A rich tradition of tree hugging.
1847, Marion, Virginia. It’s an early evening in May, with the last vestiges of orange streak gone from the indigo sky. A little slave girl named Sallie has steeled away from her mistress, out a side door of the prominent home known as Rosemont. Her new mistress, Mary Thurman, was ill. Not so ill she was dying, but ill enough to be in constant pain and discomfort 24 of the 24 hours a day Sallie had to care for her as her body servant. She had been bought on the slave block in the old Marion Courthouse yard by Thomas Thurman of Marion, while the rest of her family was sold to a slave owner in Lynchburg. Sallie was only 5 or 6 years old at the time. Reeling from the loss of her loved ones, frightened and unsure in new surroundings, Sallie would be beaten by her owners if she cried or showed any emotion. And so whenever she could, Sallie would steal away from the house to a tall, white oak nearby, wrap her arms around the tree, tell it her sorrows, and cry her heart out. The tree patiently absorbed her anguish. The tree gave her strength to be able to go back to the house, to hold her head up, to endure. For even after the War Between the States was over for white folks, it wasn’t over for blacks. Sallie would be forced to endure unheard of indignities common for African Americans yet uncommonly repugnant for any civilized society. Yet Sallie continued throughout her life to embody the strength of a mighty oak, coining her motto which she passed on to her children; “Always be your best, always do your best, and always give your best.”
Sallie might have been the first tree hugger.
This story comes to us the way nearly all of our stories of slavery have come, via oral tradition since slaves were forbidden to learn to read or write, and after the Civil War southern blacks were not exactly encouraged to remember. But remember they did, and stories were told. And trees still stand.
Behind the Marion Firehouse stands Sallie’s Crying Tree (http://www.cnr.vt.edu/4h/remarkabletree/
detail.cfm?AutofieldforPrimaryKey=1398). Thanks to Sallie (whose given name was Sarah Elizabeth Thurman) who told her story to her daughter Susie, who told it to her daughter Evelyn Lawrence of Marion, a retired school teacher and historian, we have her legacy today. Others will be able to benefit from it by visiting Marion (http://www.marionva.org/), seeing the tree themselves and reading the plaque that marks the spot. You can also visit the website of the Remarkable Tree Project (http://www.cnr.vt.edu/4h/remarkabletree/index.cfm) which features other trees of Virginia possessing inspiring stories including Sallie’s Crying Tree. These trees will be featured in the book Remarkable Trees of Virginia by Jeff Kirwan and Nancy Ross Hugo to be released sometime this year. In an Arbor Day address last year in Marion, Kirwan, a professor in forestry at Va Tech, remembered seeing an image of a student hugging a tree after the tragic events of April 16, 2007 at Va Tech. Rolling down the years of her life, Sallie referred to her Crying Tree as her mentor. Her friend. Would that we could all be a tree of strength for others in their need. Sturdy, calm, un-flinching, patient, still, and. . . there. Hug a tree. Better yet, be a tree for somebody else.
-Lucinda McDermott Piro