[footsteps] [ROBIN] I love sharing the history [JIM] Every week, Robin Goddard unpacks history for visitors at Little Greenbrier School in the Smokies [ROBIN] Tell them all about how
school was back in the 1800s [JIM] And there's a lot of fun to unpack [ROBIN] We'll look at the children's toys The ball in the cup Throw it up, catch it [ball lands in cup] There it is [JIM] Goddard teaches a popular subject
she learned all about as a child [ROBIN] I love sharing the stories of the Walker Sisters I grew up with them They have quite a following [JIM] Goddard spent weekends
and summers helping a neighbor who was best friends with the Walker Sisters [ROBIN] Ms. Elsie Burrell took me with her from the time I was 4 years old until I graduated from high school Working, working, and working [JIM] There was plenty of work helping a group
of sisters famous for living like their ancestors and refusing to leave their family home
even after it became a national park [ROBIN] They were proud of their land The connection went back many generations [JIM] The strongest connection was
with the homestead where their dad, John Walker, built a two-story addition for his wife then built a family of 11 children, four boys and seven girls [ROBIN] Very crowded and you have to learn to get along They were self-sustaining farmers They had big gardens He had big apple orchards And anytime you see pictures of him
you see him with an apple or cherries [JIM] Fruits of John Walker's labor include
building the Little Greenbrier School where his children were educated His sons took their learnings out into the world and started their own families But most of his daughters put
their teachings to use at home [ROBIN] Margaret is the oldest She ruled the roost She told you what to do and
when to do it and you did it She presented this demeanor about her that they had to take care of their home place "If you go out and get married,
who's gonna help me take care of it?" There won't be anybody here to do it because all the brothers had already married Polly, she was known as a really excellent cook Martha was very quiet She was the accountant of the family The next one was Nancy Melinda Nancy, I did not know Nancy died before this became a national park The next one was Louisa Susan Louisa was my favorite She loved to laugh and she loved funny things Louisa was the one that wrote all the poetry Then Sarah Caroline Caroline is the only sister that married so she did not live in the house And the last one was Hettie Rebecca Hettie was knitting and doing needlework, perfected in it You had seven girls and only one of them married [JIM] But Caroline wasn't the only one to discover love Both Polly and Martha were engaged and both were nearly widows The men they loved worked for the lumber company and died in railroad accidents on the job [ROBIN] They had a hard time getting over it And the sisters used to say, "Poor sister Polly" [JIM] Their father, John Walker, died in 1921 and sister, Nancy, died 10 years later Five sisters remained married to the land when the State of Tennessee came courting with a proposal to buy their property and
donate it to a new national park [ROBIN] They were not happy No government's gonna get their land And they were not about ready to sell [JIM] After years of trying to buy the land, the government finally took it through eminent domain Then the five sisters changed their
tune and negotiated for payment along with a lifetime lease that would
allow them to keep their home until they died They would not have to pack up their history [ROBIN] The mood that I saw all the time was, "This was our home, and we don't want to leave" [JIM] So this land officially belonged to the government, but it was still home to the Walker Sisters Coming up in part two of our
series, we're going to show you what it was like for them living in a national park and how the sisters became national celebrities [KENT] Their story is somewhat unique [JIM] Retired park ranger Kent Cave may not
have written the book on the Walker Sisters but he was an editor [KENT] Edited this book by Rose Houk The Walker Sisters presented a public
relations nightmare for the government [JIM] In the early days of the park, the sisters held out on selling their land but time eventually ran out [KENT] The park had already been established [JIM] In 1941, their 122 acres became
National Park Service property [KENT] The superintendent was very much worried about the image that the park would have to be seen as throwing out five elderly
spinster ladies living in a log cabin [JIM] So the government paid the Walkers for the land and agreed to let them stay on
the property until the last sister died But living in the park meant following park rules [KENT] The problem with staying on
it is that you were so restricted You had no real way to make a
living if you were a farmer [JIM] Still the sisters held on to as
many of the old-time ways as they could There was no electricity, no bathroom The only running water was from a cool spring [KENT] There's a spring house there,
a very fine spring house [ROBIN] Spring house was the refrigerator what kept everything cold and fresh and preserved [JIM] These sisters living like the olden days got older Polly died in 1945 [birds chirping] The four remaining sisters kept
making their own clothes, using newspapers for wallpaper then landed in one of the most popular
magazines in the country in April 1946 [KENT] Saturday Evening Post did a full feature layout [ROBIN] They were instant movie stars and all the visitors that would come
want to see those old ladies and how they were living like the 1800s [JIM] Tourists came knocking and so
did a new business opportunity The sisters sold ragdolls, baskets,
and even Louisa's poetry [ROBIN] The visitors bought the souvenirs that they made and it gave them a little extra cash money that they could buy hats to
wear over to church on Sundays [JIM] But five years after these sisters found fame, Hettie and Martha had died Only Margaret and Louisa were left They felt like they couldn't keep up [KENT] Louisa asked the park
superintendent to have a sign put up to keep visitors away because, as she said, they could no longer do their work because they were overrun [JIM] But the sign did not stop the
sisters from being gracious hosts [ROBIN] They had visitors anyway It didn't stop visitors If you were there at mealtime, you ate and they would be offended if you didn't Everybody ate didn't matter
if you knew them or not [JIM] Final meals and visits came in the 1960s Margaret died in 1961 Louisa in '64 All their headstones side-by-side say "Sister" A devotion chiseled in stone that was a decision just like how they chose to live in an old log cabin not because they had to but because they wanted to A point those who knew them say
should never be edited out of their stories [ROBIN] They were portrayed as mountain women that didn't know much about anything except just how to live And they were not that way It was a personal choice [KENT] They're not typical They are atypical and I think that's what makes them
fascinating to a lot of people [JIM] Now the Walker Sisters had a lifetime lease but now that their lifetime was up the park had to decide what was it
going to do with this place In part three of this series, we're going
to look at how their legacy still lives on [ROBIN] They could have improved their lifestyle They chose to live the way they lived [JIM] Robin Goddard says it's easy to get the
wrong impression about the Walker Sisters if you only look at old photos or the remote cabin they left behind when
the last sister in the park died in 1964 [ROBIN] They were very knowledgeable
of what was going on in the world They were very smart, and they loved people [JIM] Above all, they loved their home and the park had to decide what to
do with it after the last sister died [ROBIN] They hoped that the park would take care of it [JIM] So in the 1970s, the park
preserved some of these old buildings including the main house where you can still walk from the kitchen to the porch to the one other downstairs room Plus a ladder up to the second story
that is far from a penthouse But the buildings are not the only
thing saved from the Walker Sisters [KENT] Great Smoky Mountains Association
funded the purchase of artifacts that belong to the Walker Sisters, some 4,000 items [JIM] Those items are preserved in a temperature-
controlled archives building in Townsend Everything from the sisters' clothes to handmade baskets [VALERIE] Oh they're all just spectacular It's amazing to see this collection They also made these tiny baskets
that they would sell as souvenirs [JIM] Valerie Polk works as a videographer for the
nonprofit Great Smoky Mountains Association but her story is interwoven with
the Walker legacy in another way [VALERIE] My great-grandmother is over here Caroline Walker Shelton, the only one of John Walker's daughters who married [JIM] And the man Caroline developed
a relationship with, Jim Shelton, developed some of the best early photographs of the Walker Sisters and the
Smoky Mountains in general [VALERIE] How fortunate are we that he had a camera? That he found that as the hobby that he wanted to do? I come across pictures that he had
taken and it's really touching The hollow chestnut tree Shows my grandmother, both of her
sisters, and her brother and her mother I have lots of cousins out there who
were also related to the Walker Sisters [JIM] The sisters' legacy lives on in
photographs, relatives, and old buildings and the buildings are preserved better than most [KENT] One of the nice things about
going to the Walker Sisters' Cabin is that it takes some effort to get there So those people who are willing to make that trip generally are people who will appreciate it more and not do damage to the structures [JIM] While this remote location may mean less vandalism, it may also give the false impression they were isolated This hiking trail used to be a normal road anyone could easily drive to see
the ladies who lived in the park [ROBIN] They delivered right to the front door And if the mailman delivered and
brought it in the house for them, they got a fried apple pie [laughs] [VALERIE] They were probably often surrounded by family and of course, surrounded by the visitors
that came to see them from all over Now I've been able to take
my own daughter back there and it's been a really special thing
to see the cabin preserved and to know that artifacts are here in the collection to go to Wears Valley and see their graves and see the headstones that all say "Sister" on them and know that my great-grandfather is
buried in that same area it's really special [JIM] But make no mistake, the Walker Sisters were different and wrote a story that still captivates millions
of people who visit the Smokies every year A different kind of devotion to their land and to each other worth the effort to see for yourself as long as it makes the right impression [KENT] They were a part of living history here to a lot of people [ROBIN] If you portray them as stern
old mountain women, that's not right Think it's important because it's part of the
history of the development of this national park Their life will be preserved forever as long as there's somebody that will tell the story
