| Sources |
- [S104] Cocke County, Tennessee, and its People, Cocke County Heritage Book Committee, (Walsworth Publishing, 1992), 274.
- [S112] Census, 1940.
Name Victor Valentine
Event Type Census
Event Date 1940
Event Place Civil District 9, Cocke, Tennessee, United States
Gender Male
Age 29
Marital Status Married
Race (Original) White
Race White
Relationship to Head of Household (Original) Head
Relationship to Head of Household Head
Birthplace Tennessee
Birth Year (Estimated) 1911
Last Place of Residence Rural, Cocke, Tennessee
Household
Role
Gender
Age
Birthplace
Victor Valentine Head M 29 Tennessee
Nora Valentine Wife F 26 Tennessee
Larry Valentine Son M 1 Tennessee
"United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89M1-83CG?cc=2000219&wc=QZXB-GDS%3A792528401%2C793724301%2C792706801%2C793803501 : accessed 5 February 2017), Tennessee > Cocke > Civil District 9 > image 8 of 37; citing Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 13 Apr 2005.
Victor E. (Vic) Valentine, 94, of Cosby, went to be with the Lord Wednesday, April 13, 2005, at his residence.
He owned and operated Valentine Nursery before his retirement. He was a member of the Cosby Church of Christ and was past president of the Tennessee Nurseryman Association.
He was preceded in death by his parents, W.L. and Rachel (Baxter) Valentine, and several brothers and sisters.
Vic is survived by his loving wife of 68 years, Nora (Brown) Valentine, of Cosby; sons and daughters-in-law, Larry and Linda Valentine, of Gatlinburg, and Bill and Gail Valentine, of Gatliburg; grandchildren, Dawn and Mike Costello, Kim and Bill Bailey, Tricia and Marshall Pugh, and Vicki and Ken Scott; great-grandchildren, Tiffany Ham, Tyler Bailey, Colby Costello, Tanner Costello, Haley Costello, and Megan Costello; and sister, Eunice Lonas and her husband, Jess, of N.Y.
Mr. Valentine will also be missed by several nieces and nephews and a host of special friends.
Graveside services will be conducted Friday, April 15, 2005, at 9:00 a.m. at Huskey Cemetery with Evangelist Olie Williamson officiating.
Interment will follow at Huskey Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Kidney Foundation.
Brown Funeral Home has been honored to provide the final arrangements for Mr. Victor E. (Vic) Valentine.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 15 Apr 2005.
04-15-2005
(Editor¡¦s note: The information for this obituary was compiled from separate interviews with Victor Valentine. Tish Osborne interviewed him in 2003 and David Popiel interviewed him in Sept. 2004.)
Victor E. ¡§Vic¡¨ Valentine, the man who spent most of his life nurturing trees and plants, while living in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, was buried at Huskey Cemetery on Friday morning.
Valentine, 94, died Wednesday at his home, located off Cosby Highway where he had operated Valentine¡¦s Nursery for decades.
Vic Valentine and his wife, Nora, were featured in the Newport Plain Talk October 2004 ¡§A Place Called Home¡¨ edition.
Born December 7, 1910, he was one of a dozen children of W. L. and Rachel Baxter Valentine, and grew up on Maddron Flats. His wife, Nora, is the daughter of Anderson and Matilda (Johnson) Brown.
While things have changed a lot around this Cosby couple, one thing remained constant¡Vtheir tie to the land they lived on and have lived on for most of their 67-year marriage.
The 40-acre property on Hooper Highway is near the boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and was in the family before the park was founded in 1934.
Valentine's father, W.L, lived there and ran a cannery on the site.
"He had a canning machine," Valentine told the Plain Talk noting this was before the federal government regulated such things. "I was just big enough to turn it."
W.L. canned blackberries and apples from his orchard. Valentine said he didn't lock the cannery in the evenings so workers were free to take home what they needed.
Along with the cannery, Valentine recalls his father hauling apples by horse and wagon to Knoxville, a four-day trek. He said his father got as far as Sevierville the first day and Knoxville the next before the two-day trip home after selling just 20 bushels of apples.
When Vic Valentine became a teen-ager, his father started a new business that would last for three generations.
Two men approached his father, Valentine said, the owners of Baum's Florist and Howell Nursery, both from Knoxville.
Valentine, his father and the two men "went up there" into what is now the national park and spent the night, sleeping on the ground.
The two Knoxville men liked what they saw and hired W.L. to supply ferns and moss for their businesses. The land then was owned by Champion Fiber Company, which had a lumber operation clear cutting the land from Indian Camp all the way to Big Creek.
Vic and his wife met when they were attending Cosby Academy, a Baptist boarding school. Nora Jane Brown was a school boarder and Vic was a day school student, walking six miles each way to school.
He was one of the first young men to get an automobile and used it to drive to the Denton community where his girlfriend lived along the Pigeon River. She was one of eleven children.
Vic and Nora married in 1937 and set up their first home. "It was a little bitty house," Nora said, but she still has her first bedroom suite and they bought a new "cook stove" for the house.
"We thought we had everything," she added. At one time, the family owned nearly 100 acres.
The Valentine Brothers Nursery brought Vic Valentine in touch with other changes in the economy. In the 1940s, the family expanded the nursery by setting up an operation in Laurel County, Ky. Most of the Valentine nursery business was in the northern states, and it was thought this would get them closer to it.
The Valentines and their sons stayed only seven years in Kentucky before returning to Cosby and the family business. It grew into the largest Hemlock tree provider in Tennessee, probably in the United States, Valentine said.
They built the house they live in today on the family land when they returned from Kentucky. Their two sons, Larry and Bill, born only a year apart, came into the business, too.
The Valentine family was active in the Tennessee Nurserymen¡¦s Association. Vic Valentine served as association president in 1966. During the decades he gained a wealth of information on plants and ecology and frequently shared this in articles in the Plain Talk.
He finally retired in 1997, largely because of macular degeneration causing his eyesight to fail. In his later years, unable to drive, Nora would take him to Newport where he would often sit on a bench at Wal-Mart and greet many friends who came up to talk with him.
Today, in their 60s, the sons are also retired but still operate a business tied to the land. The sons have eight rental cabins on a stream off Dunn¡¦s Creek just south of the homestead. The Mountain Brook cabins are leased out to give others a taste of living in the area.
Most of his life was working long-hours at the nursery but he was a lifelong fisherman.
Valentine even used the surrounding parkland for recreation. He loved trout fishing. He said he had fished every stream from Big Creek to Townsend for rainbow trout.
He was buried at Huskey Cemetery not far from where he lived for almost a century.
While he is gone, thousands of trees he planted or sold remain as his legacy.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 16 Apr 2005.
By: David Popiel
Source: The Newport Plain Talk
04-16-2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April continued to show its colors after a brief interruption by rain last week in our hometown and now farmers and gardeners are about their green business.
There was still a slight chill in the air on Friday morning when I headed south on Cosby Highway to pay my last respects to Vic Valentine and his family. Our old friend died at his home last Wednesday after being ill for a couple of weeks. Of course, I had to stop at Shirley’s Restaurant located not far from the Wilton Springs crossing. I’ve been trying to run into Shirley Hall to see how her new business is doing, but the many people sipping coffee there answered the question.
A sign on the door said she is looking for another cook, too. Biscuits and gravy filled me for awhile and I continued traveling to find the Huskey Cemetery, never having been there. I soon got startled going around the curve just before Middle Creek Road because all the trees were cut between the road and Cosby Creek.
Further down road, glancing over to Carver’s orchard the apple trees were clouds of pink and white flowers in the morning light. At the Sevier County line I pulled into Big Walley’s Grill next to Jack’s Market & Texaco for directions. A three-legged dog was standing still looking up the hill. “Down the road about three miles,” said the waitress. Brown Funeral Home was handling the burial on the grassy knoll protected by a giant oak tree with hundreds of limbs hovering over the gravestones. The crowd of folks–many familiar faces, such as Beth Freeman and Delmer Lovingood–showed how much Vic had influenced folks during his 94 years. His widow, Nora, white-haired and frail in a purple dress was supported by her sons, Bill and Larry, both of whom live in Gatlinburg. I saw a woman who recognized me first and then I recalled my former Cosby school student, Judy Barnes, now married to Mark Williams, who operates his late father, Jack William’s, store and car wash.
There were others you know well such as Bob Shults, Farrell Golden, Donald Jenkins, and Olie Williamson, who presented the eulogy.
Olie’s comments captured the essence of our late friend and will forever be remembered accompanied by songbirds and spring tree stirrings on April 15. Vic represented the passing of a generation that lived in the Smokies before the creation of the park.
Olie noted that Vic was 16 when he drove the truck carrying the body of Olie’s grandmother, Sallie Barnes, for burial near Laurel Springs. Hundreds of people worked at Valentine Nursery–perhaps alongside a young hickory-stick strong Vic. “A treasury of memories has left us,” said Olie.
Indeed, a man whose life was as tall as the thousands of hemlocks he nurtured and left to us.
Earlier in the week, in Newport, I wanted to check to see if the wisteria vines cascading down the Clifton Heights embankment were in bloom yet. Behind city hall, near Brown’s Casket business, I looked out across a serene Pigeon River but saw no flowers yet–not like the purple ghosts already haunting trees on Wayne Williamson’s land across from the Cub Motel and Restaurant. Before I left, a walked into the police station and confirmed that Susan Ball and Stephanie Justus were at work. They are helping to continue a modern record keeping system at the police station.
During Kiwanis Club that week at the Holiday Inn, Tip Brown told me of a humorous incident that happened at the very spot I visited near City Hall. On Sat., April 9, Don Rowland and Jim Self were fishing behind Tip’s casket and insurance business building. While they were talking, a big fish jerked one of the men’s line and rod into the river. An hour later, they hooked onto something and pulled in the rod and line with the carp still on the hook.
It was an eight-pound buffalo carp–and this isn’t a Tip fish story. I bumped into him again Thursday night while I was shooting photos of Reece Thornton’s bluegrass band at Pat & Harvey’s Grill. I forgot to ask him if he were related to Vic’s widow, Nora Brown Valentine. There were plenty of folks helping Luke Goddard celebrate his fiftieth birthday at Smoky Mountain Grille, but I did hear some sad news about our friend, Doris Jean (McMahan) Clark, who is hospitalized at Baptist here with cancer. Janie (McMahan) Brown and Charlene (Allen) Cox were giving us the latest news on their dear friend. When I last chatted with Doris Jean before she returned to Smoky Mountain School, she was considering retiring but loved teaching too much.
There’s another story I tracked down after hearing it briefly from Marvin Keys at Total Lawn Care weeks ago. I took a photo of him and his fluffy chow, “Pidge.” Here’s the rest of the story as told by Betty Bush Grooms. They have had the dog since about 1987, and Pidge has won dog shows and ribbons, but that hasn’t always been her lot in life. Betty and Marvin adopted the dog through Noah’s Ark in Morristown after a person brought “Pigeon” to them–they shortened her name later. At first the dog was aloof for a couple of weeks and Betty said it looked as if they would have to return the unhappy chow to the shelter.
Apparently, Pidge got the point and changed her attitude. More than 15 years ago the dog was found wandering around the Waterville power plant where workers fed her. It seems she had been living around the Pigeon River and had suffered gunshot wounds, broken teeth, and shattered ribs when brought to Cedarwood Veterinary Clinic. Dr. Carol Hood treated the animal–after her secretary Jill Hodge’s husband brought it in. Pidge is happy to be part of the family at Total Lawn Care living the good life.
In plain talk, like the lost hungry black and tan hound that showed up at the farm for a bowl of beef last week, we continue to follow the trail of our tale.
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
Name Victor Valentine
Event Type Marriage
Event Date 21 Aug 1937
Event Place Cocke, Tennessee, United States
Gender Male
Age 26
Birth Year (Estimated) 1911
Spouse's Name Nora Brown
Spouse's Gender Female
Spouse's Age 23
Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated) 1914
Page 803
"Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790-1950," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6RQ9-LJ1?cc=1619127&wc=Q6SB-218%3A1589264474%2C1589372859 : 22 December 2016), Cocke > image 393 of 576; citing Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville and county clerk offices from various counties.
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