Holy Days in the Apple Pi Inn: The Next of the Road

It’s time. We pack the car at sunset, accompanied by the chimes of the courthouse clock that measured out this year in the village of Elizabeth, the county of Wirt, the state of West by God Virginia. The branches of the apple trees are bending under the weight of ripening apples; I invite family and neighbors to pick up what I have to leave behind. Baking an apple pie is back on my short list of cooking skills.

We pack, unpack, re-pack, taking only what we really really need: each other and our four-legged companion, Hannah. Bill leaves his cherished blue leather chair; I leave my Dyson sweeper. The Inn is not empty, however. Sandy, my older sister, and her best friend/husband Roy Lee have been coaxed from the farm to return to live in town. They’d lived for five years in a 149 year old cabin heating with a wood stove, hauling water, and coping with indoor/outdoor plumbing. Perhaps trading that for a 215 year old Inn without heat or running water seemed reasonable. They only asked for a fence for their dogs and internet access.

It seemed like a long shot last summer: better tear this structure down than jump into the quicksand of a money pit. A minister’s pension only goes so far. But it has such good bones, hand hewn logs of a three story cabin, and packed to the drafty rafters with stories and histories of a particular place, and its wild, weird, and wonderful people.

I agree to just one repair at the sabbatical start: repaint the 4 plywood angels nailed to the posts of the well. That one act of “homo reparans” (the human inclination to repair) would have been the last if those well angels hadn’t sent Darrell and Chuck, who knew exactly what to do with hammers, and nails, drills, saws, screws, pipes, wires, when nothing literally nothing was level. You can’t ignore strangers who may turn out to be angels, at least according to my bible.

They start with the fence, add a two story back porch, install gas heaters, restore “running” water to the kitchen and succeeded in providing a toilet that flushes and a shower that has hot water. They’re working now on reconstructing the long front porch where the guests used to sit in the afternoon sun. The country kitchen has been saved, though its “fixing up” will have to wait for a season. There’s even a painted ceiling created by Billy Jean who deserves his own story, but I’ll save it for another time.

The stars are coming out; choices are made; the car is loaded. I resist an old hillbilly habit of strapping a piece of furniture to its roof. I take one last swing on the porch swing, walk through the unrestored upstairs rooms to bid the ghosts Godspeed.

My final stop is to pray with the saint that now resides with my family at the Inn. She is one of the many mysteries of this space. I find this old stained glass window in a second hand store in Delaware. It’s the sad reminder of what must have been a vibrant Catholic community. She’s seen hard times. There’s a bullet hole in the bottom of her robe, but her eyes are warm and golden. She offers a basket of bread and grapes to all who hunger for the holy in an ordinary life. I carry her back to this village, this place. Billy Jean uses his skill to frame her securely in one of the west windows that face the river.

It is only when Sister Cheryl comes to say goodbye that I discover what saint is now in residence. Sister Cheryl helped to found the Catholic Church here in town and the ecumenical ministry of the Hope Shop. She studies the figure with the golden eyes and smiles, “Well, of course. It’s Saint Elizabeth. She’s our saint, you know, the patron saint of our congregation. This is St. Elizabeth of Hungary.”

Such a long strange trip it’s been, even for a saint who has to hitch a ride with a Methodist minister and a teacher in order to get home to Elizabeth, West by God Virginia. Who knows what’s waiting round the next turn of the road? Certainly the Holy Spirit, which I used to think was who was "coming round the mountain when She comes."

If you’re in that neck of the woods, stop by the Apple Pi Inn, one block down from the Courthouse. You can’t miss it. You’ll be welcome. She’ll keep the light on for you.