By Tracia Bussey

The Theodore T. Thorson house on Jones Street in Thorsby gets a lot of attention as a historical home left behind by the founder of the town, but there’s a house that stands on the next block that was built during the same time as the Thorson house by a gentleman who also was instrumental in the founding of Thorsby.

John E. Hedberg came to America from Varmland, Sweden, near the town of Torsby, with his family at the age of 6. They landed in New York and traveled west to Stockholm, Wis., settling there. The Hedberg family joined the Sabylund Lutheran Church in 1868, and John began preaching at the age of 18.  John was ordained in a Lutheran seminary and married Anna Thorson, sister of T. T. Thorson, who was also of Swedish descent.

During his early years of ministry, the couple’s family increased with the birth of six children.  Some time during the 1890s, Anna’s brother, T. T. Thorson, revealed his pioneering ideas to John, inviting his brother-in-law to join him in building a town as a missionary.

As an added bonus, T. T. informed John that since the climate was milder in the South, his health could also benefit, since John had not been well lately.

The opportunity must have been agreeable to the reverend and his wife, for South they traveled, to not only build a new life, but a church and a home. They arrived in Thorsby in 1896 as a missionary for the Augustana Lutheran Church. A seventh child was born to Anna and John after coming to Alabama while they lived in an undesirable house, but in 1898, they constructed the house that still sits on the southeast corner of Jones Street and Michigan Avenue.

After the home was completed, child number eight was born in 1900. Although the reverend’s health seemed to improve in the Southern climate, his wife Anna may have suffered adversely in it. In early 1904, Anna Hedberg became ill with pneumonia. She never recovered and died on Feb. 18, 1904. It is believed she died in the present library of the home.

Her body was sent back to Scandian Grove, Minn., where she was born. John and the children moved back to Minnesota, and he later married again, to Cecilia Nelson in 1905. He left behind the Concordia Lutheran Church that once stood on Jones St. where the CenturyTel building is now located. The church continued with services for many years, where the congregation sang and worshipped in Swedish until it finally closed.

The beautiful home that John and Anna built has stood the test of time, going through many owners and quite a few alterations to its original design. The current owners are slowly working to return the house to its former glory.

By Stephen Dawkins | Assistant Managing Editor

Cindy Vining believes in happy endings.

It’s the reason she opened the Jemison Wedding Chapel.

Sure, Vining likes the idea of couples using the historic church she and her husband renovated to commit to spending the rest of their lives together, but she also thinks the business venture itself will turn out like it would in a story.

“All my life, I’ve always wanted to do something like this,” Vining said.

For years, Vining has enjoyed decorating, baking cakes and creating porcelain dolls, thinking that one day she might like to open a tea room or something of the sort.

She and her husband, Frank, moved to Jemison from McCalla about six years ago, and one day a classified advertisement caught her attention.

“There it was—this church,” Vining said. “It’s like it hit me. I didn’t hesitate. I just remember picking up the phone and calling. The more we talked, the more excited I got about it.

“From that point on, nothing has gone wrong.”

Well, that’s not exactly the case. The remodeling of the old Methodist church has gone well, and Vining is pleased with the result, but between finding the church and beginning the work on April 1, Vining was laid off from her job at Wyatt Construction.

And she found out on her birthday, no less.

Co-workers at Wyatt knew Vining’s plans for the church and presented her with a $600 gift card to a home improvement store before she left.

Vining put the gift card plus her savings into remodeling the church and hasn’t looked back.

“I’ve been led by this, and I’ve never once thought that I made a mistake,” she said.

The work has been exhaustive. Every wall needed a new coat—or coats—of paint, and Vining carefully chose colors that would have been used when the church was built, in 1831.

Carpet was ripped up, wood floors re-done, light fixtures replaced and furniture and paintings picked out at antique stores.

“I worked harder here than I did on my job,” Vining said.

With the business open (a ribbon cutting was hosted by the Chilton County Chamber of Commerce on June 30) but any upcoming weddings having been already planned at a different location, Vining has hit a lull she hopes is short lived.

“I’ve got lots of plans for it; I just need it to start happening,” she said.

For more information about the chapel, visit jemisonweddingchapel.com. The chapel is located at 161 Thomas Street in Jemison.

Mr. and Mrs. Neal Clements of Jemison are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter, Holley Elizabeth, to Michael Allen Precise of Geneva.

The bride-elect is the granddaughter of Mrs. Bette Cofer, the late Mr. L.J. Cofer, the late Mrs. Lucille Clements and the late Mr. Pat Clements, all of Jemison. She graduated from Jemison High School in 2005 and Troy University in 2009 with a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education.

She is currently employed with the Troy City School System at Charles Henderson Middle School and is pursuing her Master of Education in Elementary Education at Troy University.

The prospective bridegroom is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Michael Carl Precise of Geneva. He is the grandson of Mrs. Mary Zahari of Little Rock, Ark.; Mr. Neal Ferguson of Odessa, Texas; and the late Mr. and Mrs. Carl Precise of Geneva. Michael graduated from Geneva High School in 2005 and Troy University in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.

He is currently employed with Dixieland Dental in Midland City and pursuing his Master of Business Administration at Troy University.

The wedding will take place at Jemison First Baptist Church on Nov. 20, 2010, at 5 in the evening.

By Lisa Moon | Special to the Advertiser

Stop! Believe it or not, that is all you have to do to avoid an accident with a train.

So, why are there so many vehicle vs. train accidents? Nancy Hudson of Operation Lifesaver would like to know the answer to that question. Recently, Nancy presented a 35-minute safety course for the city of Thorsby. The program taught those lucky enough to receive a citation during a train safety blitz how to be safe around trains.

Participants learned a train can weigh upwards of 12 million pounds while their vehicle weighs around 4,000 pounds. Nancy said this is the equivalent of your vehicle crushing a soda can–only the car is a train, and the soda can is your car. She said it takes the train a mile to stop once the engineer puts it into emergency stop.

So, how do you avoid this tragedy? Look for the train, listen for the warning whistle and live to drive another day. Stop and wait for the train; do not try to beat it. Stop a safe distance from the track because some cargo on the train can overhang the railroad tracks.

“Be mindful of the train tracks,” Police Chief Rodney Barnett added. If a car has just crossed the tracks, know that it may have to stop, leaving the next car in line trapped on the tracks. Make sure there is enough room to clear the tracks, and the train on the tracks, before attempting to cross.

During the school traffic rush, parents can keep the line of traffic moving at the school by having students ready to exit the vehicle when they pull up to the drop off point. Parents of older students can use the lane closest to the playground to drop off their students. Keeping the line moving can help parents make smart choices about crossing the tracks.

There you have it, folks, the key to avoiding an accident with a train is simply to stop!
Nancy Hudson can present Train Safety at any event. She can be reached through Operation Lifesaver in Birmingham.

–Lisa Moon is a resident of Thorsby and the current manager of Main Street Market. She can be reached by e-mail at thorsbychatter@yahoo.com.

By Justin Averette

A tea Saturday afternoon at Fountain Chapel AME Church honored the historic accomplishment of 2010 Peach Queen Jessica Swindle.

Swindle was crowned Miss Peach back in June, in process becoming the first black woman to hold the title.

Several community leaders addressed Swindle, praising her accomplishments, encouraging her to continue to work hard and wishing her good luck in the future.

“I’d like to say congratulations to Miss Swindle and encourage you to keep on keeping on,” County Commissioner Bobby Agee said. “I also want to thank you for being a role model for other young people.”

Other community leaders who spoke were Clanton Mayor Billy Joe Driver, Clanton City Councilman Greg DeJarnett, Jemison Mayor Eddie Reed, Maplesville Mayor Kurt Wallace, and Probate Judge Bobby Martin.

“We really appreciate Miss Jessica Swindle,” said Driver. “We are proud of you.”

“It’s been a long road, but you’ve persevered and gotten here,” Martin told Swindle.

Swindle was also presented with several scholarships and gifts.

A reception followed the ceremony in Fountain Chapel’s fellowship hall. The tea was sponsored by the West End Neighborhood Watch

Swindle is the 18-year-old daughter of Dwight and Madeline Swindle. This month she will start college at Alabama A&M University.

By Stephen Dawkins

Allison Cobb of Jemison on Saturday was crowned Miss Alabama Agriculture to conclude the pageant at the Chilton County High School auditorium.

The pageant included nine contestants all representing different counties. Cobb was representing Chilton County.

Cobb, who was sponsored by the Chilton County Farmers Federation, also won the Viewer’s Choice award.

Cobb is no stranger to pageants in the county, having already been named Junior Miss Peach, Junior Miss and Miss Chilton County, a pageant that is a preliminary for Miss Alabama Agriculture.

Cobb plans to graduate with an electrical engineering degree from Auburn University in December. This summer, she interns with Alabama Power Company.

The pageant title comes with a $2,000 scholarship.

“The scholarship money is going to help,” Cobb said. “I’m very excited about that. I want to thank the Evening Lions Club for taking over the pageant because it’s going to give money back to the community.”

Cobb said she was impressed with the professional organization of the pageant and that she thinks it will grow in the future.

She is the daughter of J.L. Cobb and Diane Calloway.

Hanna Yeargan, representing Crenshaw County, won the Casual Wear segment of the pageant, which was sponsored by the Clanton Evening Lions Club. Miss Elmore County Whitney Collier was named Miss Congeniality, and Miss Pickens County Dresden Green won the ad sales competition.

By Scott Mims

Lynn Russell of Clanton and Makenzie Johnson of Jemison may not look much alike on the outside, but they are traveling the same journey together — the long, and often painful, journey of arthritis.

Russell, 46, was first diagnosed 10 years ago but first felt symptoms in her early 20s. She has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. Johnson, 10, was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in July 2008 but experienced symptoms as early as age 3.

This year, Russell is the adult honoree of the Chilton County Arthritis Walk, and Johnson is the junior honoree. Both have found that despite their disease, they can make a difference in the worldwide search for a cure.

“I’m honored to be chosen as this year’s adult honoree,” Russell said. “If I can help educate people that arthritis is not just a disease of fingers and toes, I think more people in the community will want to be involved.”

Russell has rheumatoid arthritis, which can inflame fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders and other joints. But the pain goes deeper than people tend to think, she said.

“The primary focus is on joint pain, but it also affects the organs in your body, and that’s what a lot of people don’t know about,” she explained.

Ankylosing spondylitis affects areas all up and down the spine — the neck, chest, hips, shoulders and knees.

“As the disease progresses, your joints and vertebrae fuse together and it limits your movement…and, of course, the pain,” Russell said.

Her first symptoms were periodic flare-ups in her joints, but the doctor would give her steroids and the pain would subside. Sometimes she would even go several years in between flare-ups.

Then, one day in mid-September in 2000, it hit hard. Russell recalls severe pain in her elbows and down her arms, and a feeling that made her sick all over. She described it as being “like pneumonia” but unlike anything she had felt before. She had to stay in bed for several weeks.

“Since that day, every minute of every day has been a lot of pain,” she said.

For about 20 years, Russell worked at BellSouth as a project manager for computer systems. But once her lungs became inflamed and she developed double pneumonia, she was unable to work.

Aside from the pain, perhaps the most difficult part has been her partial loss of independence. For example, the kids would have to accompany her to the store.

“I couldn’t lift a ketchup bottle,” she said.

As her daily struggle continues, Russell realizes that although she cannot actually walk in the Arthritis Walk, she can be an important part of the effort.

“I am asking my friends and local businesses to help,” she said.

Meanwhile, Johnson continues to improve year after year. Aggressive treatment has helped her get to the point where she does not look like a child with arthritis. In fact, just this past week, her doctor took her off her shots.

“He (the doctor) has not seen any active arthritis in her joints in almost a year,” said her mother, Rhonda Johnson.

The upcoming fifth grader at Jemison Middle just attended Camp MASH (Make Arthritis Stop Hurting) at Camp Grace in Mobile, a camp for kids with different types of juvenile arthritis, for the second consecutive year. There she was able to participate in activities like horseback riding, paddle boating, arts and crafts and even a floating obstacle course known as “Wibit.”

Johnson’s family is selling candles with Makenzie’s picture on them to help support the Alabama Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation. All proceeds will be funneled through Team Makenzie at this year’s Chilton County Arthritis Walk.

“It’s her favorite scent, which is lemon drops,” her mother said.

The candles are $7 apiece. To order a candle, contact the Johnsons at (205) 907-9114 or by e-mail at rhonjohn64@aol.com.

This year’s Walk is set for Saturday, Oct. 16 at 9 a.m. in front of Chilton Medical Center. The campaign kickoff date is Thursday, Aug. 26 at noon in the Alabama Power Conference Center in Clanton.

For more information, call the Alabama Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation at (205) 979-5700.

By Lisa Moon | Community columnist

The first thing you notice about the band is its sense of humor. Between songs, G2 banter amongst themselves about stories of the road. The stories make the show more interesting but serve a purpose as well, according to Tobias, one of the band members.
“Bluegrass music requires the instruments be tuned often. There would be dead time, but we fill in with stories,” Tobias tells me after the show. “It gets easier the longer we are on the road. We have more stories to tell.”
Other band members are Erik, Jens, Christoffer and Jimmy.
Their favorite thing about coming to our town is the connection between their home city of Torsby, Sweden and Thorsby, Ala.
Tobias says he learned of the Alabama request to be sister cities when the band was planning a four-month tour of the United States.
“I said we have to play there,” he adds.
Tobias is involved in Community Youth programs and Exchange and saw a great opportunity for his band to be ambassadors of Torsby. They sent an email to Mayor Dearl Hilyer and heard from Tracia Bussey the next day. Bussey coordinates the Swedish Festival in Thorsby each year.
The band returns home in October. Meanwhile, the children of several band members will be arriving in the U.S. soon to visit for about three weeks. Everyone is looking forward to seeing their families again.
“We stay in touch through Skype,” Erik tells me.
After a week off in Nashville, their home base in the U.S., their tour takes them to California.
When asked while traveling if they ever just break out in song on the road, they all pipe in and say never. Yet during our conversation, Jimmy starts humming some of the music they had just been playing on stage.
During the show, they thanked the Chilton County peach queens for the basket of peaches. True to their word, after the show they washed and ate some of the peaches on their way out of town toward Nashville.
The town of Thorsby thanks them for a wonderful show.

—Lisa Moon is a resident of Thorsby and the current manager of Main Street Market. She can be reached by e-mail at butcherharbor@yahoo.com.

By Scott Mims

Intriguing stories abound with Thorsby’s historic Scandinavian Cemetery — the site of nearly 100 burials, many of which are relatives of the town’s first settlers.

Among the most well-known people buried there is Gustaf Berlin, an interior decorator who worked in the Florida home of P.T. Barnum, American showman and founder of the circus that became Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Some of Berlin’s work can be found in Thorsby, such as the home that occupies the corner of Third Street and Peterson Avenue. Sadly, a beautiful mural painted by Berlin was lost forever when the Concordia Lutheran Church was torn down to make way for the local telephone office on Jones Street.

“He worked for a lot of well-known people all over the United States,” said Tracia Bussey, chairwoman of the Thorsby Historical Preservation Committee.

Then there’s the tale of Nester Oberg, a Norwegian who made his home in Thorsby, who, according to the town’s historical records, was given a “lift” by a tornado that passed through the area.

“He was picked up in his chair and sat down outside in his yard and survived,” Bussey recounts.

The town was recently contacted by descendants of Oberg who had traced their ancestry and wanted to find out more information about him.

There are many others of Scandinavian descent buried in the cemetery, including two relatives of Thorsby founder T.T. Thorson. The majority were Lutherans, as the land was owned by the Concordia Lutheran Church.

In order to recognize the cemetery’s rich history and heritage, the Thorsby Historical Preservation Committee has scheduled a dedication ceremony for Saturday, July 10 at 10 a.m. During the ceremony, a historical marker will be unveiled and refreshments will be served.

Bussey said the marker was purchased with donations to the committee by family members of the deceased. The total cost came to more than $1,900. She said family members responded generously to letters sent out by the committee.

“They were very glad we were working on getting recognition for the cemetery where their ancestors are buried,” Bussey said.

The Chilton Cemetery Association, a local nonprofit group, is credited for getting the cemetery listed on the state’s historic cemetery register. The committee also set out to get the site registered, but CCA had already taken steps to do this.

“We were very excited about it. We went right to work collecting donations for the marker,” Bussey said.

The general public is invited to the dedication. The Scandinavian Cemetery is located on County Road 37 across from Orchard Hills Subdivision. Pictures can be found on a link to CCA’s website at townofthorsby.com.

By Scott Mims

One of the biggest stories in Thorsby has been the recent majority vote by citizens to legalize the sale of alcoholic beverages. But what many residents may not know is that a winery once operated in the town.

According to historical records, old newspaper articles and the collective memory of longtime residents, the Thorsby Winery Company was the second industry in Thorsby, the first being the sawmill where logs were cut to build the town’s first businesses and homes.

Local historian Glenn Littleton said Thorsby’s founders first touted the land as ideal for growing multiple crops, including grapes and other fruit crops.

“That’s what they were pushing,” Littleton said, noting that the word “vineyard” was used as opposed to “lots” when property was advertised.

Circa 1895, founders T.T. Thorson and John F. Peterson organized the Concordia Land Company in the area that is now Thorsby. They purchased about 2,200 acres, laid the land off in 10-acre plots and advertised it to their northern neighbors. Many made the trip on the L&N Railroad and decided to stay and make their lives here. This information was included in an article written by the late Marietta Bice, a writer for the Union Banner and Central Alabama Independent Advertiser.

Bice describes the different varieties of grapes that were grown and sold to the Thorsby Winery Company, as well as their other uses:

“The fast growing, and heavy producers, were concord and morse early. Both of the blue variety. Many farmers planted and produced in abundance, the white Niagara and Diamond White; the Luty, a sweet tasting pink and a small sized red sweet; and the Delaware.

“The early settlers never wasted any of their crops, and the grapes which were not used in the winery were made up into delicious jams and jellies.”

According to Littleton, the property for the winery was purchased on Jan. 15, 1901 from the Concordia Land and Improvement Association by the Alabama Winery Company. Littleton found this fact in record book 52, page 552 in the Chilton County Probate Office.

The winery was located near the corner of Chilton Street and Montgomery Avenue, out from what is now the right field area of the high school baseball field. Littleton said remnants of the building’s foundation have been found, as well as other indicators.

It was once advertised in a local paper for people to fill in a pit, which was formerly the basement of the winery company, with garbage. This activity later ceased, and plans were made to turn the property into a water garden, but this never took place.

“Everything in the world washed out of that bank — old bottles,” Littleton said.

He also found an old city ordinance that outlawed peach trees and grapes because of disease.

“I’m guessing it was short lived, because there were advertisements for peach trees a couple of years later,” he said.

Prohibition meant the end of Thorsby’s wine industry, but the growing of grapes continued long after the business was shut down. Longtime resident Jane Sutlive said her mother used to make grape juice. She also remembers seeing old jugs and wine bottles in the cellar of her family home, but they were never used.

“We definitely did not drink it,” she said.

Sutlive said if it were not for people like Bice who recorded much of Thorsby’s history, much of it would likely be lost.

“We have her to thank for having a lot of our history saved,” Sutlive said.