Peninsula In Passage

Pebby truly loved these people and saw Driver as a magical place. When she talked about it, I pictured ‘fairy dust’ but I was busy carving my own world, and didn’t listen to all her stories. She died when I was 30. Hinton, Edith, Ann, Robert, Bill and William, have given me the stories. I celebrate their goodness and charity. Davis shares two of her favorite stories. Herbert Harrell was a clown, a tough sounding farmer who was married to a socialite who had a flair for entertaining. Once ladies came to sit on their porch with Bess. Herbert walked over to them, to mumble “Hello” and just pass through. One of the women said, “Oh, Herbert, Is this your chair?” He replied, “Madam, every one of these damn chairs is mine”.

The Harrell House

Herbert drove a slow moving black pick-up truck, but Bess Harrell had to have a new Cadillac every few years. - the latest model .One summer a Cadillac came out with air conditioning but Bess had just purchased the previous model that didn’t have it. Rather than let the community see her without ‘the latest’, Bess rode around in her new Caddy, in the sweltering heat, with her windows up. Diane Davis says I still get lost in everyone’s connections to each other but that’s a good illustration of how most everyone in ol’ Driver is related. For example Hinton Hurff’s Aunt Bess married my grand uncle Herbert Harrell. Hinton is not a blood relative and there may be a term for our being connected, but the best way to say it is that we are good friends.

The original Harrell house property used to extend to Bennett’s Creek but houses occupy that space now. My great grandfather Harrell was buried to the left of the home, but construction of new homes swept the small grave away. While my mother’s generation’s lifestyle changed the magic in Driver did not. Her Driver friends preserved, treasured, and shared their land. The communities built near the Harrell House have adopted the original family and farm names to their street names. The yards are colorful and flourishing, thanks to the rich soil, and possibly magic. Peggy Rodgers, a nurse from Tennessee, felt that magic 20 years ago when she and her husband moved to the area and, wanting a house with character to renovate, they bought the Harrell House. “I knew it was my house as soon as I saw it,” she says. “Hinton (Hurff) stopped by to talk about the house and got me in contact with its families.” Peggy Rodgers and Diane Davis

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