Historic photos are featured in calendar

Charles Seaver held up a 2010 calendar and got excited about some nuns.
“Look there!” Seaver said a couple of weekends ago at the Mistletoe Market in Abingdon, Va.
The longtime history buff pointed to a photograph showing the Villa Maria Academy of Blessed Virgin Mary, which existed in Abingdon from 1869 to 1903.
But, then, Seaver appeared puzzled by the photograph itself: Two rows of nuns are lined up, rather symmetrically. Still, one nun is sitting on the ground, on the left. And, to the right, there’s an empty chair.
This convent and boarding school building occupied land on Main Street. After 1903, all of the buildings – except the springhouse and the priest’s quarters – were razed.
The photograph is one of dozens featured in the new 2010 calendar published by the Historical Society of Washington County, Va.
On sale for $10, the calendar features a photograph of the old Belmont Hotel, which once stood where the post office is located along Main Street.
Other vintage pictures include a 19th century commencement at Emory & Henry College and a 1938 picture of the Damascus Beavers Baseball Team.
My favorite? Well, for the contemporary shots, I love the Great Channels of Virginia. You just can’t beat staring at this rocky landmark on Clinch Mountain.
As for the old ones, I love seeing all the folks and fiddlers gathered around Eleanor Roosevelt, when the First Lady came to visit Whitetop Mountain in 1933.
Another Eleanor – Eleanor Grasselli – recalled the scene on Aug. 12 of that year: “I was almost three years old and remember waving an American flag at her passing car on the road very close to the bridge over Beaver Dam Creek in Damascus,” Grasselli said.
Grasselli and Seaver are among the many historical society members who contributed to this project. Others on the society’s calendar committee include Kathy Shearer, Kitty Henninger, Blair Keller, Eleanor Hutton, Joyce Ferratt, Jane Oakes, Jeanne Preston and Gregory McMillan.
Ferratt recalled, “The best part for me was in compiling the pictures for June and getting to actually touch the hat case which belonged to Parson Cummings so long ago.”
Cummings, by the way, was one of the primary founders of Abingdon in the late 1700s.
Interested in more? Then pay a visit to the historical society’s library on Depot Square.
“We should preserve history,” Grasselli said, “so that those who seek knowledge of the past will be able to find it.”
Members of the Historical Society of Washington County are selling copies of the 2010 calendar in the lobby at this weekend’s craft show at the Coomes Recreation Center in Abingdon, Nov. 20-22. Calendars are also available at the Historical Society of Washington County Library on Depot Square, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., through Dec. 18. Call (276) 623-8337 or visit http://www.hswcv.org.