There aren’t many people who aren’t familiar with Pat Turner Ritchie. Some may know her in connection with Fulks Run Grocery, where she has worked tirelessly with her family for years. Many know her as a keeper of the past, diligently researching local family trees. As a result of that research, she is also the organizer of the annual and well attended Brocks Gap Heritage Day.
Recently, Pat appeared at Rocktown History, the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society, at the Coffee Mill, where she brought her great great grandmother, Aunt Eve Fulk Turner to life.
When entering the museum, you weren’t seeing Pat, you were seeing Eve Fulk Turner stepping through a time portal.
Her dress is original, with some barely noticeable repairs. Considering the age, is amazing, and fit Pat perfectly.
Living atop the Shenandoah Mountain, in Brocks Gap area, Eve was 18 when the Civil War came to the area. Her story speaks of her experiences and the many local families who were involved in the war- willingly or not.
Standing in front of her many historical photos, Pat assumed the character of her great great grandmother. She was called Aunt Eve, “as a sign of respect for my age”. She had 82 nieces and nephews, pointing out some of their descendants in the audience.
Dressed in the original “plain” clothing handed down, Eve was a member of the Dunkard Church, the German Baptist Church. Now known as Brethren, she and her husband, Uncle Dan Turner were faithful members of the church.
As a child, Eve and her siblings grew up in a log cabin on the mountain, “covered in deer antlers” because her father would shoot 20-40 deer a year to keep the family fed.
During Eve’s time. young men of a certain age were required to join the militia. As the threat of the war became imminent, Eve’s brother, Adam, as well as many other local men, became a member of the newly formed Brocks Gap Rifles. In 1861, they gained local fame with a newspaper article describing them as being able “to hit a deer’s eye by starlight, and woe to the man who encountered them”! The Fulk family was well represented. While waiting for an encounter in Harper’s Ferry, before they were issued their official rifles, along with their farm guns, they took up rocks and sticks, and became known as The Brickbat Brigade!
A book, available for purchase at the Rocktown Museum, lists all the local enlisted men- Rockingham County Men in the Confederate Service 1861-1865.
With the menfolk gone to war, women had to assume all the work, both inside and outside of the home. They also fed soldiers passing through the area, adding to the load they already bore. The men initially thought the idea of war “glorious” with their assigned rifles and beautiful locally made uniforms. Unfortunately, they soon found out that “war is hell”, as the Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman is credited with saying.
“Eve” spoke of how the war touched individual families of the area, whether their men were captured, killed, wounded, or died of disease. Men left behind widows and children, sometimes very large families, who had to learn to survive without their men, some more successfully than others.
A poster, listing all the members of Eve’s family, was a sad visual of the horrors of war, as she spoke of each man who died in battle or of disease as a result- ripping each name off the poster and tossing it aside.
Captured soldiers were kept in various prisons – among them were Baltimore Jail, Fort Delaware, Camp Chase, Old Capitol Prison, Point Lookout, Elmira, NY, and the infamous Libby Prison.
War was a hard life for the women, as Eve described it, but they bore it well-they had no choice. The area families touched by the Civil War included ones from Rockingham, Hardy, and Pendelton counties- Fulk, Dove, Lantz, Wittig, Turner, Caplinger, Sounder, May, and more.
Even if you are not from the area, or related to any of the families mentioned, Pat’s depiction of Aunt Eve was both mesmerizing and educational. You were transported back to the time. Pat Turner Ritchie is a local treasure, her talks are not to be missed.
If you missed seeing Aunt Eve in person, you can catch her on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@rocktownhistory5506
