Tallulah Falls always fascinated me. I recall seeing the old steam-driven engine puff its way along the tracks through the town. On my first ride on it as a child, with my mother, Durell Dickerson Justus, and grandmother, Effie Welborn Dickerson, to visit relatives in Demorest, I suffered as a result of sticking my head out a window when the train started across the trestle over the lake at Tallulah Falls. A bit of cinder lodged in one eye! The two ladies used drinking water carried in a jug to thoroughly wash the eye. It still hurt all day, spoiling some of the excitement of the trip. Later, in my teens, I camped and fished with friends in the Gorge and Panther Creek.
While in high school Billy Long, a friend, and I hitchhiked down from Clayton to spend a weekend and camped in the bottom of the gorge. We explored up and down the gorge which has many hazards. At night, sleeping out from the walls due to falling rocks, we heard strange noises from underground. No wonder the Cherokees were said to be fearful of the “Little people” said to live in caves in the gorge.
Around 1990 I met a lady who then lived in Tallulah Falls Village – in a house built by the Georgia Power Co. In this house Margaret Mitchell – wife of a Georgia Power executive – used to spend time in the summer and there wrote part of her book, “Gone with the Wind.” She had a desk Margaret Mitchell used to write on. She also had furniture from the set of “Gone with the Wind” movie, obtained from her mother who lived in Hollywood, California. She had recently spent a winter in the Everglades with a Seminole Indian family, in a traditional home surrounded by the swamp. Not long afterwards I heard she had died.
A friend of the lady who died had erected a tiny hut on the back side of the mountain at Tallulah Falls. I went with her down the steep side of the mountain to see the hut in a small cove. She liked to hike and camp, carrying cheese and a hammock to hang between trees for the night. She had hiked in western states, including crossing the arid Monument Valley.
The lady that lived in the Mitchell cabin soon died after I met her. She had become a friend and was a frank and friendly person, with a keen mind and wit, who lived an active and adventurous life. Later on the lady of the hidden cabin got married and I lost track of her.
Ronald Vandiver, another friend who had an untimely death due to cancer, was a true adventurer. He was widely read and studied hard to get degrees in middle age. He lived not far above Tallulah Falls and his wife lives in the town now. His forebears were among the first pioneers to come into the Tallulah Falls area when the Cherokees still were around. He carried me back into the forest near the river and showed the foundations of a house a Justus family from South Carolina had built. I still haven’t found a blood line connecting them to me.
Ron Vandiver had a vast knowledge of family and American history. On two trips to Wyoming with Ron, I was blessed with his knowledge of the west and met some of his friends there. His favorite area was the Dubois, Wyoming area, with the Wind River and the Wind River and Absaroka mountain ranges. He loved it here and hoped to build a second home along the Wind River below Dubois.
