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About ‘Through This Window’ Columns and the Author

Columns by Ethelene Dyer Jones under the general title “Through This Window” with each column having its own title according to the subject she writes about in a particular week, have been published in The News Observer, Blue Ridge, Georgia, since April 5, 1990 through the present.

The author chose ‘Through This Window’ as a symbolic title for the series. She wished to convey that she was looking backward into history and remembrance, presently at current events, and forward into the future with implication of how history affects both the present and the future. She writes narratively to record and introspectively to analyze. Eventually the editors at the newspaper chose to drop the general title, “Through This Window”—but each column the author sends for publication weekly still bears that designation. For the purposes of this blog, therefore, “Through This Window” will accompany each title.

Although published by The News Observer, the columns are copyrighted by the author. Therefore, please contact the author for permission to quote any part of these columns.

She sincerely hopes readers will enjoy her view “Through This Window” and learn much of history and life as it was lived out in past generations. Thank you for your interest.

Ethelene Dyer Jones is a retired educator and free-lance writer. She was born in Union County, Blairsville, Ga. She received college degrees from Truett McConnel, Cleveland, GA (AA); Mercer University, Macon, GA (BA); Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC (MA in Ed.); and The University of Georgia (SEd). She was married 61 years to the Rev. Grover D. Jones who died in 2011. The couple had two children, Keith and Cynthia, and have seven grandchildren and currently fourteen great grandchildren, with three more expected shortly. Mrs. Jones lived in various towns in Georgia, with Epworth, Georgia being the longest residence from 1960-2003. She currently resides in Milledgeville, GA where she keeps active still as a creative writing and reading instructor, a writer, and an editor, helping other writers with their publications. She has two books of poetry published, The Singing in the Wood (1984); and Mother and Child Reunion (1995, jointly with her son). She assisted in writing, compiling and editing books: Faith Through Flood and Fire: A History of First Baptist Church, McCaysville, GA (1983); Facets of Fannin: A History of Fannin County, Georgia (1989); One Hundred Years of Heritage and Hope: A History of Morganton Baptist Association (1993); Cemeteries of Fannin County, Georgia (2003); Facing Forward: A History of Fannin County Schools (2013).

She is now working on a book of her memoirs and more chapbooks of poetry which she hopes to publish soon. She has often been asked to publish in book form columns from papers for which she has written, “Through This Window” series in The News Observer. Blue Ridge, GA; “Through Mountain Mists” series in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA; “An Appalachian Voice” series in The Pickens County Progress, Jasper, GA, and others.

(-Ethelene Dyer Jones, 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA 31061; edj0541@windstream.net. 478-453-8751)

Thursday, April 19, 1990

Whose Woods These Are

Michael Frome wrote a book published in 1984 entitled Whose Woods These Are: The Story of the National Forest. In the book, Chaper 8 is “Woody, the Barefoot Ranger.” It pays tribute to North Georgia’s legendary forester, Arthur Woody, first ranger in Georgia and one of the first in the nation. He was born, reared and lived in Suches at Woody Gap in Union County, Georgia.
      Frome’s introduction to Ranger Woody enticed me to do individual research on this forester whom I had heard about and known since my childhood.
      Born in a log cabin in Suches, Georgia on April 1, 1884 to Abraham Lincoln Woody and Eliza Ingram Woody, William Arthur Woody grew up loving the forest, wildlife, streams, and the mountains.
      Early in his life, when he saw the deer depleted by hunters, his father among them, he determined to take measures into his own hands and some day restock the deer to the mountains.
      Arthur Woody began working for the U. S. Forestry Service October 1, 1912 as an axeman on a baseline crew. Soon he was advanced to surveyor. On May 1, 1915, he was sworn in as a forest guard with the assignment of protecting the Blue Ridge District of the Cherokee National Forest against trespassers, poachers and fire.
      Then came the day, July 1, 1918, when he became the first ranger in Georgia, serving the Blue Ridge District. The forest was then still in the Cherokee National Forest. Later the Georgia acreage was named the Chattahoochee National Forest in 1935.
      In 1925, Mr. Woody secured five fawn from the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, kept them in a pen at his home, bottle-fed hem and gave them pet names: Billy, Bessie, Nancy, Nimble and Bunnie-Girl. He released the deer into the forest near Rock Creek when he felt they could make it on their own. He kept adding others to the herd.
      When “experts” came from State Game and Fish Commission to inspect the area for deer population, Ranger Woody slyly took the men to the side of Rock Creek Lake with few natural deer signs. He was thus able to forestall the first controlled hunting season for deer for another year until 1941. As Ranger Woody worked at the checking station when the first deer was brought to be weighed, he was moved to tears.
      “That’s old Nemo. I’ve been seeing him almost every month since I put him in these woods years ago. But never no more,” Mr. Woody said.
      The streams and lakes received fish stock through Woody’s efforts. He had trout shipped to Gainesville from Denver, Colorado and Washington state by train. They were hauled by two-horse wagon in barrels of water and placed in the streams by hand. Herman Caldwell of Lumpkin County recalls, “My brother Henley and I helped put five or six little trout in every creek hole we could find. Five years later, people were catching trout as long as your arm.”
      Speckled trout were Woody’s favorite fish. He was also responsible for stocking Blue Ridge and other lakes with muskies. He delighted in keeping mum when experts from the Game and Fish Commission spent a week trying to determine why muskies, not native to the area, were in the mountain lakes. Armed with common sense that gave him a practical approach to solving problems, Woody cut through governmental red tape and ruled his forest empire with a firm (even though unorthodox) hand.
In 1925 he negotiated the purchase of an area of forest land on Highway 180 about half-way between Vogel State Park and Lake Winfield Scott from F. Alonzo Sosebee for $1,523.40. The land contained a masterful stand of yellow poplar as well as many varieties of other trees and numerous wildflowers. When Woody added this land to the national forest, little did he know he was securing a future memorial.
      The Ranger retired September 30, 1945 after a total of thirty-four years with the forest service. From his home in Suches he wrote, “I’m retired.” No fires to fight, no diaries to write, No J. F.’s to teach the poplar from the beech; No tools to grind, no desks to shine—Ah! This is the life for me!”
      A week later a stroke beset the giant forester and he succumbed June 10, 1946, some eight months after his retirement. The building and grounds were packed out at Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Suches with 1500 admirers who attended the funeral to show their respect for this giant among the tall timbers. He was eulogized as having one of the most uncanny minds for forestry and wildlife, and “a humanitarian, philanthropist, philosopher and friend.”
      On September 21, 1958, dignitaries of the Forest Service, political leaders, family and friends gathered at Sosebee Cove to dedicate it as a memorial to Ranger William Arthur Woody. Termed a “botanist’s paradise,” the quiet glade’s majestic trees rise as a tribute to one man’s efforts to preserve intact for future generations the natural resources of North Georgia’s forests.
      Another memorial to a giant in the mountains is Woody Gap School in Suches opened in January, 1941. The fist and main unit of the building was erected of granite from Arthur Woody’s quarry, lumber from his forestland sawed at his mill, and built on land donated by him which had originally been the home place of Civil War Governor Joseph Emerson Brown.
      This isolated school fulfilled a dream of Ranger Woody to bring a better way of life and more accessible education to his beloved mountain people.
      “Whose woods these are I think I know” are lines from Poet Robert Frost. The words evoke recollections of a tall man among towering trees.

(Published in The News Observer, Blue Ridge, GA, April 19, 1990. ©1990 by Ethelene Dyer Jones All rights reserved.)
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