Day Two of Carrol's visit begins

Carrol Waymon's second day in Tryon began with a breakfast at T.J’s Diner on Trade Street just south of town.

The breakfast was leisurely and while we were there Phoebe McCabe stopped in for a while as the repaired shop across the street was finishing up on her car. She waved as she sat down in the booth behind us.

The diner had a few other customers, but was quiet as we began to plan the day. Carrol said he wanted to take a drive to see the town as well as some of the surrounding communities he remembered from his childhood. He wanted to see the old St. Luke’s Hospital (where his brother Sammy was born), Gillette Woods, Melrose Avenue, the Train Depot, the Hollow behind the Depot, Mill Spring, Green Creek, and Little Africa. We had our day planned.

When we finished breakfast, our first stop was at the old St. Luke’s Hospital that has now been converted to a senior meeting place and is where the Polk County Department of Social Services is located. The building sits on a bluff overlooking Highway 176 as the road enters Tryon from the south. Tryon is a North Carolina/ South Carolina border town and Highway 176 is the old Asheville-Spartanburg Highway, which was the easiest way up the mountain until 1979 when I-26 from Spartanburg to Asheville was completed. US 176 is a NC Scenic Byway as it passes through Tryon, up the Valhalla Valley, and through the City of Saluda, NC. The sight of the hospital from the road below must have been impressive in the 1920’s and 30’s.

The stone and timber building has the feel of a Craftsman Castle. Above the old entrance carved in the lintel in high relief are the words, “St. Luke’s Hospital” which overlook lower Trade street south of town.

From the hospital we headed to Melrose Avenue where Carrol wanted to see the Melrose Inn where his father once worked. At the end of Melrose Avenue at Chestnut Street once stood Oak Hall Hotel, a rambling numerously roomed building that had a commanding view of Tryon and the mountains. The Hotel was torn down in the late 1970’s to make room for condominiums, which are there today. Just across Chestnut from the site of the Oak Hall Hotel is the Lanier Library where at the age of nine, Carrol said he and a friend read in the Tryon Daily Bulletin that, “children were invited.”

“We arrived and were turned away. It wasn’t the black children who were invited only the white children,” Carrol told the story as we made the turn from Chestnut onto Melrose. I asked him if he wanted to stop and go inside, and he said, “No.”

Next to the Lanier Library stands the Tryon Fine Arts Center built the late 1960’s. Across the street from Art Center is the Melrose Inn where John Waymon worked. We turned in and drove down behind the building to see the back side. Carrol had few memories of the building, but remembered his father talking about it. Beyond the Inn and down Melrose Avenue a ways is the Holy Cross Episcopal Church followed by the Congregational Church. Carrol was seeing Melrose Avenue with the eyes of a child, but with the full experienced of his eighty years. “These are rich churches,” he said. And I said, “Yes."

Melrose Avenue is the route Eunice walked while taking piano lessons from Muriel Mazzanovich who lived on Glengarnock Road in Gillette Woods. Glengarnock is a steep road that winds up to a ridge with direct view of the mountains. We followed the road and stopped in front of the old Mazzanovich place that has now been entirely remodeled without much of the original structure remaining. Across the street and up a ways is where Mrs. Miller lived and where Carrol’s mother, Kate Waymon worked during the years Eunice was taking piano lessons with “Miss Mazzy.”

We turned around in the Miller house driveway and drove back down Glengarnock and around to Melrose. “I was never at the Mazzy’s, but remember them talking about it.” Carrol said on the way. We turned in at Melrose Circle and around so Carrol could see some of the other houses. We drove down Hidden Lane and I pointed out where the first Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright lived. We then returned to Chestnut Street and turned towards town.

As we got to the end of Chestnut at Pacolet Street and across from the Tryon Train Depot we noticed the MUSEUM OPEN sign on the Polk County Historical Association located in the Depot. We parked and got out. Next to the depot is a small garden park maintained by the Tryon Garden Club. Carrol commented on how simple it seemed to create and maintain a garden. “It just takes doing it,” he said. We talked for a moment about the Birthplace and a garden there, and it occurred to me, it just takes doing it.

Inside the Depot, the Historical Association Museum is a collection of bits and pieces of Polk County History. It’s a small room with a lot of material – tools, pictures, text, a printing press, and a wood stove to name a few. “Ours was like this, but without this,” Carrol said gestured towards the stove and describing the stove in the Birthplace in 1933. “We’ll have to find one for the house -- and one of these,” he said pointing towards a flour bin in the museum’s recreated early Polk County kitchen.

Disappointedly, the display of photos of famous Polk County people was absent of any mention of Nina Simone. Carrol didn’t say anything, but it was obvious as we left the museum that he had noticed and we talked about it later the next day. In the museum however, one bright moment came when we found an old Tryon business poster from the 1920’s that mentioned, the Tryon Pressing Club and Carrol wondered if that was his father’s ad.

After the Historical Association we drove down to the Hollow behind Pacolet Street where the Waymon’s lived just before moving to East Livingston Street sometime in 1931. The Hollow was overgrown and haunting. We stopped near a crossroads and Carrol got out.