March 21, 2018
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Spring 2018 issue of GOLDENSEAL magazine is now available for purchase at select retailers and/or by calling the GOLDENSEAL office. GOLDENSEAL, West Virginia’s magazine of traditional life since 1975, is published quarterly by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Attached is a list of retailers where GOLDENSEAL magazine is available.
The cover story of the Spring issue of GOLDENSEAL celebrates the life of Frank George (1928-2017) of Roane County. George learned to play fiddle and banjo from his father and grandfather while growing up in Bluefield. His grandfather learned to play from former slaves in Greenbrier County right after the Civil War. An ardent student of history, George became an internationally recognized expert on how traditional music evolved over centuries—from the British Isles to Appalachia. He and his wife Jane, who passed away in February, played major roles in the traditional music and folk arts revival beginning in the 1960s. In this issue, friends and fellow musicians recount entertaining stories about Frank’s life and detail his far-reaching impact on the traditional music scene.
The magazine also looks back 40 years later at the Willow Island Disaster in Pleasants County. On April 27, 1978, 51 workers fell to their deaths when scaffolding collapsed at the Allegheny Energy Supply Company’s cooling tower construction site. It remains one of the deadliest construction disasters in U.S. history.
Other articles cover the 1966 Huntington Vinson Tigers’ improbable basketball championship (by player Dan Kincaid); rural veterinarians in Barbour and Harrison counties (by Barbara Smith); an innovative livestock-raising operation in an old limestone mine in Preston County (by Clarence “Junior” Knotts); the annual return of daffodils (by Deb Austin Brown); a nostalgic trip back to Wenonah, a former coal town in Mercer County (by Mary Catherine Bones); and an Upshur County native’s tale about farming, a pocket watch, a Confederate $50 bill and a couple millstones (by James C. Clark).
The Spring issue also examines Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Charleston in 1960; the 1968 coal mine disaster at Hominy Falls, Nicholas County, in which four miners died but another 16 miraculously survived for days; and Lincoln County Pearl Harbor survivor Wetzel Sanders, who, 76 years later, received a Purple Heart for wounds he received on December 7, 1941.
To order a copy of the Spring issue or to purchase a yearly subscription ($20 per year), call the GOLDENSEAL office at (304) 558-0220.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History is an agency within the Office of Secretary of Education and the Arts. The division, led by Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith, brings together the past, present and future through programs and services focusing on archives and history, arts, historic preservation and museums. For more information about the division’s programs, events and sites, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
GOLDENSEAL can be purchased at the following retail outlets:
Four Seasons Books, Shepherdstown, Jefferson County
State Museum Gift Shop, Culture Center, Charleston, Kanawha County
Taylor Books, Charleston, Kanawha County
West Virginia Market Place at Capitol Market, Charleston, Kanawha County
Yeager Airport Gift Shop, Charleston, Kanawha County
Appalachian Glass, Weston, Lewis County
Railroad Depot, Bramwell, Mercer County
Book Exchange, Morgantown, Monongalia County
Ruby Memorial Hospital Gift Shop, Morgantown, Monongalia County
Cacapon Resort State Park, Morgan County
Nicholas Chronicle Newspaper, Summersville, Nicholas County
Wheeling Artisan Center, Wheeling, Ohio County
Pipestem Resort State Park, Summers/Mercer County
Tygart Lake State Park, Taylor County
Blackwater Falls State Park, Tucker County
Hundred Farm Supply, Hundred, Wetzel County
Witschey’s Market, New Martinsville, Wetzel County
Peoples News, Parkersburg, Wood County
Twin Falls State Park, Wyoming County
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