The Calloway Family
and
Dr. Calloway
The following is my recollection and may be dimmed over the
years.
The Calloway family from Maryville, TN, were good friends with
the Browns who owned LeConte Lodge for several years. The Calloway's were
physicians. They also supported Berea College, Berea, KY; as I recall,
several Calloway's graduated from Berea.
Each year several members of the Calloway family would hike up
LeConte on 30 or 31 December, spend New Year's Eve at the Lodge, and return home
on 1 or 2 January. Brownie and some of us who worked at the Lodge would go
up a couple of days ahead of time to open the Lodge, repair any damage, and get
ready for the guests. Remember -- the Lodge is open from early May to late
October and is closed up tight October through May.
Brownie called me in November 1964 and asked if I would go up
and open the Lodge for the Calloway's in December. I went up the mountain
with Joe Serviss, a friend of mine from college (I was a student at
Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL, at the time). As I
recall, two or three other folks joined us -- one may have been Bob Rusk -- and
we opened the Lodge.
The Calloway's came up LeConte on the Boulevard Trail from
Newfound Gap. On this particular trip in late December 1964, Doctor ????
Calloway -- the family patriarch -- left Newfound Gap with several family
members accompanying him. He complained of shortness of breath; two family
members stopped alongside the trail with him and the rest of the family
continued up the mountain.
After the family arrived at the Lodge -- without Dr. Calloway
and the two who stayed with him -- we became concerned about his condition.
The phone was out, however, Brownie had left a small ham radio station in the
cabin where the crew slept. We managed to get the old Onan generator
started and turned on the ham radio station. I am a ham operator; I
contacted a ham operator in Knoxville; he telephoned the Park Service HQ in
Gatlinburg where he learned that Dr. Calloway had died of a heart attack on the
trail.
The family members who were at the Lodge decided to eat supper
then go down the trail after dark -- with several inches of snow on the ground.
We arranged with the Park Service for rangers to meet us on the Alum Cave Trail.
So -- several of us from the Lodge and the Calloway family members started down
Alum Cave Trail well after dark, carrying Coleman gas lanterns and flashlights.
Just before we reached the Alum Cave Bluffs, we met a party of Park Rangers
coming up; the Calloway family went back down with the Rangers and we returned
to the Lodge.
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