Coming home to visit the Waltons

By Mary Alice Blackwell

Published: August 31, 2008

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Get Outta Here, a joint effort by the News & Advance in Lynchburg and The Daily Progress, in which we take readers to getaways in their own back yards. The idea is to explore a sight or activity that might offer a real change of scenery without having to travel far to get there. We hope you enjoy.

Back in the day, the old soapstone company in Nelson County was one of the largest private employers in the state. 

Today only about 20 people are employed at the Schuyler plant.

The little hamlet that once housed a hospital, two movie theaters and its own electric trolley is now best known for a TV series. Although “The Waltons” officially went off the air in 1981, thousands of fans continue to make pilgrimages to the Walton’s Mountain Museum and the hometown of the series

creator, Earl Hamner Jr.

Hamner based the popular CBS series on his family and their life growing up in Schuyler during the Depression.

There were eight Hamners, but as Earl once explained, Hollywood felt it could cut costs by limiting the number of Walton siblings to seven. Nelson County became known as Jefferson County. Members of the TV family frequently made trips to Charlottesville, Waynesboro, even Virginia Beach (albeit with cliff-lined beaches.) Brother Jason would travel the 12 miles to Scottsville to work as a musician at the Dew Drop Inn (which, by the way, only recently closed.) 

Each week’s episode was like a visit home … to a simpler time and a loving family. It spoke to people – just as Hamner did when he open and closed each show as the melodic-voiced narrator. (I believe I would pay to listen to that man read the phone book.)

But tales of John-Boy Walton (aka Earl Hamner Jr.) weren’t an immediate success. When it debuted on Sept. 14, 1972, the series was going head-to-head-to-head with the hip cop action show “The Mod Squad” and the most popular comedy, “The Flip Wilson Show.”

“The Waltons” was No. 54.

But in an era when there were only three major TV stations, CBS stuck behind a good story line, and boy did it pay off. “The Waltons,” with its noble characters, struck a chord with middle America for the next nine years. It was No. 1 by the second season and was in the top 20 for five years. Reruns kept the Waltons on air for decades and continued to generate even more fans.

In 1992, when the old Schuyler schoolhouse that the Hamner children attended was turned into a museum, more than 6,500 people showed up for the grand opening. Why, just a few years back, the Walton’s Mountain Museum was second only to Monticello as a popular local tourist attraction. A recent Wednesday’s guest register included visitors form Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and California. One young Virginian was recently back from Iraq.

“It’s wonderful,” was a common comment among visitors.

Leona Roberts used to work at the school as a secretary. Now she greets tourists as the museum director.

“This was the auditorium,” she said of the spacious room as you enter the building. The walls are lined on one side with photographs of the actors. The other side features Schuyler graduates. “They used to show movies in here.”

Each classroom, she explained, has been converted into a mini replica of a room from the TV show.

Along the hallway to John-Boy’s room is a TV still of Elizabeth with Chance the cow. The actress, Kami Cotler, noted that her wide-eyed expression was due to the fact that it was the first time she had seen a cow.

(Cotler, after graduating from college, taught school in Nelson County for three years. The “youngest Walton sibling” will be returning to Virginia in late October to meet with one of the Hamner sisters in Lynchburg.)

Once you turn the corner in John-Boy’s room, it’s like you stepped back in TV time. A familiar Boatwright pennant hangs above his bed. The school desk is beside the window. A manual Remington Rand typewriter rests beneath a shelf of schoolbooks.

The furniture and props are not from the “The Waltons,” but Robert Hall – an interior designed who attended the Schuyler school – assembled the exhibitions as close to the way they looked on the California set with Depression-era antiques from Virginia and North Carolina.

The cozy living room has a Zenith Tombstone Radio that the Waltons would gather around in the evenings, on loan from Ray and Betty Bowen. The kitchen, my favorite, includes the long wooden table and benches where the family gathered and children did their homework. Hamner, in a 30-minute video that also includes interviews with several cast members, said that the Hamners would sit at the kitchen table in Schuyler to do their homework under the watchful eye of their mother.

Two exhibit rooms feature a collection of items donated by fans, including several models of the Waltons’ house and the General Store. There even is a real working “recipe” machine in the back room. No, it’s not the still that the elderly Baldwin sisters used to make their moonshine on the TV show. It is a real still confiscated locally.

Other rooms include Ike Godsey’s General Merchandise Store (which doubles as a souvenir shop), and the recently opened Script Room, which houses many of Hamner’s writings and scripts from the “The Waltons.”

While any day is a good day to drop in, there will be a 16th anniversary celebration on Oct. 18. Four bluegrass and county bands will perform, crafters will be on hand, hayrides are planned and plate lunches will be served.

All in all, it sounds like a good night, John-Boy.

DATA:

What: Walton’s Mountain Museum

Where: Schuyler

Cost: $6, $5 for groups of 20 or more, free for ages 5 and younger.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily from first Saturday in March through last Sunday in November.  (Closed Easter, Thanksgiving and the last Saturday in September.)

Directions: From U.S. 29, take Route 6 east for 5½ miles and turn right on Route 800. Go to the stop sign and turn right on Route 617. The museum is 150 yards on the right, little more than a stone’s throw from Earl Hamner Jr.’s childhood home.

Info: (434) 831-2000, http://www.waltonmuseum.org

The siblings: Waltons and Hamners

John Boy Walton (Richard Thomas) = Earl Hamner Jr.

Mary Ellen Walton (Judy Norton Taylor) = Marion Hamner Hawkes

Jason Walton (Jon Walmsley) = Clifton Hamner

Erin Walton (Mary Elizabeth McDonough) = Audrey Hamner

Ben Walton (Eric Scott) = Bill and Paul Hamner

Jim-Bob Walton (David W. Harper) = James Hamner

Elizabeth Walton (Kami Cotler) = Nancy Hamner Jamerson