Departures

It was a spring morning Thursday in Mt. Airy,  North Carolina, the boyhood home of the late actor Andy Griffith (and the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry the "Andy Griffith Show" took place in).  The birds had started to sing around 4:30 am and one finally woke me up.

Purple Bush flowering in Mt. Airy, North Carolina

We had to get up early to depart for home, as our vacation was over.  I knew early on that this morning departure would be the topic of my D post for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  (Tomorrow is an off day, and I will continue my Civil War Sunday feature.  Monday I will be back with a post starting with the letter E.)

The Southern air reluctantly gave up its sweet smell of spring to my Northern nostrils.  In the 5:30 am dark, I could not see the line of blooming Bradford pears or the flowering purple bush that had gladdened my heart the evening before.

The birds sang even more strongly as sunrise approached, some of their tunes unfamiliar to me.  Was their song a promise that spring would finally come to New York?  I don't speak Bird, so I don't know.

We headed out after a quick breakfast.

Mt. Airy is close to the North Carolina/Virginia border, near an area called Fancy Gap.  It is scenic, but early morning fogs can be deadly - over the years there have been several deadly pileups.  The most recent ones I know of were in March and May of 2013 - three dead in a 75 car pileup in the March incident.

The Interstate (I-77 heading north into Virginia) is heavily lined with reflectors and signs warning of fog.  On the edges of each exit, we saw lines of tractor trailers which had parked there for the night, glowing in the reflected light.  Their lights were on and they were getting ready to head out, too.  There was to be no fog this morning.

Not long after, the eastern horizon started to redden.  The display went on for what seemed to be forever, as the rolling hills lined with farms slowly became visible.

The sun finally rose.

It was time to head home to upstate New York.

The War Dead of Mt. Airy, NC

It's been less than a week since Andy Griffith, a beloved actor here in the United States, passed away.

As I blogged about earlier this week, I visited his native Mt. Airy, NC four times, most recently in March.  It's a good stopping point for when we drive from upstate New York into points South.  It lies in beautiful Surry County, just a few miles from the Virginia birthplace of General J.E.B. Stuart - a story for another day.

On this March 2012 trip, I decided to investigate Mt. Airy past the tourist areas to see if I could find any Civil War monuments.  I was going to feature whatever I found in a blog post, but had never quite gotten around to it.  Now is as a good a time as any, because my search for Civil War information led me to a little mystery I wondered about and perhaps now would be a good time to ask if any of my readers have the answer.

But first, some background.

On the same street, but a few blocks from where the Andy and Opie statute in Mt. Airy, NC has become a temporary shrine for fans of Mr. Griffith to pay tribute, is a war memorial that pays tribute to all the war dead of Mt. Airy.  The war dead are listed, by war, from the Revolutionary War forward, so this is technically not a Civil War monument. (There is also a historical Civil War marker in Mt. Airy, again a story for another day.)

The Civil War dead section was several columns wide. Sadly, no surprise there.  But first, a little about the monument itself.


The monument from a distance.  A lot of this monument consists of lists of war dead.  For a town the size of Mt. Airy, it looks to be a rather large list.

Here's a closeup of the fountain.

Here is the beginning of the list of names.  You'll note the war memorial calls the war the Civil War.  This is not the preferred name of the war to a lot of Southerners.  But North Carolina had a complicated role in the Civil War.  North Carolinians fought on both sides. North Carolina and its neighboring state, Tennessee, were the last two states to secede.

Look at the third name on this panel.  I immediately thought, "was this an ancestor of Andy Griffith?"

I do not know, and might not know, without extensive research. Geneological research, however, is not my specialty.

I did a very quick Internet search, and I find several mentions of a Samuel Griffith in Mt. Airy - one born (Samuel W) about 1869, another, Samuel T., born about 1873, but obviously neither one of these men would have fought in the Civil War.  I also tried Family Search (the Mormon database) but came up empty. (There was a Samuel Griffiths, with a "s", a Union soldier, who died in 1865, but appeared to be from Maine.)

Another site, Census Diggins, is only up to "Go" surnames, has not cataloged the "Gr" soldiers yet.

 If anyone has information regarding any of these Samuel Griffiths and if any were related to the late Andy Griffith, I would love to know about it.

Andy Griffith's Mt Airy, NC

Millions of Americans mourn the passing of actor Andy Griffith at the age of 86. 

To many of them, Andy Griffith was Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, NC on the Andy Griffith Show, which ran during the 1960's and has been in reruns since.  Mayb....I mean Mt. Airy, North Carolina, is a real place and thousands of tourists visit there each year.

In reality, Andy Griffith was born, and grew up, in Mt. Airy, North Carolina.  I have visited Mt. Airy several times, most recently this past March.  I wanted to share some of those memories of my most recent visit with you.  No, I'm not going to post a picture of the famous Andy and Opie statue (yes, I have a picture of it - of course I do! Why do you ask?) but rather, some different views of the town.

Mt. Airy is a mixture of Andy Griffith tourist memorabilia, Mayberry, and a modern North Carolina town.

One of their older downtown buildings.

The Snappy Lunch of the Andy Griffith show is a real restaurant, open for breakfast and lunch.  We had breakfast there.  It is nothing fancy - basically a hometown small town restaurant where everyone knows each other.  Meals are served on paper plates.  But it was cheap, and it was good.

Floyd Lawson (Mayberry's barber) may be a fictional character who did business at Floyd's Barber Shop but in real life, Mt. Airy has Floyd's City Barber Shop. 

Owner Russell Hiatt is in his 80's, and yes, you can get a cut there at a reasonable price.  I tried to goad my spouse into getting his hair cut there, but he had had his hair cut recently, so on we walked.

This is the inside of the barber shop and yes, that is a wall of photographs.

Finally, a display of old pop (soda) bottles in a Mt. Airy store.

Andy Griffith, incidentally, may have surprised you as a person.  And Mt. Airy is a lot more than Andy Griffith.  If enough of my readers are interested, I'll be happy to post some more photos later this month.

Every year, Mt. Airy holds "Mayberry Days" in September.  This year, George Lindsey's son, and Don Knotts' daughter, had been scheduled to attend.  Of course, George Lindsey (Goober) passed away earlier this year.

What memories do you have of the Andy Griffith Show?  Or, did you enjoy Andy Griffith in some of his other TV shows, or programs he appeared in?