J.E.B. McClellan, in his book I Rode With J. E. B. Stuart, described J. E. B. Stuart’s mother’s Laurel Hill Farm this way. “She inherited from her grandfather, William Letcher, a beautiful and fertile farm in the southwestern part of Patrick County, which was named ‘Laurel Hill.’ Here her children were born. The large and comfortable house was surrounded by native oaks and was beautified with a flower garden, which was one of the childish delights of her son James, to whom she had transmitted her own passionate love of flowers. The site commanded a fine view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and near at hand was the monument erected to the memory of William Letcher by his daughter Bethenia. Amid these surroundings James Stuart passed a happy boyhood. He loved the old homestead with all the enthusiasm of his nature.”
Every day, I am reminded of this when I look above my fireplace, because one of the two original Laurel Hill 1842 paintings is hanging there. Local artist Pat Gwyn Woltz painted a watercolor entitled “Laurel Hill 1842” for the Birthplace, depicting the story of young James E. B. Stuart knocking down a hornet’s nest while his more prudent older brother, William Alexander Stuart, ran from the stinging insects. The painting included a house on top of Laurel Hill, modeled after Cobbler Springs, the home of Judge James Ewell Brown in Wythe County. We used the closest family home geographically to represent Laurel Hill, which resembled what the Stuart home may have looked like before archaeology was completed. The painting depicted Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth of Mount Airy arriving in his horse-drawn buggy to visit his patient, Mrs. Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart. The painting included the flower garden and the Letcher grave. Mrs. Woltz, to my surprise, painted two paintings, one with my chow dog, Jeb Stuart, which she graciously gave to me.
Mary Patricia “Pat” Gwyn Woltz was born on September 14, 1925, in Waynesville, Haywood County, North Carolina, to Hilda Way and Thomas Lenoir Gwyn. She started her education journey at St. Mary’s Episcopal College in Raleigh, then went on to graduate from Randolph-Macon College in Lynchburg, Virginia, with a degree in economics. She married John Woltz on September 5, 1947. Pat died on September 14, 2011, at her home in Mount Airy. At the time of her death, she was survived by her children: John Elliott Woltz, Jr. and his wife, Samantha M. Woltz, James Lenoir Woltz and his wife, Jill H. Woltz, Howell Way Woltz and his wife, Vernice C. Woltz, Mary Gwyn Woltz and her husband, Robert A.O. Calvert, and Thomas Lenoir Woltz. She is also survived by her nine grandchildren, Farrar Lenoir Woltz, Catherine M. Woltz, Kate B. Woltz, James L. Woltz, Christopher J. Woltz, Jonathan H. Woltz, John E. Woltz, Jacob C. Woltz, and Avery E. Woltz; and one great-grandchild, Imogen I. Wiley.
Her son Elliot said this about her. “She was a part of so many different people’s lives. Many of whom we don’t even know. People come up all the time and say, ‘Your mom did this for me 20 years ago, Your mom helped me out.’ There are just so many wonderful stories about what a giving person she has been all of her life, and really members of the community who allowed her to help them and let her bring them food in troubled times enabled her to be the person she wanted to be. That’s what she wanted to do in life. That is why she was successful because of all the people she interacted with. She was always looking for ways to do more. She set an example that will be very hard for anyone to follow.”
In 1983, following numerous requests, Pat Woltz established an art business that sold original prints, note cards, and limited-edition prints in gift shops and at art shows. Her artwork always featured a little bunny that she would tuck into the print for the viewer to find. This led me to approach her in 1991 as we began raising money to save J.E.B. Stuart’s Birthplace, the Laurel Hill Farm. She and her husband, John, whom I worked for at Quality Mills/Cross Creek Apparel from 1984 until 1990, began sitting down together at their dining room table to discuss a painting to use as a fundraiser for Laurel Hill, and that led us to the story of Stuart and the hornets. The original tale originates from John Thomason’s biography of J.E.B. Stuart, published in the 1930s, which is considered the most romantic biography of Stuart.
Ed Longacre’s new biography of Stuart tells the story this way. “A hornet’s nest almost two feet long dangled invitingly from a branch of a sturdy oak in the woods surrounding the Stuart family farm, “Laurel Hill,” in Ararat, Patrick County, Virginia. Nine-year-old James Ewell Brown Stuart (“Jimmie” or “Jeems” to family and friends) and his fifteen-year-old brother.
William Alexander had passed the nest many times, but on this day the younger boy decided to take action. “Alex” reluctantly agreed. The boys armed themselves with sharpened sticks with which to bring down the hexagonal-shaped nest. They shimmied up the tree to within striking distance, at which point the nest opened and a swarm of hornets flew out of the entrance at its base to defend their property. The boys flailed away with their fancied swords as the insects swarmed over them, stinging repeatedly. It is said that Alex, a model of prudence compared with his younger sibling, abruptly retreated to solid ground, but “Jimmie” retained his perch until the nest had been reduced to the wood pulp from which it had been fashioned. By then he had absorbed many painful wounds, all of which he endured with the stoicism of spirited youth. Later historians would cite the attack on the nest as indicative of Stuart’s disdain for fear and his preference for head-on attacks regardless of risk.”
My mother worked at Quality Mills/Cross Creek Apparel with John Woltz for over forty years. She had breakfast in the break room with John nearly every morning and that close relationship allowed me to approach them about the painting. John passed away in 1998, but I still visited with Pat, including her taking me to dinner at Cross Creek Country Club.
After Pat’s death, the foundation department at Surry Community College, Dobson, North Carolina, donated prints of Laurel Hill (1842) to the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace. The other painting, without my chow dog, is the basis for prints sold by the Birthplace as a fundraiser. It is available online at https://www.jebstuart.org/store_item.cfm?i=119 framed for $35 and unframed for $10 https://www.jebstuart.org/store_item.cfm?i=19.
I will let Pat have the last word. “I enjoy painting with a feeling of nostalgia… I like to make people want to go home again, if only in memory. By retrieving and cherishing the best of the past, we can help to enrich the quality of life in the future.”
