Get outta here to a simpler time with the Waltons

By Mary Alice Blackwell
Media General News Service

Published: August 28, 2008

Back in the day, the old soapstone company in Nelson County was one of the largest private employers in the state.

Today only about 20 people are employed at the Schuyler plant.

The little hamlet that once housed a hospital, two movie theaters and its own electric trolley is now best known for a TV series. Although “The Waltons” officially went off the air in 1981, thousands of fans continue to make pilgrimages to the hometown of the series creator, Earl Hamner Jr., and the Walton’s Mountain Museum.

Hamner based the popular CBS series on his family and their life growing up in Schuyler during the Depression.

There were eight Hamners, but as Earl once explained, Hollywood felt it could cut costs by limiting the number of Walton siblings to seven. Nelson County became known as Jefferson County. Members of the TV family frequently made trips to Charlottesville, Waynesboro, even Virginia Beach. Brother Jason would travel the 12 miles to Scottsville to work as a musician at the Dew Drop Inn (which, by the way, only recently closed.)

Each week’s episode was like a visit home … to a simpler time and a loving family. It spoke to people — just as Hamner did when he opened and closed each show as the melodic-voiced narrator. (I believe I would pay to listen to that man read the phone book.)

But tales of John-Boy Walton (aka Earl Hamner Jr.) weren’t an immediate success. When it debuted on Sept. 14, 1972, the series went head-to-head-to-head with the hip cop action show, “The Mod Squad,” and the most popular comedy, “The Flip Wilson Show.”

“The Waltons” was No. 54.

But in an era when there were only three major TV stations, CBS stuck behind a good story line and, boy, did it pay off. “The Waltons” struck a chord with middle America, and it was No. 1 by the second season and was in the top 20 for five years. Reruns kept the Waltons on air for decades.

In 1992, when the old Schuyler schoolhouse that the Hamner children attended was turned into a museum, more than 6,500 people showed up for the grand opening. Why, just a few years back, the Walton’s Mountain Museum was second only to Monticello as the local tourist attraction. A recent Wednesday guest register included visitors form Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and California.

Leona Roberts used to work at the school as a secretary. Now she greets tourists as the museum director.

“This was the auditorium,” she said of the spacious room as you enter the building. The walls are lined on one side with photographs of the actors. The other side features Schuyler graduates.
Each classroom, she explained, has been converted into a mini replica of a room from the TV show.

Along the hallway to John-Boy’s room is a TV still of Elizabeth (actress Kami Cotler) with Chance the cow. The “youngest Walton sibling” will return to Virginia in late October to meet with one of the Hamner sisters in Lynchburg.

Stepping inside John-Boy’s room is like stepping back in TV time. A Boatwright pennant hangs above his bed. The school desk is beside the window. A manual Remington Rand typewriter rests beneath a shelf of schoolbooks.

The furniture and props are not from the “The Waltons,” but Robert Hall — an interior designer who attended the Schuyler school — assembled the exhibitions to resemble those on the California set.
The cozy living room has a Zenith Tombstone Radio that the Waltons would gather around in the evenings, on loan from Ray and Betty Bowen.

The kitchen, my favorite, includes the long wooden table and benches where the family gathered and children did their homework — just as Hamner says in a 30-minute video his family really did.
There even is a real working “recipe” machine in the back room. No, it’s not the still that the elderly Baldwin sisters used to make their moonshine on the TV show; It’s a real still confiscated locally.

There’s also a room with Ike Godsey’s General Merchandise Store (which doubles as a souvenir shop).

While any day is a good day to drop in, there will be a 16th anniversary celebration on Oct. 18. Four bluegrass and country bands will perform, crafters will be on hand, hayrides are planned, and plate lunches will be served.

All in all, it sounds like a good night, John-Boy.

Blackwell, who writes for The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, can be reached at .

if you’re going
WHAT: Walton’s Mountain Museum
WHERE: Schuyler, Virginia 617
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily from first Saturday in March through last Sunday in November. (Closed Easter, Thanksgiving and the last Saturday in September.)
COST: $6, $5 for groups of 20 or more, free for ages 5 and younger.
INFO: (434) 831-2000, http://www.waltonmuseum.org