Marie Scott Recalls Her Life and Times
Intro Published in the Blue Ridge Leader February 4, 2012:
“Precious, precious memories” is how Marie Scott describes growing up in Bluemont, in an on-line illustrated article on the “website for Bluemont” — www.BluemontHeritage.org — sponsored by Friends of Bluemont. Born in 1938, Marie Scott is a daughter of the old Black community of Bluemont, the western-most settlement in Loudoun. She is perhaps best known, however, as a 33-year reassuring presence in the Purcellville veterinary office of Dr. Kent Roberts, Dr. Chamberlin, and Dr. Washington. Marie Scott is a great lady with a remarkable personal warmth. Her memories are our window into a Western Loudoun past that few still remember. Marie and six sisters and brothers grew up in a house that still stands on Clayton Hall Road, just off Route 7. She tells how, as a little girl, she and her family would walk from their home on Clayton Hall Road up the Old Mountain Road to the church, established in 1888, in the post-Civil-War Black community on the mountain. That means they walked past the Snickersville Academy, a log structure dating from 1825, given to Friends of Bluemont by the Hatcher family in 2010. Friends of Bluemont is now working to preserve it and make it available to the public. Marie Scott has long been a pillar of the Bluemont First Baptist Church, which was moved down from the mountain and is now located just southeast of Bluemont village. Marie Scott is now a resident of the Inova Loudoun Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Leesburg.
“Precious, Precious Memories:” Marie Scott Recalls Her Life and Times
By Susan Freis Falknor & Pam Forbes
Born in 1938, Marie Scott comes out of the old Black community of Bluemont. Traditionally, there were two Black neighborhoods in Bluemont: 1) on the Old Mountain Road, which connected Bluemont village with the free Black community lands (sold by Civil War veteran Dr. George Plaster following the war); and 2) the area around Old Route 7 and Clayton Hall Road (although most of these houses were destroyed when the current four-lane Route 7 “Bypass” was constructed in the 1970s). In this interview Marie recalls her family, her childhood, and her working life, during which, for 33 years, she was a well-known presence in the Purcellville office of beloved veterinarian Dr. Kent C. Roberts, and after him, Dr. Chamberlin and Dr. Washington. As a child, Marie Scott attended the First Baptist Church of Bluemont when it was located on the Old Mountain Road, and has been a pillar of this church since it was relocated to Snickersville Turnpike. Our thanks to Alvin Coates, Marie’s nephew, who reviewed the transcript and helped identify people in the photos.
Born and Raised in Bluemont
Susan. So, you were born and grew up in Bluemont?
Marie. I was born and raised here in Bluemont, right here on the road, beside the road [Clayton Hall Road] leading to the Bypass [Route 7]. This was up where Ruth’s Home used to be. In that little yellowish house the right side of the road as you drive out.
Susan. What year were you born?
Marie. 1938.
Susan. So, you’re kind of a war baby, growing up during war time. And did you have brothers and sisters?
Center: Marie Scott, Elizabeth “Libby” Neal Spinner, & Mary L. Scott, and unknown toddler (possibly Ruth Manuel) at Clayton Hall house
Marie. There was seven of us. Five girls and two boys. Oldest is Virginia, then Sherman, James Ed, Martha, Ruth, Marie, and then Mary.
Marie Scott as a child
Jerry Lincoln, Mary L. Scott, Bobby Gibson, & Sheilie Lincoln at Scott’s Clayton Hall Road childhood home
Susan. And did one of your sisters recently pass away?
Marie. That was Virginia.
Susan. Can you tell me about your mother and father, were they local people?
Marie. All that I know, they were both born and raised right here in Bluemont.
Pam. What were the dates of their birth?
Marie. Dad was born 1903, Mom was born 1900. Her maiden name was Jackson (photo right).
James Mayo Scott
Elsie Jackson Scott
Marie’s Family 1968 Front Row, L-R: James Edward Scott, Marie A. Scott, Elsie Jackson Scott, Mary L. Scott.
Back Row: Martha V. Scott-Coates, Ruth Scott-Butler, Sherman Scott, Virginia Scott-Lincoln, James Mayo Scott
James Mayo Scott getting a kiss on the head from his grandson, Maurice John Butler
Susan. Your dad, his middle name was “Mayo.”
Marie. Yes, James Mayo Scott (photo left).
Susan. Mom and Dad – what were they like? What did they do?
Marie. Well, Dad worked for the railroad up here in Bluemont. He had a job there. I guess cleaning and washing, I don’t know. I know he worked at the railroad station. My grandfather worked at the Bluemont hotel and then later drove Miss Ruth’s car for her. The hotel was a big house up on the side of the road, on Railroad Street. Ruth’s Home bought it from the Beatty’s.
Susan. And Mom, what did she do?
Marie. Mom she just stayed home and raised the children. But she worked for the Beatty’s also. And she worked for 30 years at Ruth’s Home.
Pam. Ruth’s Home took care of retarded children?
Marie. Yes. Subnormal kids.
Pam. I remember when Ruth’s Home was still active (see historic photo, right)
. My son went over there to do a newspaper article on it in the late 1970s, maybe early 1980s.
Susan. And so, your grandparents also came from Bluemont?
Marie. I guess. That’s getting way back before me.
Pam. I think it’s in that book, From Snickersville to Bluemont, that the Bluemont Citizens Association sells. There’s little section that mentions “Scott” among the free Black people who settled on the mountain on land sold by George Plaster, He was a doctor in town after the Civil War. He wrote a history about Bluemont. His great-grandson is Henry Plaster.
[Note: The story Pam had in mind is probably about “Aunt” Delia Weaver, wife of Dennis Weaver, who cared for the “countless of the households and children” of Bluemont. She was cared for in her old age by Winifred Scott and in 1931 by Glovia Scott. She lived until 1935. See p. 65 of From Snickersville to Bluemont.].
Mayo James Scott, Marie’s Grandfather
Susan. I’m still wondering about your grandparents—what their names were.
Aniker Scott, Marie’s Grandmother
Sherman, Kaite, and Elise Jackson
“Aunt Kaite” Jackson-Grooms
Marie. Mattie Jackson was my mother’s mother. She was Mattie Anderson Jackson. And my grandma’s husband’s name was Henry R. Jackson. And my grandfather – Dad’s father – was Mayo Scott. And his wife was named Aniker Scott.
Susan. And –their children — were there lots of brothers and sisters?
Marie: Father’s brothers and sisters were Uncle Curtis and Uncle Sherman.
My uncle Sherman worked on the railroad, but he was killed on the railroad. He was 23 years old. Mother’s brothers and sisters were: Uncle Shirley, Aunt Kait, Elizabeth Grooms, Paul Jackson, and Leroy Jackson.
Pam. It says in here [looking at a copy of From Snickersville to Bluemont] that Henry Plaster’s grandfather developed an African-American community in the village shortly after the Civil War. There was a young black doctor, Benjamin Franklin Young, who was a black apprentice physician and he bought 17 acres up there in 1871. And then it went to Dr. James Field. Dr. Plaster later sold six additional acres to Dennis Weaver. And Dr. Young divided his property in several parcels. You know, on the slopes. I think the black church was up there.
Marie. The only church I know was the one that was first up here on the mountain and then moved down to Snickersville Turnpike. Just a second…. [pulls out some albums and photos] Here are some pictures that I have. [Marie shows a printout from a webpage: “The Snickersville/Bluemont, Loudoun VA cousins Scipio’s, Carter’s, Scotts and Jacksons” by Margo Williams.]
Marie’s sister Martha married Harry Coates
Marie: Margo Williams — that’s a relative of ours, a cousin. She brought this paper by here to me shortly after I moved in here. That was ’04. She brought that while she was visiting here.
[Note: See also the report by Denise Roberts Oliver-Velez 2002 “Research Trip to Loudoun Co VA” taken with Margo Williams.This genealogical researcher has also posted on “Free People of Color in the Loudoun County 1850 Census.”
[Marie also comments on page 5-6 of Margo Williams’ printout, showing photos of Glovia Carter and Loudoun educator Rose Lee Carter. Of the sisters, Glovia married Alonzo “Lonnie” Scott. Rosa Lee Carter was a well-known Loudoun educator; an elementary school in Ashburn, Virginia, opened in 2007, was named for her. See Marie’s promotional card on the school opening, right.]
Susan. Marie, where did you go to school?
Marie. Carver School in Purcellville. [See 2007 Washington Post story on George Washington Carver school.]
Susan. How did you get there?
Marie. By school bus.
Susan. May I ask what year you started school.
Marie. I graduated from Carver School in ’53. I went to Douglass High in Leesburg.
Pam. Do you remember Mary Reid? She told me how, years and years ago, because there was no high school, how they got land somehow to create Douglass. Then when it came to the point where they needed tables and chairs and books and stuff, then they got some help, so there could be a Black high school.
[Note: See history of Douglass High School by Friends of the Balch Library]
Marie. My sister Martha was in that class that went to Frederick Douglass High School.
Marie. It was 1944. I was 6. Our childhood was beautiful.
Susan. It was!
Marie. It was. We had lots and lots of friends to play with. I remember Bernice Manuel. They lived right across from our house (on Clayton Hall road), that was where Clarence and Bernice Manuel lived.
Susan. They were friends of yours?
Marie. Oh, baby! And Clarence and my brother were like brothers.
Susan. So the community feeling was there. You had a happy home.
Marie. Oh yes! Quite a community. It was awesome. Mr. Manuel’s daughter, Dolly — you may not know of her, she is Dolly Manuel Journell now. She was a pretty girl and all into every – every — thing. She was the one who gave me my Junior Prom dress, my gown. It was good neighbors, love, love, love.
Marie. You know Mr. Walton Mann. He and his wife Emma kept the Bluemont Store. Or the one before Mr. Walton Mann, I don’t know. But there was always a Bluemont Store there.
Pam. Did your family get groceries there?
Marie. Oh yeah.
Pam. And were there other stores in town?
Marie. Oh yes.
Pam. Was there a farrier in town? Any horses still around?
Marie. Oh yes. Like Mr. Frank McComb down at Whitehall Farm.
Advertisement with depiction of Whitehall in the early 1900s
Susan. What was he raising up there?
Marie. Holstein cows.
Susan. Right! Milk. I had heard that was a big dairy farm.
Pam. What was that guy’s name, Logan Anderson? Did you know him?
Marie. Mr. Logan and his girls. I used to see them.
Pam. He lived down at Whitehall in a log cabin. He told me he took care of the horses, which were located across Route 7, up on the hill. He said there were 60 horses and he took care of them. And they would take wagons of corn down into Leesburg.
[Long-time Bluemonter Henry Plaster comments: “This is Logan Anderson, who lived to be 100. Frank McComb owned Whitehall farm before Jim Brownell did, and both raised Holstein cows. Farmers in those days all had heavy draft horses, and a blacksmith would visit periodically to shoe them. Logan worked for Frank and lived in a no-longer-standing house across Route 7, on what is now Snickers Gap Tree Farm (then part of the McComb dairy farm). Logan had three sons (one named Lester) and two daughters, one of whom now lives in Berryville and is married to Joe Harrod. Logan’s wife died when their kids were young. Logan would take them with him when he did his farm work. Jim Brownell allowed Logan to live in the log cabin next to Whitehall until he died.” Henry Plaster further remembers that Bernard Throckmorton who had a farm in the Foggy Bottom Road area, operated a livery stable on the present Railroad Street in the late-1930s and 1940s.]
Marie. Mr. Logan’s wife died at an early age, and Mr. Logan raised those children. He was a mother and father to them.
Pam. Did he remarry?
Snicker’s Gap picture, signed by H.P. Reed looking toward Winchester
Marie. Yes. He married Matilda Anderson from around here.
Pam. What kind of work did your brothers and sisters go into?
Marie. Well, let’s see. Sherman was the first to leave home – he was 18.
Pam. You were pretty much Bluemont oriented? Did you play out in the town here?
Marie. Played around. And then there was another nice family, white family, Alice? and John Campbell, and Bennie Jane.
Pam. So what did you do? Play out, jump rope and …
Marie. Made mud cakes. Here’s a picture from Snicker’s Gap, signed by H.P. Reed. Maybe from the 1930s. It is looking toward Winchester.
Pam. That’s a beautiful picture – farms up there and fences, cleared area.
Susan. Have you always lived in Bluemont?
Marie. Mom and I lived in Leesburg after Dad passed away. We lived for nine years in Leesburg. Until she passed.
Marie as a young woman
Susan. And then you came back to Bluemont somewhere before you lived here, near the church?
Marie. I lived in Purcellville for a while. And then I moved here.
Susan. But always, it seems, there’s this attachment for you for Bluemont.
Marie. Umm hm.
Pam. When you graduated from high school, what did you do?
Marie. When I graduated from high school I did some housework. And then I went to a couple of different schools in Washington. I stayed with my sister Ruth during the week and then I’d come back home. And then, after that, I worked different places – cleaning houses and then helping with whatever I could find to do. I did that for years and years and then I went to work for Dr. Roberts.
Mary Scott, Marie’s sister
Susan. Who’s that?
Marie. Dr Roberts was a veterinarian in Purcellville. I worked for Dr. Roberts 33 years. Later he sold his practice and went to Blacksburg.
Pam. When Dr. George Washington bought the practice was that when you left?
Marie. Dr. Roberts worked along with Dr. Washington for a while and then he took over the practice. But Dr. Washington was real nice. He was good to work with. He was nice to me. Then, Dr. Chamberlin came in. Wonderful, wonderful person. But then Dr. Chamberlin passed. Then they had various ones that came in, different helpers that they used to look after the animals and do whatever.
But after 33 years with the practice, I said to myself, ‘Look. It’s time to go.’ And I moved on.’
Pam. I remember that’s when I met you. Sometime in the years I knew you told me you’d been working there 27 years at that time. You said, “I came here to help out on a part-time basis, and I’ve been here 27 years.” So it obviously got up to 33 years. [laughter]
Marie. I have an article there by Dr. Chamberlin when he bought the practice. It’s a newsletter.
Susan. Where it is?
Marie. Over at the church. You see, when I moved, I just didn’t have enough space.
Pam. I didn’t ever know Dr. Chamberlin, but when we moved here, I heard about him all the time. Newspaper articles and so on. He was very well loved, but he was very ill.
Marie. Dr. Chamberlin was one in a million. A wonderful, wonderful man.
Pam. I remember you held my husband’s hand – well not really—when we brought our big dog in to be put down. The vet had been working on her for about two years, giving her steroids and keeping her going. They discovered what it was, and she got about two years of life after that. But finally it was the end.
I had to go to work that day, so my husband had to bring her in. So, they laid her down on the floor. I don’t know if it was George or who it was who gave her the dose. And my husband was crying. But he said, “Oh, I never liked this dog anyway!” And you said in a shocked tone: “Why Mr. Forbes!” [(laughter]
Marie. I made some really, really nice friends there. Just – wasn’t nothin’ too good for Marie. Ms. Beck came in, Editor of Southern Living magazine. She painted that (points to painting on the wall) and brought it to me. Then I have one by Marie Schmidt, the artist in Leesburg. And then Mrs. Jacobs, she did that woodwork. She gave me that. Then I’ve got a picture back here from Nancy Hanna.
Pam. Well, it was a small country vet’s office.
Susan. What can you tell us about this church? Did you go to this church when you were growing up here?
Marie. I went to this church even when it was up on the mountain. [Photo left shows the church at its original mountain location with Snickers Gap in the background.]
Pam. How did you get there, did you walk?
Marie. We walked from my house next to where they just remodeled that house [across Snickersville Turnpike from Clayton Hall]. There was a little dirt road between two houses, and then a little stream that had boards around it, and then we would walk up the mountain to the church on the mountain. Climb the hill and then go up the mountain for church.
Susan. About how many people were in the congregation?
Marie. Oh, I guess about a dozen. Of course we had service only every second and fourth Sunday. Sunday school, prayer service.
Susan. So it was quite an active church community.
Marie. And those that moved, because of work, they come back. They always come back. Oh my word, I’m telling you. Those precious, precious memories.
Susan. When the church moved, how old were you? Do you recall about how old you were when they moved it down here?
Marie. I was still a child. Still in elementary school.
Pam. If you were born in ’38 it could have been ’49 or ’50.
Marie. But we’ve got pictures of that, in the pastor’s study. Jim Henderson he took the pictures and put all the dates on the bottom of the pictures. So we’ll have to go over there and look sometime. [Marie goes to her albums.]
Susan. Oh, is this soon after when it was moved? This looks like Snickersville Turnpike, as a muddy dirt road? So it looks like they put a foundation down and then brought the church to it.
Marie. Yes, they built the foundation right here. Here’s the plan, the drawing.
Pam. Look at this ticket: “Rally for the Baptist Church Bluemont, Virginia, Sunday, May 28, 1922 for the purpose of completing our new building.” [Note: apparently it took some years to raise the necessary funds..]
Susan. I think you were telling me that you had something to do with taking care of the church building in recent years.
Marie. Things like painting? I guess i t must have been in ’07, ’08. And then the roof after Katrina hit. See we needed a new roof then. 2005. I took my CD out of the bank.
Pam. I remember one time when the Round Hill Baptist Church worked with your church.That must have been back in the ‘80s. But the churches worked together on something like that.
Early snapshot of the new church
Early snapshot of the new church
Early snapshot of the new church. Note that Snickersville Turnpike is unpaved in this photo.
Marie. I don’t know.
Susan. Are there still people involved in the church, the church still has a board of directors?
Marie. No. I’m the trustee. Everybody’s gone. We haven’t had service since Layman Page left. That was 2006-2007. He had been here for 13 years. He was a lay speaker.
Pam. Do you know Austin Grove church? They still have services down there – a couple of times a month I imagine.
Austin Grove Baptist Church (Rock Hill), about four miles south of Bluemont
Sign currently in front of the Bluemont First Baptist Church
Deacon Robert Scipio -“32 years of service”
Marie. Our church used to go religiously to Rock Hill church — going backwards and forth. The churches really communicated. But I haven’t been out there in a long time.
Pam. I thought maybe they had a preacher that would go to one church, and then another, and then another….
Marie. Well, that’s the way they did in Purcellville – Purcellville, Rock Hill, and Austin Grove.
Reverend James Tracy- former pastor
Susan. Did you say “Layman?”
Marie. Well, his name is James Page. He was a layman preacher. Now he is an ordained minister. He has a Methodist church, and I think his mother said he had 50 members. I hope they multiply.
And Reverend James Tracy – a wonderful man — helped everybody. He was the one that sent, that asked about Layman Page coming to worship with us because we didn’t have a minister. So he gave us 13 years of service.
Last order of service