This old building was on the side of a mountain near McDow, Virginia, going towards Monterey, and the West Virginia border. The mountains are steep with terribly winding roads. It looks like a snake laid out the plans for the road!  We were on our way to an art show in Monterey when we drove past this little old building sitting off to the side in a field. It was being torn down for firewood! I had Sonny stop in the middle of the road, as this was the only place to stop! That was pretty scary! Anything could have come around the bend, and we'd have a wreck! So, I looked good, and fast, so that I would remember the scene! (I never have a camera around when I really need one!) The building looked to me like it was not only used at one time as a one-room-schoolhouse, but also a church, as it had a wooden cross placed near the front door. I also figured it may have been a "meeting house". In this remote area, in the past, the school might have been used for many different things to save money, as this was a pretty poor rural area. It was spring and the dogwoods were blooming, and the lambs were playing nearby. A lovely scene. But, that was only part of the story!

After I'd painted the picture I  had prints made. Then I was exhibiting at an art show in Syria, Virginia, near Culpeper and Charlottesville. The new print was sitting to the front of all my other prints in my print bin. An old man came into my booth and headed right to the print of the, "Meeting House". He seemed to be riveted to it and bought one for himself. Then he told me, "the story".

He said he "knew" that place, it was a "meeting house" near where he lived as a boy. It was also a school as well as a church! I'd guessed correctly after all! He said his grandmother had taught school for many years there, that, "She'd taught not only white children, but  black, and Indian children, too." During the Civil War there had been a battle just down the road from the Meeting House, called, "the Battle of McDow". It was then, and still is, a pasture on the steep and rocky side of the mountain. The Southerners won the battle and the remaining Yankees ran off into the woods! The old man's great-grandfather lived on a farm not far away. The Yankees invaded his place. They tied the man's great-grandfather to a wagon wheel and tortured him to death in front of his family! The old man's grandfather-to-be, (who at this time was only a young boy), put his sister on a horse and rode them both to safety! The "sister" became the old man's aunt one day! Wow! This makes history "real", dosen't it?

The Bible Scripture title on this print is:

"Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me; when His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; just as I was in the days of my youth, when the friendly counsel of God was all around me; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me. "

- Job 29:2- 5