Since this is the Loudoun list, I'll reply with a bit about my grandmother who was raised right on the Loudoun and Clarke line, straddling the Blue Ridge. She was a LLOYD. Her name was Edith Savannah and she was born in 1889. No, I didn't name any of my children after her ;-) She was a big boned woman and strong as an ox. I remember her in stern dark dresses, sensible shoes and an apron. Her hair was gray and she wore it back in a bun. A totally self-sufficient woman, she could wring the neck off a chicken in a heartbeat and could chop wood equal to the men. To this day they are still fishing our family silver out of the creek where she would sling it out with the wash water. Yet, she could also be very much the gentle woman. It's been forty years but I can still smell her biscuits that she cooked in her wood burning stove. This was 1960 and she still insisted on using a wood burning oven. I have her old oak dining room table - my pride and joy - with five leaves that seats 10 easily and 12 in a pinch. Many a grand meal was served around that table, I'm told. A few years before she died - when her vision became really bad - I remember a huge blacksnake making its way towards her house. She called to my mother and asked "Which end is its tail?" My Mom pointed out the tail end of the snake and grandma bent over, picked it up [it was at least 4 feet long, it drug the ground], and calmly strolled over to a nearby stump. There she slung that snake like a whip into that stump, over and over and over until she had beat it to death. She then tossed it in the woods, wiped her hands on her apron and proceeded back to her cooking. How I adore those wonderful mountain women! Happy Mother Day to All ~ Sandy