Every marriage is two marriages: his and hers. Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage (1973)((See also Jessie Bernard.)) After a short train ride north from Asheville in late August 1934,…
Read moreMoving on Up to Pisgah Heights: The Whisnants in West Asheville
This is the story of a street railway operator and his family moving from a small rented house (their home for 16 years) on an in-town estate in downtown Asheville…
Read moreGlimpses into the Daily Lives of the Whisnants
My previous post conveyed as much as I have been able to discover about the “little house behind the big house” setting of the Whisnant family’s life on Asheville’s South…
Read moreMid-Course Correction: Ella Goes to (Mid-Course) Asheville, 1907
A previous post explored Ella Austin’s and Asbury Whisnant’s lives during the post-Civil War years–before they both took jobs at the State Hospital at Morganton around 1894. Another focused on the…
Read moreAsbury’s Asheville: 1900-1907
For Starters: Some Guesses as to Why Asbury Chose Asheville Although the romantic designation as the Land of the Sky was bestowed upon Asheville in Christian Reid’s 1875 novel, this…
Read moreThe Cruel War and Its Aftermath: Life Down the Mountain for Asbury and Ella, 1869-1894
Asbury Whisnant and Ella Austin were not born in Asheville. They arrived as fully-formed adults: he came in 1900 when he was twenty-eight, and she came in 1907 when she was…
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