Thank you to those who reached out after reading February’s Headwaters Highlights article about the upcoming release of my first book, “Rattlesnake Granny”. Here are some updates.

The short historical fiction book has been out since February 14, 2024. Being a self-published author has been fun. The full title of the book is “Rattlesnake Granny:  Nancy Remembers Life in Old Thornton Gap, Inspired by True Stories”.

Incorporating natural elements in the narrative was one of my favorite parts of storytelling. There are characters’ interactions with wildlife and also with the Blue Ridge/ Shenandoah Valley land where they were living in the 1800s. Thornton Gap is now part of Shenandoah National Park.

Land use by these historical characters was largely consumptive. The story is voiced by my fictional version of Nancy Pullum. She is based on a mountaineer rattlesnake catcher as remembered by Herbert Barbee (1848 – 1936) and told to Virginia historian Dr. John W. Wayland (1872 – 1962) when Wayland visited Barbee in 1932. Herbert Barbee knew Nancy when he was a boy growing up in Thornton Gap. He said that Nancy was catching rattlesnakes to fry them and render their oil into ointment to treat arthritis. Apparently, she made a good living at this trade.

Readers often ask me about the effectiveness of Nancy’s rattlesnake oil, if it would really help ease inflammation. I found out that rattlesnake oil does have some omega-3 fatty acids that might have been somewhat effective as an ointment though not as effective of an anti-inflammatory as the high concentration of omega-3 fatty acids found in the Chinese water snake, which is also made into medicine. Later in American history, charlatans began to manufacture and hawk fake rattlesnake oil. Of course, this was a scam and is where we get our term “snake oil” for dubious panaceas, or cure-alls.

After talking with Herbert Barbee, Dr. Wayland noted in his diary that the people of the surrounding area believed in Nancy’s snake oil medicine and that she was also confident in it. That reflection inspired me to write a scene in which the fictional Nancy is confronted by University of Virginia medical students. I read some writings by historic Virginia doctors while researching the narrative, and as you can imagine, they were less than favorable toward frontier medicine such as Nancy’s snake oil or the alternative Thomsonian Medicine practiced by another historic person in the book, Brethren Elder John Kline.

The Barbee family of Thornton Gap are also characters in “Rattlesnake Granny” who are based on historic people. The family operated a tannery during the Civil War.  Herbert Barbee told John Wayland that they were tanning ox hides for the Confederacy when he was a young teen. This would have involved labor forces, including enslaved laborers, cutting bark from the chestnut oaks of the area. Such practices lead to erosion and some terrible odors as the hides were prepared. The ox hides were supplied by a man across the mountain.

Characters in the book are also farming. Fictional Nancy raises hogs and has a milk cow. She mentions the practice of moving animals to higher ground to graze due to pasture loss in her area. A drover comes and takes her hogs out along the Great Road for sale.

One of Nancy’s friends, in real life and in the book, was William Randolph Barbee (1818 – 1868). He was born into the big Barbee family of Thornton Gap and showed a natural talent for carving since his boyhood. As a young man, he studied law and worked as an attorney to raise funds to finance studying in Italy for his real passion, marble carving. I was delighted to see a book about Virginia marble on Michelle Prysby’s recent list of books by Virginia Master Naturalists in the Spring 2024 VMN newsletter, “The Pollinator”. A copy of “Potomac Marble – History of the Search for the Ideal Stone” by Paul Kreingold (VMN Banshee Reeks Chapter) is on the way to me and I look forward to learning where Barbee may have acquired his marble as well as reading about the natural history of this rock.

There are numerous other incidents of human characters interacting with the natural world in the book. Characters face the elements as we do today. Like today, they are fascinated, and sometimes afraid of our native black bears. They cure and crack black walnuts, pick wild blueberries, and garden. They are annoyed by emerging cicadas, which Nancy calls by the old mountain name of “locusts;” and they face the snow and ice that still covers the area in the winter today. They interact with the environment in benign ways such as planting daffodils to make a homesite more welcoming and in destructive ways, such as setting fire to the mountainside to destroy rural industry during the Civil War.

Summer book talks are scheduled where I will be talking about how the Rattlesnake Granny story was created and about the real people who inspired the book. Book talks are scheduled on the evening of July 17th for the Augusta Military Academy, from 11am to 12:30 pm on July 20th at the North River Public Library in Bridgewater, and starting at 10:30 am on August 3rd at Rocktown History in Dayton, Va. More information can be found HERE.

“Rattlesnake Granny” is found at the North River Public Library in Bridgewater and the John Kenny Forrer Learning Commons at Bridgewater College.

It can be ordered online through the Bridgewater College Campus Store HERE and OASIS Fine Arts of Harrisonburg, Virginia. Rattlesnake Granny | OASIS (oasisfineartandcraft.org). It can also be ordered and shipped from the Dayton Welcome Center of Dayton, Virginia, and Turner Hams & Fulks Run Grocery. Other places that carry the book are Rocky Cedars Enterprises of Dayton, Cottage Crafts at the Bridgewater Retirement Community, and the Edinburg Mill Museum.

A sequel is underway with more history and local folklore! I’m looking forward to exploring the ongoing friendship of Nancy and the character John, who was based on a historic man who was enslaved and later emancipated by the Barbee family. Herbert Barbee said that “John” and Nancy were neighbors and that John was a prolific gardener. I want to write more about the rural industry in historic Thornton Gap. And there is a fun new fictional character to whom Nancy can tell many big tales of life in this area of Virginia.

Stephanie Gardner