GRANDPA EMERY SELF'S TOBACCO BARN

The tobacco barn of my great grandpa, Emery Self, recently fell. Mrs. Richard Leon (Faye Nell) Talley who lives on the property called me on July 24 to say the barn, which had been leaning for some time, fell in June. She had gone to church one Sunday morning and when she returned the barn was on the ground. According to cousin J.L Self "the barn was built in the early 1950's by the men in the community,(a barn raising). It was a tobacco barn. All of the material came off of the property. I remember grandpa walking on the plates on top of the poles. Grandma and the women cooked dinner for the men." I remember as a child playing around the barn and the small branch that ran beside it. On Thursday, July 25, I took my daughter, Lydia and went to 275 Citico Road in Vonore, where the barn is located. I took a few pictures and was able to get some of the pine planks from the barn walls. I plan to give some of the wood to grandpa Self's grandchildren as a keepsake. Mrs. Talley told me the branch had been getting out of banks this year due to heavy rainfall. She said the water often would run through the middle of the barn and she figures the water washed out the soil and stone pillars from underneath the support poles of the barn. The picture shows how the barn now looks. The owner of the property, Franklin Kirkland, of Vonore, plans to clear the area with a bulldozer in the near future.