A Journey That Continues to Ennoble

FEATURED AUTHOR—EARL HAMNER A Journey That Continues to Ennoble George Brosi Earl Hamner's roots run deep in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. His mother's people, the Giannini's, came to America from the village of Lucca, Italy, to help Thomas Jefferson set up vineyards at Monticello. When a descendant, Doris Marion Giannini, at the tender age of 16 was courted by Earl Henry Hamner, Sr., four years her senior, and known to be a wild young man, her devoutly Baptist mother, Ora Lee, forbade her to see him. But Earl was a persistent suitor, and he was in love. When he and Doris married, Ora Lee Giannini swore she'd never speak to her daughter again. Eventually, however, Ora Lee saw that the marriage was a good one. Earl proved his worth, and reconciliation took place. Ironically, the first Earl Henry was named for his mother, Susan Henry Spencer Hamner—whose father wanted a boy. The Hamner family came to Virginia from NorthernWales where they had been well established for over a thousand years. In the early 1900's The Hamner family moved from its James River tobacco farm to the town of Schuyler—named for its first postmaster— on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge. Today it is home to "The Gathering," a group of disciples of the psychic Edgar Cayce. In the beginning, Schuyler was a company town centered around the New Alberene Stone Company which mined and milled soapstone. Earl Sr. worked there when their first child, Earl Jr. was born on July 10, 1923. Moneywas short, andbookswere aluxurythey couldnot afford. Their "library" consisted of the Holy Bible, the King James Version, and A Manual of Bee-Keeping. Doris and Earl strongly encouraged all the children in their growing family to excel, and Earl Jr. became interested in writing at an early age. He was writing his numbers at the age of two and reading at four. His poem, "My Dog," was published on the Children's Page of the Richmond Times Dispatch when he was six. Earl claims he knew he was going to become a writer from that day. During the Great Depression, the Alberene Stone Company was forced to close. Earl Sr. found work across Afton Mountain in Waynesboro, Virginia, as a machinist at a Du Pont factory, some 33 tortuous highway miles away. He stayed in a boarding house in Waynesboro through the week and every week-end took the bus to Charlottesville and then transferred to another bus which took him to Hickory Creek and then a six-mile walk on home. This six mile hike on a Christmas Eve of 1933 became the inspiration for his son's novel The Homecoming which was to become the well loved Christmas Special by the same name. There were to be eight offspring in all; the couple completed their family when their third girl, Nancy Alice, was born in 1935. In his biography of Hamner, Jim Person describes Earl Sr.: "He enjoyed storytelling, hunting, fishing, and occasionally drinking a little too much of a bootlegged liquor known as 'the recipe' which was distilled by a pair of elderly neighbors, a widow and her maiden daughter. Full of life, he would on occasion look lovingly at Doris and exclaim, 'What a woman I married!' and then lift her in his arms and whirl her about! At other times he would gaze at his eight red-haired children seated around the kitchen table and declare, 'AU my babies are thoroughbreds.'" Even though Earl Sr. had little formal education and Doris hadn't gone beyond high school, they had a reverence for education and encouraged their children to stay in school. Olive Giannini, Earl Jr.'s great aunt, was his sixth grade teacher and also encouraged his interest inwriting and in education. Nevertheless, Earl Jr. had neverbeen more than forty miles away from home until he went with his fellow seniors on a trip to the World Fair in 1939 in New York City. Earl recalls that the family had never had a telephone and that on the New York trip he had to be shown how to "work" one. That same year...