PICKENS — Pickens Presbyterian Church organist Carla Padgett will introduce the church’s recently-acquired Steinway grand piano to the music-loving public as well as the congregation with a recital at 7 p.m. Sunday evening, June 12, in the church sanctuary.

Far from new, the piano, built in 1921 and newly restored by Steinway specialists Case Brothers Co. of Spartanburg. is one of those top-of-the-line instruments whose quality and richness of tone is considered enhanced by its antiquity. “I just want everyone to hear the difference, the beauty and the magnificence of its sound,” said Ms. Padgett, who studied piano, violin and conducting at the University of South Carolina and Furman University, and began her study of organ techniques and repertoire in France.

Offspring of long-time Pickens County families, the pianist grew up in Columbia and has, for several years, lived on a small farm in Liberty amid chickens, rabbits and elderly horses, hand-raising row-crops and teaching piano and violin, and fiddling a little blue grass with friends. For her, the recital also celebrates the first anniversary of her work as organist at Pickens Presbyterian.

The listener-friendly program will run a little more than an hour, and will include waltzes and polonaises by Chopin, and works by Schubert, Debussy and others. It’s free, and everyone is invited. The church is at 311 West Main Street in Pickens.

EASLEY — Enrapt is kicking off its Summer of Theatre class series.

Each Tuesday during the summer from 6:30-8:30 p.m., Enrapt will be providing a variety of theatre-based classes. The price will be $20 per class, each week. Each class is not mandatory, and this gives the student the opportunity to pick and choose the classes they want to participate in. The classes are fun, exciting and an awesome learning experience.

The classes will be held at the Enrapt Annex, located at 319 Gentry Memorial Highway in Easley. To sign up each week, call Enrapt at (864) 419-0046 or email Enrapt at bgriffin@enrapt.org.

The list of remaining classes are as follows: Week 2 (June 14) Auditions and How to Prepare; Week 3 (June 21) Directing; Week 4 (June 28) Kids Acting (10 and under); Week 5 (July 5) Improvisation; Week 6 (July 12) Shakespeare and his Works; Week 7 (July 19) Suzuki Acting; Week 8 (July 26) Playwriting and how to get started; Week 9 (Aug. 2) Stage Management; Week 10 (Aug. 9) Importance of Theatre in Community.

• Mt. Tabor Baptist to host ‘Mission Market’

The Mt. Tabor Baptist Church will hold a “Mission Market” Saturday, June 11, from 7-11 a.m. Rent a table/space for $8 or just come and shop. Proceeds will benefit a different mission each month. Mt. Tabor Baptist Church is located at 4174 Dacusville Highway in Easley. For more information, call (864) 979-1546.

• Hagood Mauldin House open for tours

The Pickens County Historical Society extends an invitation to visit the Hagood-Mauldin House. This historic home was built in the 1850s in the old town of Pickens Court House on the west bank of the Keowee River. The home was disassembled and moved to its present site at 104 N. Lewis St. in Pickens in 1868, when Pickens District was divided into Pickens and Oconee counties. The house is furnished with period antiques.

The Hagood-Mauldin House is open the third Saturday of each month, April through October 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The fees are $5 for adults and $1 for children and students (18 and under). Private tours may be arranged during the week by calling (864) 421-4771. Parking is available at Legacy Square, next to McDonald’s.

• PPCCDC tourney set for this Friday

Pickens Presbyterian Church Child Development Center’s fifth annual golf tournament will be held this Friday, June 10, at the Pickens Country Club. Registration is set for 9 a.m., with a 9:30 a.m. shotgun start. The Pickens Country Club is located at 1018 Country Club Road in Pickens.

Breakfast will be provided by Bojangles’, and lunch will be provided by Larry Looper’s BBQ after the tournament. There will be cash prizes awarded for first through third-place finishes. Awards will also be given for closest to the pin, white tees, senior tees and ladies tees, as well as men’s and women’s longest drive and a putting contest.

Entry fee is $100 per player, or $400 per team. The proceeds from the event will help the Pickens Presbyterian Church Child Development Center better serve all children, including children with special needs. For more than 30 years, the center has been a place where children with all abilities can play and learn together. Any donation made will greatly benefit the children in the center’s care, and donations are tax-deductible.

• Trotter reunion set for June 11 in Pelzer

The annual Trotter family reunion is set for noon on June 11. The event will be held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church on Smythe Road in Pelzer.
Directions to the church are take S.C. 8 into Pelzer, then turn left onto S.C. 20 at BI-LO. Smythe Road is on the right.
This is a combined reunion with the descendants of James S. Trotter, brother of George MacDuffie “Mac” Trotter.

• Nalley reunion to be held at SWU

The 102nd Nalley reunion will be held Saturday, July 9, in the dining commons of Southern Wesleyan University in Central.

All descendants of Rev. George Burdine and Emma Burns Nalley are invited and urged to attend. For more information, contact Evelyn McCollum at (864) 859-5239 or evegray854@charter.net.

Lunch will be served at noon; doors open at 10 a.m. Come early and visit. Cost of the meal is $18 in advance.

PICKENS — Hagood Mill will present an Old Time String Band Tribute to Jerry Garcia on Saturday, June 18, at the Hagood Mill Historic Site.

A special day of milling and music is planned beginning at 10 a.m., with the event set to highlight the memory and music of Jerry Garcia as local musicians perform old-time renditions from one of American music’s most iconic characters.

This year’s event features the West End String Band, delivering a fresh, driving and energetic take on old-time Americana music. WESB’s style mixed with a little “Jerry” should make for a great show. West End String Band will be performing from 1-3 pm.

Other performers include Becky Stovall from the “Hen House Rockers” and Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award recipient Steve McGaha. Live musical performances begin around 11 a.m. on the main stage.

The gristmill and all other demonstrations will be running from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Local farmers will be on hand selling live plants, vegetables, hand-cut herbs and more.

Featured demonstrators will be the Old Ninety Six District Model A Ford Club. Their motto is “We enjoy driving the A’s and talking about the good ole Henry Ford Days.” Visitors will have an opportunity to look over some of the best “Daily Driver” model A vehicles in the Southeast.

All in attendance are asked to bring a lawn chair or blanket.

There will be lots of other things to see on the day of the event as the historic site hosts a variety of folk life and traditional arts demonstrations.

There will be blacksmithing, bowl-digging, flint knapping, chair-caning, moonshining, broom-making, basket-making, pottery, quilting, spinning, knitting, weaving, woodcarving, metal-smithing, beekeeping, leather-working and more. Attendees will also be able to talk with the artists and make a purchase of their traditional arts to take home. As always, the mill encourages visitors to bring their favorite old-time instruments and join in on the “open jam” which takes place throughout the day under the ancient cedar beside the beloved 1791 log cabin.

The centerpiece of the Hagood Mill historic site is the water-powered 1845 gristmill. One of the finest examples of 19th century technology in the Upcountry, it operates just as it has for the last century and a half. The mill will be running throughout the day. In the old mill, fresh stone-ground corn meal, grits and wheat flour will be available. In addition, rye flour, Basmati rice, flour, oat flour, oatmeal, popping corn meal and grits, organic yellow corn meal and grits and buckwheat flour are produced and may be available. Hagood Mill cookbooks and a variety of other mill-related items will also be available.

There is a $5 parking fee for the day, but admission is free to the Hagood Mill site, as well as the Hagood Creek Petroglyph Site. All proceeds from parking support the Hagood Mill site.

Food will be available on-site from the Gatehouse Restaurant and the Friends Farm Food Truck.

The Hagood Mill historic site is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. all year long. The mill operates, rain or shine, for a special festival the third Saturday of every month. The Hagood Mill is located just three miles north of Pickens off U.S. Highway 178 or 5.5 miles south of S.C. Highway 11 just off U.S. 178 at 138 Hagood Mill Road.

For more information, contact the Hagood Mill at (864) 898-2936 or visit visitpickenscounty.com/calendar.

EASLEY — Friends of Pickens County Guardian ad Litem are getting a jump on inviting the community to the third annual Clusters for Kids Oyster Roast.

The event will be held Saturday, Oct. 22, from 5-9 p.m., at Arran Farm, located at 820 Lenhardt Road in Easley.

Honorary chair of the third annual Clusters for Kids Oyster Roast will be District 3 S.C. House Representative Gary Clary.

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The casual evening will include roasted oysters and Lowcountry Southern-style buffet, along with adult beverages, music, silent auction, football on the big screen and much more — a wonderful way to enjoy a fall evening and support the neglected and abused children of tge community.

Ticket prices are $50 individually and $90 per couple, with a limited number of tickets available at the door for $75 each. Tickets may be purchased online at friendspcgal.org.

Proceeds from the evening will assist in funding the Friends of Pickens County Guardian ad Litem programs to ensure that no child in Pickens County goes without the love, care, and necessities to have a safe, happy and healthy childhood while a part of the Guardian ad Litem program. Programs funded include annual Heart and Sole Back to School Shopping, new clothes closet for children coming in to placement, annual Children Spring Fling,and numerous other requests for the children.

“The number of children that received back-to-school clothing increased over 60 percent in the past two years, resulting in an increase of over $8,000 in cost for this program,” chair Tammy Clark said. “And the number of children is projected to be higher this year due to the number of children in care.”

The Friends of Pickens County Guardian ad Litem Program is a 501(c)3 volunteer charitable organization whose mission since 2002 has been to provide holistic support to abused and neglected children and court appointed volunteers for the Pickens County Guardian ad Litem program, encompassing volunteer-centric events and community awareness.

Visit friendspcgal.org or find the organization on Facebook to learn more about the Friends of Pickens County Guardian ad Litem.

For more information about the third annual Clusters for Kids Oyster Roast, call (864) 506-0737 or email chair@friendspcgal.org

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Mom passed from this life at 5:48 p.m. on the eve of Mother’s Day 2016. The expressions of sympathy and care from far and near were phenomenal. Following is her eulogy that I gave at the funeral and have been asked to publish.

By Dr. Thomas Cloer, Jr.

Special to The Courier

Humble Beginnings

Grace Moody Cloer was the second child of Andrew Weaver Moody and Bonnie Woody Moody. Grace was born just below the Moody Bridge located across the Tuckaseegee River in the idyllic Tuckaseegee Gorge, just above Western Carolina University and Sylva, N.C., on scenic Highway 107.

Mom was born Nov. 11, 1924, in a little mountain cabin on the huge Moody farm in Jackson County, N.C. The small cabin was straight across the river from a cemetery on a high hill, where five previous generations of her ancestors lie. Those ancestors include Mom’s great-great-great-grandmother, who was born in 1749, approximately three decades prior to the Declaration of Independence. There’s a big fishing hole located there in the curve of the river named for her mother, called to this day the Bonnie Moody Hole. Bonnie was an extraordinary lady who loved to fish and hunt until contracting a dreaded virus in the mid 1940s that paralyzed her and nearly took her life. Bonnie then became crippled for life. Mom’s Dad, Weaver Moody, took a bad cold just before Christmas 1927, and died on Christmas Day when Grace was three years old.

Courtesy photo

Grace Moody, center, with sisters Maxine, left, and Lucy as caretakers of the Lupton Estate.

Bonnie Moody, needing work because of the Great Depression, moved her family to the Fred Lupton Estate at Sapphire, N.C. Bonnie became caretaker of the land and holdings. A beautiful mountain lake there provided Grace and her sisters, Lucy and Maxine Moody, and a brother, Fred Moody, with an excellent, luxurious swimming hole. Thus began Mom’s lifelong love of the water.

Love of Water

One of my first memories is of Mom in her bright red bathing suit hitting the water and swimming like a duck to my amazement after

Courtesy photo

Grace and Lucy Moody.

diving from the bed of a lumber truck backed deeply into the icy water of Holly Creek in the North Georgia mountains. Mom never missed an opportunity to swim, even in her 80s. She looked forward to rising before daylight, driving to Central, where my son, Carl Thomas Cloer lll (Tom-Tom), was director of recreation. Mom went swimming first thing early in the morning, even after her neuropathy and arthritis had limited her mobility.

Grace’s family outings almost always included large pools of mountain ice water that would exclude — even paralyze — flatlanders, but were simply delightful and rejuvenating to Grace, her husband, Carl, and her sons, with the exception of my youngest brother, Mike. He was afraid of the water until my older brother, Nat, and I healed him. We threw him in over his head and screamed, “Swim!” He swam.

Mom as Teenager and Young Adult

Just after Mom’s 16th birthday, she ran away to Walhalla and eloped with a carefree young mountain man, Carl T. Cloer, who was several years older than she — seven years, as a matter of fact. I always begin to squirm when people start talking loud, long and loathingly about young women marrying older men. They are talking, unknowingly of course, about my mother. Mom said people talked then and said it wouldn’t last. Mom and Dad “went steady” for 56 years.

Courtesy photo

Baby Grace Moody, father, mother and brother, Fred, at birth place.

In 1941, Mom and Dad moved to Hayesville, N.C., where Carl T. Sr., and his brothers would operate a huge steam band saw mill for its superintendent, William Thad Cloer, my grandfather. Nat was born a year after Grace and Carl eloped. But I had the distinct honor of being the first to be born in a hospital, in nearby Murphy, N.C., in 1945.

The Cloers were sawmill nomads, and after my birth, the family moved to the North Georgia mountains to a little town called Ellijay. That’s where our family lived when Grace’s youngest son, Michael C., was born. Grace never missed a year being a grade mother in Nat’s and my school; she brought refreshments and fun to the children on all holidays. While other kids seemed embarrassed when their Moms came to school, I always loved for my Mom to come to the school, because all my classmates would say how pretty and funny she was, the latter being most important, of course. Mom would run, laugh and play with us as if she were an elementary pupil.

Mom always had a wonderfully earthy sense of humor. She has made her sons blush with that delightful, laid-back sense of humor, and whenever Dad felt himself getting too serious about life, he would always turn to Grace. When Mom could still walk around at the flea markets, I remember her embarrassing me one day by leaning over and saying, with only a slightly suppressed voice, “Tom, today must be Ugly Day at this crowded flea market.”

“Mom!”

Courtesy photo

Saw mill crew at Ellijay in the North Georgia mountains.

Move to the East Tennessee Mountains

Nat and I had attended the schools in Ellijay all our lives until 1959. I was entering the ninth grade, Nat was entering his senior year, and Mike his first year of school when the sawmill barons, who totally controlled our lives, moved the big band sawmill to Stinking Creek in the coal- and timber-rich high East Tennessee mountains. To say the least, Grace was not ecstatic about moving. But Mom made new friends quickly, and Nat and I never played a football game in the roughest mountains of East Tennessee that Mom missed. I can remember Mom laughing about us playing on an abandoned coal field in a coal mining town where the goalposts, for lack of space, were simply leaned up against a cliff of solid rock. One could literally mark the spot where the ball hit. It was their early version of instant replay.

Mom continued her role as being the finest chef ever when wild game and fish were the main dishes. Grace’s preparation of all species of fish, deer, turkey, wild boar, raccoon, woodchuck, squirrel, quail, doves and ducks was renowned. But Nat and I finally spoiled her with wild ducks. Because of snow and ice, we would be out of school for up to six weeks at a time in the Tennessee mountains. Nat and I had little to do but duck hunt. However, a family can only eat so many ducks, so Mom gave the ultimatum, “Not one more duck; I’m beginning to quack instead of talk!” she insisted.

But Mom had a totally different sentiment about squirrels, After we moved to South Carolina, every year in very early fall, about early September, Grace would say, “Tom, it’s time for a mess of squirrels, ain’it?”

And each year I would reply, “Mom, the squirrel season doesn’t open in South Carolina this early.”

And each year, Mom would reply, “Tom, you can open the season, get us five or six fat squirrels, and then close it right back.”

Grace Moody Cloer at cemetery across from her birth place.

Courtesy photo

Love of Nature

We have so many precious memories. There are the memories of camping, at times even without a tent — well, most of the time without a tent — and in state after state. Conditions that would scare most people into a state of panic were the very conditions in which the Cloers thrived. Deep forests and high mountains with few trails, rapid rivers and wild animals everywhere made the Cloers’ lives meaningful and exciting.

I remember one of the All-American athletes at Furman who got to know Tom-Tom well and hunted and camped with us when Dad was alive. He had absolutely never seen anyone like Dad. He thought Tom-Tom was a good shot until he took Dad bird hunting. The boy always hoped for a day bird hunting that might provide enough for table fare. Dad never missed a bird that day, and there was food for all. The athlete told his professors at Furman the following. He said, “If you took most people to the wilderness and set them out without preparation or shelter, they would perish. You take the Cloers and set them out in the same conditions with untamed wilderness, wild animals and roaring rivers, and then check on them in two or three weeks, and they will have gotten fat.”

Always Cheerful & Rarely Despondent

All of Mom’s family loved her. She was always so full of fun. With the exception of Dad’s passing, I can remember only two times when Mom was depressed to the point of weeping. One was when Mike, as a toddler, had contracted a dangerous lung disease, histoplasmosis, from his pet squirrel. I remember he had become scaringly emaciated, with dangerously high fevers, and was in rapid decline in the best hospital in Northern Georgia. I remember how Mom wept the evening the doctor told us he was afraid that Mike would not make it through another fever-stricken night. Mom frightened me when she genuinely wept in a manner I had never seen.

But Mike survived, and later in primary school, became manager of our football team in Tennessee. He then moved to Pickens, started playing football and became president of his senior class and starting center on a Pickens football team that never lost a game in the regular season — won them all.

Life-Changing Action

The other time that I saw Mom despondent involved me. It was the early 1960s. I was 16 and cocky. I had a heavy, dark beard at that age, played running back on the football team and was a member of the Beta Club Honor Society. Our little simple home was actually on the school property and was located adjacent to the Carpentry and Trades School Building. I regularly went home between classes. After counting the milk money one day, our inept principal, whom I will call Fretwell, called me to the office. Without making eye contact, he said tersely and choppily, “Cloer, the beard has to go.”

I replied, “Why are you so caught up with facial hair?”

He answered with 1960s certitude, “It’s a moral thing.” In the 1960s, this immediately set off a 16-year-old’s hypocrisy detector. I asked sarcastically, “What about your illicit and illegal affair with the new, married phys ed teacher that takes place almost daily after school hours in the Carpentry and Trades Building? Is that a ‘moral’ thing?”

Courtesy photo  Author and wife, Elaine, at the grave of author’s great-great-great-great-grandmother.

To borrow a line from an old Kenny Rogers song, “For a minute I thought I was dead.” I have never seen such pent–up anger in a man as I saw that day. His answer was pathetic and woefully inappropriate. He simply wailed, “I despise you!”

Of course, this was exactly what a smart-aleck 16-year-old needed for a comeback. I answered probably in the most debate-winning and the most life-ruining way possible.

“Oh I know that! But you are evading the issue now, aren’t you?”

He then said the last words I believe he ever spoke to me. He said somewhat tiredly, “Go home! You are permanently expelled from this high school.”

I ran home, grabbed my fishing gear and sped off, thinking I was finally free. But Oh! Poor Mom! I will remember to my dying day how hurt she was! I wasn’t expecting that. She cried when she said, “Tom, you have to get along; you have to graduate from high school.”

I assured her I already was a fishing guide on Norris Lake and the Clinch River, and I was already making good money. Furthermore, I was a woodworker like my grandfather, and was already making really pretty furniture. Really! I would be just fine!

None of this placated Mom. I could see her growing more and more depressed each day I was out of school. I couldn’t stand to see her weep. What would you have done if you were in her shoes?

She was not dealing with just one jerk in this situation; I was involved, too. She had Dumb and Dumber who had to, someway, somehow, come to the only satisfactory solution for Mom — full readmission and graduation. I am amazed to this day the insight and political acumen my Mom showed in that situation. Mom knew the moral turpitude clause in the principal’s contract, with his hyper-testosterone levels, had numbered the days left in his professional life. She was so on target!

So she went above him. Mom persuaded the superintendent of Campbell County Schools to invite Tom Cloer back to school if Dumber would shave his beard. The superintendent called me, and, in the manner of Barney Fife, said he once had a mustache and understood my motivation. He also said he had watched me run the ball for the Jacksboro Golden Eagles football team, and would I consider shaving and finishing high school. I saw what a decent guy he was and said “Yes! Sure! I thank you for the invitation!” I was readmitted, graduated with honors and went to college.

This is the first time I have ever spoken publicly of Mom’s intercession. No one knew except Mom and me. I had never spoken of this to my brothers until very recently. My wife, Elaine, and I have been Mom’s primary caregiver since 2006, when Mom lost her ability to walk. Listen, I have simply been paying what I could along on a gargantuan bill, just trying to keep the interest paid, on an enormous debt I owed Mom.

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We will all miss Mamaw, but the precious memories will sustain us until we also travel to the other eternity at the end of our lives. For as a profound cowboy once said, “We’re all travelers in this world, from the sweet grass to the packing house, birth to death. We live and travel here between two eternities.” I look forward to the next.

“God bless you, Mom.”

About the author: Dr. Thomas Cloer Jr. received his bachelor’s degree from Cumberland College, his master’s degree from Clemson University and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina. He was the first Governor’s Professor of the Year for South Carolina.