Now, I told you about Grandmother Hood; her name was Mamie McCall. Her
 father married a Cherokee Indian lady and she had five other half-brothers and half-
 sisters. That was a beautiful part of the family. They were real interesting people.

 On my mother's side, her great-great-grandfather's name was also Lemuel Furman
 Hood. They had a house out where the stage coaches came through, and a lot of
 travelers came. Lemuel F. Hood was the first elected official in Henderson County--
 a tax collector, of course. But the house that they built is still standing and it is on
 the Howard Gap Road. [The Howard Gap Road] was a very historical road that was
 an Indian trail; the Indians traveled down to the coast of South Carolina to get salt.
 And that was the trail through the Howard Gap.

 [Anyway], this house is still standing. It was made of hand-hewn chestnut boards that
 are about a foot wide. It was the first house around there to be finished--inside and
 out. The same materials are still in good shape. A man bought it [who] was very
 interested in this sort of thing, and he and his family have passed it down for several
 generations now. It is a showplace. It still has a big white oak tree growing out in
 the yard that was a big tree when my grandfather was a little boy.

CJ: When was it that your great-grandfather traveled out to Oregon and Texas? Was it
 after the war?

RJ: No, it was before the Civil War. Of course, that was the day of the big outlaw gangs
 in the West and that sort of thing. And of course there were the Indian wars; he
 went right through the Indians on the Oregon Trail, I guess it was. I do not know
 exactly [but] I will have to ask my cousin George the next time I see him, and find
 out exactly what it was. But great-grandpa was well-enough-to-do that he could keep
 his holdings there in North Carolina (his original land grant) and go out and
 homestead, wherever it was. He had left his farm back in North Carolina in
 caretaker status. Today the trip would be nothing; in one day's time you [can] go to
 Texas and back, and to Oregon and back. But in those days it took months and
 months and months to do that traveling. As far as that goes, I have not maintained
 or established any contact with the Oregon branch of the family, but my cousin
 George has.

 Probably the most interesting place for my family is in Saluda, North Carolina, which
 is a little town about ten miles south of Hendersonville, almost on the South
 Carolina line. My Grandmother Jones, Marguerite Pace, was from Saluda. Actually,
 it was a little cove down below Saluda that was very protected. In the spring they
 could start growing their vegetables and produce, about three weeks before anybody
 else could. Her brother was named M.A. Pace [and he] established what was called
 a dry goods store up in Saluda. They handled anything and everything you could
 think of: patent medicines, produce, canned goods, meat, hardware, clothing. That
 is what a dry goods store is. That store is in existence today. Until these two sisters


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