Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 2, 1990 TAG: 9004020074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: IVANHOE LENGTH: Medium
In fact, volume one of its history - "Remembering Our Past, Building Our Future" - has just been published. Volume two may be out by the end of April.
The book on Ivanhoe, a community of 600 residents on the border of Wythe and Carroll counties, is different from the other local history books around these days.
For one thing, it has no single author. It is written by the people of Ivanhoe.
As chronicled in the 255-page first volume, the area around Ivanhoe was settled before the Revolutionary War. An iron furnace began the boom toward the end of the 19th century. The building of a National Carbide plant in 1917 boosted it even more. Shortly after the middle of this century, New Jersey Zinc Co. began a mining operation here.
But the boom didn't last. National Carbide closed its plant in 1966 and New Jersey Zinc pulled out in 1981.
National Carbide gave its 200 acres to industrial authorities in Wythe and Carroll counties for an industrial park. By 1986, no tenant had been found and the two authorities suggested selling it.
That was what galvanized residents to form the Ivanhoe Civic League. The group successfully lobbied to get the counties' boards of supervisors to postpone the sale so they could try to land an industry themselves. They did, too, but financial problems kept it from succeeding.
Meanwhile, the people of Ivanhoe were trying to improve their community in other ways. They took a bus to Richmond to seek state aid. And they began to generate publicity about "the little community that wouldn't quit."
Some students from Marquette University in Wisconsin heard about it and spent their 1987 spring break in Ivanhoe helping with clean-up, fix-up projects. Since then, students from several colleges have followed suit.
One self-help effort was the establishment of the Ivanhoe Technical Education Center in a building to be used for off-campus classes by Wytheville Community College. The college offered it to Ivanhoe residents.
One of the first teachers was Helen Lewis, a sociologist who had worked in community-building efforts at places such as Duffield, a small town in Scott County that also is seeking ways to improve itself.
In September 1987, Lewis began a series of discussions in which community residents could evaluate their work and plan future strategies. Out of those discussions came the idea for publishing Ivanhoe's history.
Lewis was asked by a research center to write a case study of a rural community struggling with change.
"The Civic League and I therefore made a trade: I could carry out the case study if I would help the community with their history book," Lewis said in an afterword to the history.
The project took about 2 1/2 years and included more than 60 taped interviews with longtime residents. Participants also searched many trunks, attics and basements for old pictures that Judy Crespi could rephotograph for use in the books.
Volume II, which is ready to go to the printer, will include Ivanhoe people sharing their memories. The first volume goes almost to the present, including the April 20, 1989, fire that gutted the M.M. Price store, an Ivanhoe landmark. The book is dedicated to Osa Kegley Price, who worked at that store for more than 50 years.
Each member of Lewis' class would be assigned a topic, ranging from schools and churches to floods and fires.
"I got to write about UFOs and devil worshipers," said Maxine Waller, Civic League president. "Didn't anybody else want to touch either one of those subjects, and they kind of interested me."
"My family was in the mines since mining in Ivanhoe had started, so naturally I chose that," said Linda Dunford.
The class tape-recorded its final evening of discussion and that became its final exam.
The book costs $25 ($5 more if ordered by mail) and is available at the office of the Ivanhoe Civic League, P.O. Box 201, Ivanhoe 24350 (telephone 699-1383).
by CNB