The story below is from our March/April 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
A new study puts our state at number three in the country for women-owned businesses.
Local author Ted Carroll released the third installment in his “Echoes From Catawba” series late last year. “Echoes From Catawba: A Silent Killer Comes to Catawba and the Catawba Sanatorium is Born” is divided into 12 articles that range from the most recognizable couple in the area to the last residents of the Garman Homeplace.
The lead article is a history of the Catawba Sanatorium as experienced by three generations of the Carroll family, which was greatly impacted by tuberculosis. As a native of Catawba, Carroll knows the people, places and events that are included in the book well.
“Growing up there instilled in me a kind of self-reliance,” he says. He left the area in 1962 when he received an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech. After spending decades in Orange County as a member of the Virginia Tech Extension faculty, Carroll moved to Greensboro, N.C. in 1999 to be trained as an ordained minister.
“I really never left Catawba. My heart always had a place in it as Catawba emerged and became somewhat more modern,” he explains. It was in 1980 that he started writing about the area that left such a lasting impact on him. His informal scribblings about Catawba continued until 2018 when his wife told him “just write.” Her insistence that he get serious led to his first book.
He moved to Salem a year later, which allowed him easier access to the area he was writing about.
The first volume in the series, which was published in 2018, covers Catawba from the early 1900s through the middle of the 1950s. It was followed up by a second volume in 2019 which chronicles the primitive lifestyle that Winnie Earl Garman Taylor lived for more than a century. Information about Carroll and his books can be found at echoesfromcatawba.com.
The story above is from our March/April 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!
