Pat Haley: ‘We smiled as we left Staunton, Virginia’

By Patrick Haley
Guest Post

Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

We did, in a sense, go home again, at least for seven days. Staunton, Virginia, is not our hometown, but was home to Brenda and me for twelve of the happiest years of our lives. We spent the whole week in Staunton. We saw old friends and journeyed to the Gypsy Hill Park, Staunton Braves Stadium, and Wright’s Dairy-Rite where car hops still come out and take your order. Little has changed from the day it opened in 1952.

As we walked the winding hills in town, up past Trinity Church, and up the street to Mary Baldwin College, wonderful things began to happen. We remembered our motor scooter rides around town, and how Doc Haley, our poodle, used to sit under our large maple tree and listen to the Robert E. Lee High School band practice. The memory made us smile and nod.

Condolences to Statler Brother Phil Balsley on loss of wife Wilma

By Lynn R. Mitchell

It’s a sad holiday season for the Statler family of musicians and for Statler Brother Phil Balsley who lost his wife, Wilma, on Sunday, two-and-a-half years after their son Greg drowned in the Atlantic Ocean at Nags Head.

Many in the Staunton area are grieving the loss:

WILMA K. BALSLEY
SWOOPE, VA

Wilma Lee (Kincaid) Balsley, 73, wife of Philip E. Balsley of Swoope, died Sunday, December 28, 2014, in Augusta Health. She was born July 17, 1941, in Staunton, a daughter of the late William Lee and Geraldine (Woodell) Kincaid and step-mother, Myra G. Kincaid.