West Virginia

The weekend after Grace's birthday party, we drove up to Pipestem Resort State Park in West Virginia for my grandmother's 90th birthday. We've been up to Pipetem several times and really enjoy our stays there. There are loads of wildlife--especially deer--to see.

This fella came up to our room every day, too accustomed to being fed by tourists

There is also hiking, horseback riding, an indoor pool and rec center, and an aerial tramway down the Bluestone River Gorge. We stayed at the lodge this time. Usually we stay in cabins with a kitchen so we make all our own meals. But this time we were in hotel rooms with no kitchen so we had to depend on local dining options.

Dinner from the salad bar

There is a restaurant at the Lodge and the fare is pretty good, but otherwise dining options around the park are extremely limited, especially when you're looking for a sit-down restaurant with gluten-free choices. I do really love the park. It's never crowded. The staff is always giving us stuff for free, so I don't know how they make any money. I had a free horseback ride; Grace had free meals; they didn't charge us for several games in the rec center. I don't know how the park can stay open with so few people, so if you're looking for vacation ideas you should seriously consider Pipestem!! Only about 4 hours from Knoxville!

Grace, of course, got more presents for  her birthday, including this big inflatable ball that she sits in while we roll her around. 

It's all fun and games until somebody throws up

I was seriously considering getting in there and doing an epic roll down the river gorge behind our lodge, but I've seen enough Youtube videos of stuff like that to know you need to get really drunk, set up several cameras along the route AND THEN do it. So, maybe next time.

Aunt Susan had to make sure it was safe for kids

One day while we were there, we drove to Sandstone Falls on the New River. This is a beautiful stretch of the river where we took an easy hike along a boardwalk to view the falls.

Betsy didn't freak out about this AT ALL! She DID NOT scream at her husband when he dared touch the snake

Part of the lovely Sandstone Falls

And we celebrated my grandmother' Lucy Coleman Tyler Liebenow's birthday. Lucy was born in Key West, Florida, at the weather station where her grandfather was the station chief. She dimly remembers helping her grandfather launch weather balloons from the roof. The station still stands today, but serves as an expensive bed and breakfast. She had four siblings: an older sister (Betty) and brother (George) and two younger sisters (Anne and Harriet).

Betty, George, Anne on her mother's lap, and Lucy being held by her father around 1926 in Key West

Her father was a Navy doctor. His career spanned 30 years of the transformative early 20th century. He served on board a US Destroyer during the First World War. During the Second World War, he was in charge of a military hospital in North Africa. He was awarded the Bronze Star in Algeria.

As a Navy brat, Lucy moved more places than she can recall today. I interviewed three of her siblings (her oldest sister, Betty, recently passed away in Texas, but the other siblings are still alive and scattered from Mississippi to North Carolina to New York) and they each had different opinions on where the family moved during their father's career, and in what order. The general consensus is that from Key West, the Tylers moved to the West Indies for two years, then Dahlgren, VA, then back to Key West, then Norfolk, VA, west to California, then finally to Annapolis, MD, where Lucy finished High School.

Lucy was extremely smart. She said, "everything just came easy to me." She was bumped up a grade to be with her older brother, George. When one of her teachers asked George to answer a question, he often didn't know the answer. So the instructor would sharply say, "Lucy, why don't YOU tell us what the answer is?" She graduated high school at 16. Lucy was one of the first women to attend an all boys college in Ashland, VA, called Randolph Macon. Randolph Macon was the school where her father got his undergraduate, pre-med degree. It was also where a young man named William "Bud" Liebenow was in his final year. At Randolph Macon, Lucy majored in math and physics. She was in an upper level physics course as a freshman, along with a struggling senior named Bud Liebenow. Today, Bud recalls that the only reason he graduated college was because Lucy was his lab partner and got him through the course. The two began dating.

In addition to academics, Lucy was extremely adept at tennis. She learned to play when her father was stationed in California. Her dad loved tennis and wanted his only son, George, to play. He got George a racket and took him out to play all the time. Like many men in those days, he was a bit of a chauvinist and didn't think women should play such sports. Lucy found one of her dad's old metal rackets and used to hit balls against the back of her house. She found a girlfriend who wanted to play with her. The two girls would get up at daylight and walk a mile to the local city park. She would play with her friend all day against anyone willing. In high school, Lucy's father had a tennis coach at Annapolis--who used to be a top world-class player--give lessons to George. Recognizing her ability, her dad got the coach to hit the ball with Lucy, and he became very excited about her game. He wanted her to be a top player and take up lessons but she "didn’t go that route," as she puts it. Her dad was amazed she was so good at the sport.

As the daughter of a high-ranking officer, Lucy never needed a job. Instead, she lived on the tennis court. She was the first girl (in the country!) to get on her college tennis team. She got an invitation to play in the US Open the year she started college, but she didn’t think she was good enough. One of her best friends, Lucia Layman, was also the daughter of a Navy doctor. Lucy and Lucia were mid-atlantic champions playing doubles. During the Second World War, Lucia served as a Japanese interpreter. Sadly, she died in a plane crash immediately following the war. 

After he graduated, in 1941, Bud taught high school in Spotsylvania. He continued to court Lucy and would often drive 45 miles from his home in Fredericksburg back to Ashland to see her. He only taught for a semester before Pearl Harbor. Immediately, Bud signed up as a Navy Ensign and entered the PT Boat program. After PT school and torpedo school, Bud was part of the new PT squadron forming in New York. Meanwhile, Lucy quit college. Bud had a 3 day pass and went to Portsmouth navy hospital to marry Lucy. Her mother, father and sister came to the wedding. Afterward, the couple returned to Brooklyn, New York, where they "walked up and down the streets to find a place to live." They were only there 6 weeks before Bud shipped out for the South Pacific. 

Lucy returned to Portsmouth where she worked in the hospital pay office. She lived with her mother and sisters. Her father was in North Africa. Her older sister Betty’s husband, John, was at sea. The two younger sisters, Harriet and Anne, were too young to marry. It was just a house full of women for much of the war. Lucy would go for weeks without hearing from her husband. She said all the women were afraid of what might happen to her father, or John, or Bud but Lucy put on a brave face for the rest of the women. Bud recalled coming home on shore leave to find Lucy shoveling coal for the furnace because she was "the strong one in the family."

Also during World War II, Lucy got an invitation to play basketball for the New York Red Heads, though she'd never played basketball in her life. With men's sports on hiatus during the war, women's leagues sprang up to entertain Americans at home. The recruiters for the Red Heads thought Lucy had natural athletic ability and would be perfect for their team. She would have had to dye her hair red for the position, but she turned down the opportunity.

Bud discovered that post-War Navy life didn't agree with him. He was used to the informal world of the PT boat skipper, wearing shorts and t-shirts. At the Navy Department in Washington, he had to dress up in stiff coats and follow seemingly pointless regulations. He left the Navy, but before he got out, the couple welcomed a baby boy named Michael. Mike was born in Portsmouth, where Lucy's father was serving his last tour as the head of the hospital. 

With their son in tow, the young couple left the Navy behind and moved to Ashland, VA, where Bud got a job at a chemical testing lab. He held the job for five years, during which Lucy had a baby girl, Susan. Bud was recruited to work for the CNO Railroad and the family moved to the company's headquarters, where Bud got training to be a railroad man. After a brief stay in Huntington, Bud and Lucy lived in northeast Kentucky (Catlettsburg, Belfont, Russell). From there, they moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where their children spent most of their childhood. At first, they lived in the city of Grand Rapids. Then, they traded their house for a 77 acre farm in the country. Bud primarily grew Christmas trees on the farm, but they also had a large garden, two pigs, a horse, ducks, chickens, cats, and three or four dogs. All this while Bud continued to work for CNO. 

While they were in Michigan, the family became involved in the Kennedy campaign for the Presidency. Bud and JFK were both PT boat skippers--in fact, Bud's boat picked up Kennedy and his crew after PT 109 was cut in two by a Japanese destroyer. So, Bud and Lucy worked at the Democratic headquarters in Grand Rapids, and Bud sat with Kennedy during a campaign event in Detroit. After Kennedy won the election, the family was invited to the inauguration in January, 1961. Lucy recalled going to one of the balls. She said the room was completely packed and she never thought she'd get to see the newly elected President. However, when he came in the room, she said a pathway opened, "like the parting of the Red Sea," and she was able to briefly meet both Kennedy and Jackie Onassis.

When their children graduated high school, Bud transferred back to Huntington, WV, where he was the director of environmental engineering. In Huntington, Lucy decided to go back to school because she had always wished she'd graduated from Randolph Macon. She graduated Suma Cume Laude--in her 50s--with an English degree from Marshall University. Meanwhile, Mike graduated from the University of Michigan and entered the Marine Corps. He would end up serving two tours in Vietnam as an artillery officer during which he was awarded the Bronze Star. Susan graduated from the University of Mary Washington, became a college tennis coach, then founded a successful fitness company that runs gyms at several federal buildings in the Washington D.C. area.

Bud retired from the railroad and the couple settled in Edenton, North Carolina, in the early 1980s. They lived in a house right on the Albemarle Sound, next to the town's golf course and tennis courts. For the next 20 years, the couple had a peaceful retirement. They could walk out their front door on the golf course (they were both avid golfers). They also enjoyed playing tennis in the local tennis league and Bridge with the Bridge Club. Out their back door, they could walk down to the water where both regularly swam, fished, caught crab, and sailed their small sail boat. Best of all, their son, Mike, his wife, Dianne, and their three children moved to the nearby town of Plymouth in 1984. Plymouth was a short 30 minute drive across the water, so the couple could spend their golden years with regular visits from the grandchildren.

Tragedy struck in 1992 when Mike's oldest son, Buz was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma. The young man succumbed to the disease later that year. Mike and Dianne separated the following year, and Mike moved to Tacoma, Washington. Despite these sad events, the couple were overjoyed when their granddaughter, Ginger graduated from Wake Forest University and was commissioned as an officer in the Army. A few years later, they were able to attend their grandson's graduation from the Air Force Academy.

In 2003, Hurricane Isabel struck the North Carolina coast. Several trees fell on Lucy'  and Bud's home, but they escaped unscathed. The house was unsalvageable so the couple began looking for retirement homes. They finally settled on a place in Mount Airy, a town in the North Carolina mountains--incidentally the birthplace of Andy Griffith and basis for "Mayberry."

I'm fortunate that Mount Airy is only four hours from my house, but I still don't visit as often as I should. Lucy has had an amazing life (with more years to come!). Traveling the world as a Navy brat; her success at tennis and academics; World War II; running the family's farm in Michigan; the Kennedy campaign; her children's success; earning her own degree; and a very happy retirement. These are just a few insights into the past 90 years, and I hear more stories that amaze me every time I visit. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for my grandmother and I hope I can pass on to my daughter and Ginger's two boys some of the memories and experiences of this inspiring member of the Greatest Generation.

Bud and Lucy in West Virginia. Happy Birthday, Grammy!!