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Former Resident Shares Story From Year Of Camille
Editor’s note: We recently received a letter from Deborah B. Carter Carper of Hampton, who was 7 years old when the remnants of Hurricane Camille hit Rockbridge County on the night of Aug. 19-20, 1969.
She enclosed a story she had written in 1996 while attending Thomas Nelson Community College entitled “1969,” and we are publishing nearly all of that story today, the week of the 55th anniversary of the flood.
She noted in her letter that she was surprised to learn from a 1994 News-Gazette article that she was the same age as Myra Jean Rion, who had lost her parents and 2-year-old brother during the flood and is the little girl mentioned in the story you are about to read. “Myra Jean probably did not know how much her life affected me, and I cried with her many of those early and even days later in life,” Deborah wrote to us.
When I was a child, I lived in Rockbridge Baths. In the year of 1969, the year I turned 7, many traumatic events happened that left me with painful impressions of life. These impressions, though not based completely on facts, were imprinted into my childhood mind, and seemed as real as any history book. This was a year that caught me up from my carefree childhood, and carried me reluctantly into being a 7-year-old with a serious frame of mind.
The winter of 1968 fulfilled the ending of my first year in school. The school was large with great high ceilings, and had green cedar chips in the hallways, throughout most of the winter months. These cedar chips supposedly kept the mice in the fields outside from coming in the building. Nonetheless, this did not work and the classrooms were often shared with small field mice.
The winter of 1968 that gave way to a pretty country spring, was basically uneventful, though pleasant. Through my child’s mind, it was difficult to realize at this time, that a few somewhat unrelated events would have a large impact on my vision of the future and a permanent imprint on my memories.
It was late in the summer when some strange events began to unfold. A change in the weather, somehow, must have caused the wildlife to do strange things. One Sunday afternoon after church, my grandmother exclaimed that a cow was loose in the yard. My mother exclaimed, “Nanny has flipped her lid.” But it was true. The cow had tom through the barbed wire fence from her river edged lot and grazed over into our yard. There she seemed very content.
Later that week I remembered waking from an early sleep to find my grandmother frantically dragging ma through the hall of our second floor. By the time I was awake and sitting on the sofa, in our living room, the house was a buzz with people. A grown man and many Boy Scouts were over. They had come to kill a 5-foot king snake that had come in through the fan in my grandmother’s upstairs bedroom window. My mother and grandmother were home alone this week, with three children, because my father had college classes in a town 200 miles away. My father was a Methodist minister to two small churches in the area, and so our family had many connections in the community.
The TV news was on that night. I don’t remember ever seeing the news. Tonight was different. I guess I was in bed early most nights. There was a swirl of clouds on our fuzzy black and white television. My grandmother watched intently, as the Boy Scouts thumped excitedly up and down our steps. I did not relate these events at the time; however, within a week we were getting torrents of rain. One evening, I padded out with my grandmother, with rain gear on, to look at a rain gauge on our grape arbor.
“Look at this!” Nanny exclaimed. “The 10 inch gauge is full and overflowing!”
As the week of my birthday narrowed, and I began counting the days, the rain continued. My mother brought a beautiful birthday cake home to show me on the 19th of August; however, on this evening she explained that we would have to stay with a family from our church. The Maury River, which flowed directly behind our house, was in danger of flooding that night.
Even as we packed our car that night, I could hear the rushing of the water. I hoped it would not take our house. My family and I were happy to return by the following afternoon. It was my birthday and we cut the cake inside the house. The sun was shining bright outside.
A large muddy puddle lay between our house and the river. The water had subsided some, yet, the river was still high. My little sister and I watched the river timidly as we saw trees, limbs, and small out buildings washing downstream. I felt sad as I remembered a jump rope that I had lost in the river rocks earlier that summer. My grandmother, whom I called Nanny, had given it to me. The river looked angry.
My father had to visit many families in our area from our church. He told us that night after returning of a young girl my age who was drifting on a bale of hay with her father. The father told her he could not hold on any longer; he hoisted her into the tips of a tree and begged her to hold on tightly. She then had to watch as her father drifted away. The girl was later rescued, but her mother and father were gone. This story pierced my heart. Suddenly, the dreaminess of my childhood seemed to be tinged with a seriousness. The awakening of a realness in the world that had never seemed to affect me before, now did.
The fall came again and I remember a dreamy and exciting night when my Nanny carried my sister and I to the window. “See the moon?” she said. “There is a man walking on the moon tonight!”
Maybe the pain of realness does eventually fade, I thought. I felt happy with my grandmother. She spent time with us often and was jolly, loving, and fun. I loved her much.
When school started again, my life was a rush. I remember waving to my mother as I ran down the long driveway to catch the school bus. After this I don’t remember many events. Christmas did come and we all visited our aunt’s home in Massachusetts. I remember deep snow drifts and fun with other kids.
A week or two after returning home, reality struck again. My mother came up to the room I was in. It was Nanny’s room and I was sleeping there while she was on vacation, so I thought. My mother said she had to tell me something important. She was not smiling. “Nanny is dead,” she said.
Dead? I thought. She can’t be dead. She is visiting my aunt. My mother explained that she had had a stroke while riding in the car with my aunt. She went to the hospital, and she was not coming back. Those words, not coming back, began to sink in hard.
“No!” I remember screaming. I ran to my Nanny’s room and flung myself on her rose colored bed. The large pink flowers on the wallpaper swirled around my head. I cried. I kicked my feet, and I thought I would choke from the water in my throat, Suddenly, this “reality thing” I had been pondering felt more unreal than any of my imaginings. I must have cried for hours. I felt that someone would come back to me and say that I was just dreaming.
The patterns of the wallpaper blurred together that night, when I finally opened my eyes. I was angry! I was angry that a snake, which my grandmother feared, had come into her room. I was angry that the river had swelled. I remember hating the river. The river had stolen the toy that my grandmother had given me. Then, I said, in my mind, the river killed my Nanny!
I did hate the river for a long period of time. Finally, however, I began to see that it was crystal clear. I won’t see my Nanny again, but I will see the river. It didn’t look angry anymore. Even though, to me, it did still kill my Nanny. I decided I would let my feelings wash by and pass away, just as I watched the river wash by and pass with sparkles from the sun. Nanny must be somewhere, I thought, and one day I will have to see her again and be with her.
I grew up a lot that year. I wasn’t much taller and I still could not drive a car, but something changed inside of me that year.
