A native of Charleston, Lisa was born on June 9, 1973 (the day Secretariat won the Triple Crown).   She received her B.S. in Biology and minor in Environmental Studies from the College of Charleston in South Carolina.  She worked as a fisheries and wetland biologist in Washington, Alaska, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia before transitioning in 2002 from environmental consulting to outreach and education.  She currently serves on the board of the WV Land Trust and is an elder and lifelong member of Kanawha United Presbyterian Church.  Lisa grew up spending her summers and weekends at her family home in Lewisburg, West Virginia where she developed an early connection with beautiful and unique outdoor environments.

I am very pleased to share her 6-part reflection on the many elements of her childhood that made her who she is today.  I have known Lisa on and off since we were middle schoolers, and with increasing depth in adulthood as neighbors, community volunteers together, and raising our children.  I hope you will take the time to enjoy her stories of Lewisburg, Family, Food, Marriage, Music, and Natural Beauty.

You may think you know The Smiths, but I am confident you will learn something new as you read.  For example, I just learned that the cousins would make wagers as to which boyfriends or girlfriends would actually come back to another family dinner after their first.  I have new admiration for their spouses!  These are all fun.  Enjoy, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone.

For the Love of Lewisburg

I grew up spending many weekends and large portions of my summers at my family’s home in Lewisburg, West Virginia.  Sometimes we were just passing through on our way to and from other places, but it was a focal point for our family, a central location.  It was a familiar place that taught me a lot about the important things in life.

In the 1920’s, my great grandmother Elizabeth Dana Smith, or “Grandma Dana,” inherited what had been the Lipps Family Farm, about two hundred acres southeast of what is now downtown Lewisburg.  It eventually became the summer stomping ground for her sixteen grandchildren known as the “sweet sixteen” cousins, one of whom is my dad.  They named the property Smithover.

My grandfather “Smut” or “Paw”, who I never met, flipped a coin with his brother Dana.  Uncle Dana acquired the lovely white home on the ridge, while Smut obtained much of the land along the ridge line, splitting that land into five parcels for his five children.

My dad and his bride built early in the 1970’s with the help of my mother’s father. Grandaddy Botts was concerned about some of the wild and consistent revelry that was taking place among young friends in Charleston. He insisted on helping to pave a driveway to his daughter’s new building site, sooner rather than later.  He wanted to help pave a more wholesome way of life for our family.  My parents finished their beloved A-frame home overlooking the Allegheny Mountains two years before I was born.  They had my three older brothers and enjoyed the feeling of being under roof in a place that they loved.

Ever since I can remember, we drove old Route 60 on Friday afternoons from Charleston to Lewisburg, in several versions of the wood-paneled “woody” station wagon.  It was two and a half hours of rough mountain road…but we persisted, always.

I would walk home from Fernbank elementary school often to find my Dad already home and loading up the car.  “Come on baby girl…we’ve got some grass to mow!”  I’d grab a couple of select pieces from my stuffed mama-and-baby animal collection, and off we’d go.

Through rain, snow, darkness or light….we drove on.  Sometimes my dad would be giving up the cigarettes.  When he did, he usually had nicotine gum behind his ear. Sometimes we’d stop at the Traveler’s Inn for a good hot meal (named for General Robert Lee’s horse Traveler that apparently stopped in that spot often to be watered down during the Civil War).

One particular memory I have was traveling one morning on that part of Route 60 in a snowstorm with my mother and my youngest brother.  I was in first grade.  The bare tree limbs were covered and hugged each other above the road as we drove.  We stopped to let our new puppy, Muskin, out to relieve herself on the side of the road.  (We named her Muskin because we thought it was “a good American Indian word.”  My brother was “Wolf”, his best friend “Coyote.”  I was “Moccasin.”) There was not a soul around.  It was so quiet and peaceful in that moment…so weird and wonderful at the same time.  We were on our way to Lewisburg, once again.

This particular drive is etched in my memory.

Tomorrow:  For the Love of Natural Beauty