room, nor any holiday decorations on her
plain
wooden mantel. It's not that she didn't believe in Christmas. She
definitely
did. But always practical, she never sought frills and excesses in
anything she
did. From her, seated as I remember her in that straightbacked chair,
we
learned many stories of "how things used to be," and we listened with
wide-eyed awe.
In addition to the woven seat of
her
Reid-made chair, Grandma had some wooden baskets that fascinated me as
a child.
The structure of the baskets looked much like that of the seat of
Grandma's
chair, woven from white oak strips. "These baskets my mother Nancy
Collins
Souther (1829- 1888) and my father, John Combs Hayes Souther (1827-
1891)
bought from the Indians that peddled them by our house. Those Indians
had
hidden out in the caves in the mountains to avoid being taken on the
Trail of
Tears." We would touch gingerly the egg basket and the larger basket
used
for laundry that Grandma told us about.
"And
this chair I'm sitting in," she would continue with her story of
old-fashioned items in her house, "was made by Jason Reid who lives up
on
the river and has his chair-making shop there. If you buy a Reid chair,
you'll
have one that sits well, and one that will last" Grandma affirmed. I
wondered if somehow chair-maker Jason Reid had learned to weave his
white oak
strips into chair seats from some of those Indians or their
descendants. I'm
sorry now I didn't ask her about that.
I don't know who got Grandma
Dyer's chair
in the distribution of her property following her death. But in my
mind's eye,
I still see our family matriarch enjoying her "throne chair," the
simple though elegant product of one Jason Reid who took pride in his
products
and taught his sons how to carry on the trade of chair-making.
Fortunately, although I don't
have
Grandma's chair, I am the happy owner of two later Reid-made chairs.
One is a
rocking chair which my parents used to rock me when I was a baby. I was
able,
in recent years, to have the seat replaced by an authentic craftsman
who knows
how to weave nearly the same pattern the Reid brothers wove long ago
into the
seat of the chair. I also have one of the Reid straight chairs, with
the seat
restored.
Neither of these chairs would
rate very
high as luxury items or fine furniture. But the memories they evoke are
priceless. Sitting and rocking at family gatherings bring many
recollections of
humble families and how we "made-do" during the Great Depression. We
were taught the values of family solidarity, responsible citizenship,
and
Puritan work ethic. Sitting in these chairs, our parents taught us by
both word
and example at simple Christmas celebrations and all year long.
I will take a little time during
Christmas
season, 2008, to sit in the old family rocking chair and read the
Christmas
story from Luke 2. That action will connect me to the Reid chair makers
of
Union County and to parents and grandparents who made all the
difference in who
I am today.
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
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