[bright music] - Next on "North Carolina Weekend," we'll celebrate literary treasures from the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines.

We'll visit Carl Sandburg's home in Flat Rock, a Black-owned bookstore in Durham and learn about Scottish heritage in Laurinburg.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokey Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[cheery folk music] ♪ [cheery folk music continues] ♪ [cheery folk music continues] - Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend," everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel, and this week, we are celebrating literary treasures from around the state.

Right now I'm at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, a beautiful home and garden that is now a writer's residency, a place for recitals and readings.

It even houses the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.

We'll learn more about the Weymouth Center later in the show.

But first, let's head to Flat Rock and the home of another beloved writer, Carl Sandburg.

[gentle guitar music] - Carl Sandburg was a first-generation American, and he was a poet, author, biographer, journalist, song collector, and reflected the voice of America through his words.

- [Deborah] He was from Illinois before moving south later in life.

- Sandburg and Mrs. Sandburg came here in 1945, and it was actually at his wife's prompting.

She wanted greener pastors for the goats and a milder climate.

He said, "Just give me a quiet place where I can write."

And they found this amazing 245-acre estate that offered all of that.

- [Deborah] Lillian was a scholar from Michigan, and although writing was Carl's passion, goats were hers.

- Mrs. Sandburg's background was in Latin and English.

She went to college at a time when most women didn't have that opportunity, and she graduated from the University of Chicago with honors.

While studying, she also liked to explore genetics.

And so that was really her connection to the goats.

- [Deborah] Mrs. Sandburg became a respected expert on dairy goats and grew her prize-winning herd to nearly 200 on the property.

Simultaneously, Carl grew his collection of writing there.

- So Sandburg was 67 years old when he moved here, and he still produced a third of his life works.

He wrote his own life story.

He condensed his six volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, and he collected his entire work of poetry.

- [Deborah] Their property in Flat Rock was never lacking in places of inspiration.

- And one of his favorite places was on the rock up behind the house.

He had an old wooden chair that sat up there, and he said, "It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself, to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, who am I?

Where have I been, and where am I going?"

And he loved to write upstairs in the room he called, "My little garret where I dirty paper."

- [Deborah] The house was a 9,000-square-foot country Greek Revival home finished in 1839.

Previous owners added electricity and running water and dubbed it Connemara.

The Sandburgs kept the name, but Lillian would need to add bookcases.

- [Ginger] Yeah, she added lots and lots of bookcases to hold the 14,000 books that were to arrive.

- [Deborah] But after Carl's death, she sold the home to the National Park Service and donated its contents in 1968.

- Visitors to the park have an opportunity to like literally walk back in time.

The home has everything in it that the Sandburgs enjoyed.

So it reflects their life ways.

The thousands of books are still on the shelf.

The letters are still sitting on the desk.

The table is set for dinner.

It looks like they just went out for a walk.

- [Deborah] Assuming they would only feature the work of her husband, Lilian sold off her entire herd of goats.

- Her accomplishments within the dairy goat community were huge.

So the National Park Service was able to trace back the goats that she sold.

They bought them back, brought 'em here to the property, and we have had them ever since.

Come on, girls!

- [Deborah] Today, guests can spend time with the descendants of her famous goats and walk the trails the Sandburgs did, all five miles of them.

- It's gorgeous, yeah.

- Beautiful day and the hiking was great.

- We hike this park probably four or five times a week.

- [Deborah] Carl and Lillian found peace here.

For a brief time, quests can too.

- That's the power of the sense of place is that you are where history happened.

You're walking on the same ground.

You're walking in the same footsteps.

It's not some ambiguous concept that you're reading about.

You are actually there where it happened.

[gentle guitar outro music] - The Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site is at 1800 Little River Road in Flat Rock, and it's open Thursday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

For more information, give them a call at [828] 693-4178 or go online to nps.gov/carl.

The Weymouth Center is located in a part of our state called the Sandhills, home to thousands of Scottish immigrants who moved to North Carolina before the Revolutionary War.

Not far from here is the town of Laurinburg, where there's a great place to explore your Scottish roots at the Scottish Heritage Center.

- There'd always been a celebration of things Scottish here at Saint Andrews University.

They had a pretty significant collection of vulnerary books dealing with Scotland.

There's always an interest here.

We're really a resource center, if you will, for people that are interested in studying Scots.

I have everything from people that may be interested in finding out something about Scottish history to people that are climbing the branches of the family tree.

You know, they want to know about what's historic in this region 'cause there's a lot that people just don't know of, of the very strong and very direct Scottish connections to a lot of sites of interest and places of interest and families of interest in this region.

The first Highland Scots that came to North Carolina came in 1739 as a group of about 350 that were called the Argyll Colony.

The 1739 Argyll colony came from the county of Argyll, particularly in the Kintyre peninsula and also from the islands of Jura and Islay and also large numbers from the island of Skye.

Now the area that encompasses the Highland settlement really includes about 12 counties here, not only in North Carolina but spilling over into the border of South Carolina.

And so that push and pull of immigration started to take place, and North Carolina was the most significant destination on the eastern seaboard.

Flora McDonald is one of those women of legend here in North Carolina.

This is a snuff box that was given by Flora McDonald to her husband, Allen McDonald of Kingsborough, as wedding gift in the 1750s when they were married.

And it was obviously engraved with "A McD and F McD."

And the hallmarks give us the proof as well to back up that tradition.

These are copies from a sermon that was printed in 1791 in Fayetteville by one of the Gallic-speaking ministers in this region that tells us a lot of things.

It tells us that that Gallic was popular enough and pervasive enough for a printing press to be turning out things in Gallic, even as late as 1820s in the area.

[traditional Scottish band music] I think this resurgence of interest first started in the 1970s with the Roots Movement, people wanting to identify and found out there's interesting stories about the family.

Then we had a big boost with "Braveheart" obviously, "Rob Roy" as well with Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange.

"Outlander" has done a lot as well because it's fairly historically accurate, you know, in telling the stories of how people got here in North Carolina.

So, yeah, and as people grow older, they want to find out more about who they are, where they come from.

I mean, now we've got the DNA test.

Everybody's seen the TV commercial, and thought they were German, ended up being Scottish, you know, traded the lederhosen for a kilt, you know?

So yeah, it's very much more mainstream now 'cause there's so many people that can draw roots back to Highland people that came here into the Carolinas.

It's just incredible.

So people come back, and in fact, a few years back, I had a couple that were here from Texas, and they were colonist branches at the family tree, and we found out the immigrant ancestor, and it just happened that I knew where that immigrant ancestor was buried.

Was able to take that lady back to the grave of her first ancestor that set foot on American soil.

And that's the sort of epiphanies that I'm sometimes able to give to people.

And that's why I love what I do.

- The Scottish Heritage Center is at 2100 Saint Andrews College Road in Laurinburg.

Their hours vary.

So for more information, give them a call at [910] 277-5236 or go online to sa.edu and look under Student Services.

I'm with Katie Wyatt, executive director of the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, and Ed Southern of the North Carolina Writers Network.

Katie, this is such a beautiful property and home.

How did it all get started?

- We're here in the Boyd House, which is the original home of James and Catherine Boyd.

And they were really visionaries of their time in how they wanted to give back to the community.

And upon their deaths, they gave the home up for the historic preservation and to become a center for the arts and humanities.

The real first partnerships came with Sam Reagan, who was the original Department of Cultural Resources director, and he created really important programs that have their founding here.

One was for Weymouth to become the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in partnership with the North Carolina Writers Network.

The other was an important program we host here called Writers In Residence Program.

We have two to three authors here every week who are from North Carolina, writing about North Carolina, who come here to be in a place of beauty and a place of creativity and of deep history to work on whatever it is they're gonna put out into the world.

The history here is so deep and so important for the preservation of this land.

The area that we sit on is the original tract of the Boyd land, which was at one point 1500 acres, and the idea was to preserve the longleaf pine.

We've just reopened our equestrian center.

The Boyds were also very passionate and fundamental in the Moore County hounds and in the hunt, and Weymouth Center really brings together the cultural and arts opportunities for our community.

- [Deborah] So Ed, tell me about this room and what it all means.

- When James Boyd lived here, this was his study.

This was where he did his writing.

But this was also a house where he welcomed a lot of the great writers at the time.

William Faulkner stayed here.

Thomas Wolf was a frequent guest.

There's one story about Wolf arriving on the train in Southern Pines in the middle of the night, walking up, finding an open window, climbing in and falling asleep on the couch.

The great thing, I think, about having the Literary Hall of Fame here is that this isn't just a room where great work was done or a room where great work is remembered, but this is a place where great work is being done today by the writers who come and stay at Weymouth and find the time and the space and the spirit to write their own words, create their own work.

The Literary Hall of Fame selects new inductees every other year.

We hold a ceremony on the grounds here at Weymouth that really is like a family reunion for the literary community in the state, and it's one of the ways that we keep that community vital and ongoing.

- [Deborah] Well, I can definitely tell why this place is a literary treasure.

- Thank you.

- [Deborah] Katie, what can visitors to the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities do?

- So many things.

In the first place, we have 26 acres of gardens and grounds which include a historic English garden, fountains.

We've just renovated our stables.

So there are beautiful horses that you can visit here.

There's the Boyd House, and we have a self-guided tour that you can take as you come through the doors.

You can see the Literary Hall of Fame.

You can visit the rooms where the Boyds lived.

It's really a beautiful historic place to come and visit.

We also present more than a hundred events a year.

We wanna be a place of inclusivity that through the arts and humanities people experience a different way of looking at the world.

So we have writers in residence readings, summer camps programs, many community festivals.

You can hear live music here through our jazz series, a chamber music series, presentations of arts and humanities lectures.

So many things, there's about two events a week.

So please be sure and check out our website, weymouthcenter.org.

- Sounds exciting.

Katie and Ed, the Weymouth Center is such an inspirational place.

Thank you so much for hosting us.

- Thank you for coming.

- The Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities is at 555 East Connecticut Avenue in Southern Pines, and they're open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and they have special events all year long.

For more information, go to their website at weymouthcenter.org.

To learn more about the NC Writers Network, go to ncwriters.org.

This is such a beautiful library here at Weymouth Center.

You know, independent bookstores are in a fight for survival these days, but we found one in Durham, Rofhiwa Book Cafe, that is succeeding because of its commitment to community.

Everything in here, there is great intention, from the ground up, from the inside out, Black people contributing to the making of this entire space.

- [Child] I really like the way that they represent everybody, and it's really nice to see that.

- What I'm always trying to do is to put the books together in ways that suggest conversations, ways that may be surprising.

I hope that when somebody comes out of Rofhiwa, they feel like they've just been immersed in something.

And that is an all-encompassing experience and communing with Black art and Black literature in all its forms.

And I'm talking visual art.

I'm talking about the kind of music that we have on our playlist.

I'm talking about the art, the books on our shelves.

So it really is an attempt to create an immersive experience across the various forms of Black art and literature.

- Welcome to Rofhiwa Book Cafe.

We are located at the corner of Driver and Angier, the bustling Driver-Angier corridor.

A significant thing happened.

My grandmother died in 2017, and that kind of threw me into a certain kind of spiral.

I thought, "Okay, well, I may not have the entirety of my life to collect these books and be able to put together this reference library."

So I started to think then about what it would look like to put it together.

That's where the idea of a bookstore came along.

It just made sense because we're in Durham.

It's a historic city.

It's just got so much happening in the way of Black life and Black history.

- I'm a mixed media painter, sculptor and musician.

My work is here at Rofhiwa.

I call it Afro Expressionism.

It's centered on the humanity and experiences of Black people in America and throughout the diaspora.

I hear people say sometimes within our community, like, "I don't wanna see no more trauma."

The way I address it is, can't heal nothing you don't reveal.

- [Child] What I noticed when I first came up to this, it was like an eye, and it's crying, I think, and it explains a lot.

There was like them all over, and this is a really magnificent piece, really creative.

- There's so much about this space that I love, and some of it came together very intentionally, and some of it came together very haphazardly.

One of the things that I'm also very excited about in the space is our tables.

So we worked with a young queer Black artist out of New York.

On the tables you'll see imposed the map of Haiti.

This is our cafe space.

So we just walked out of the bookstore.

We're in the cafe now.

[Deborah laughs] This is a whole different vibe.

- [Deborah] I'm into this vibe here.

- [Beverley] This is our coffee program, like I said, lattes, americanos, cappuccinos.

- [Deborah] Keeping it simple.

- Keeping it simple.

- The basic.

- No frills.

So I mentioned earlier, we've been exploring and putting together books for our youngest readers.

So when the parents are buying, you know, a coffee of tea, they might wander over here to actually watch kids waddle over here and grab a book, and that's what they want that day.

It feels really nice.

- I love Rofhiwa.

I'm a neighbor.

I live down the street.

And also I'm a teacher at Maureen Joy Charter School which is just a couple blocks away.

We walk down here most weekends and come in for a snack and some coffee and reading books.

So it's just a wonderful addition to the community.

- I think it matters so much just for kids to see themselves reflected back.

- It's fun to read different books because in school, they're only sometimes, only certain types of books you can read.

- Beyond being a bookstore and a coffee shop, we also host various community events.

We host book talks.

We have an ongoing speaker series.

We are a live music venue.

We host film showcases.

We have art exhibits.

So there's always something going on at Rofhiwa.

- Excuse me, I just wanna say that I really like your art, and it's really beautiful, pretty.

- Thank you very much.

I really appreciate y'all saying that.

- You're welcome.

- You're welcome.

- I am always trying to demonstrate the depth of Black literature.

- She did a good job.

She did books for adults and for kids.

So everybody, when they come in here, they will have an option to choose from.

- You're not here to be educated and beaten over the head.

You really are here to commune with people in all of their complexity, in all of their humanity.

- I had this idea in my mind.

I didn't know where I was gonna do it.

I didn't know where I was gonna put it.

And here I am in Durham, and there's nothing like it.

- Rofhiwa Book Cafe is at 406 South Driver Street in Durham, and they're open daily.

For more information, give them a call at [919] 391-8945 or visit them online at rofhiwabooks.com.

This next story isn't necessarily about literature, but it does contain some knowledge.

On a recent trip to Elkin, we ran across a wine shop run by a young sommelier and his wife.

And they love to educate people about wine.

They call it The Wisdom Table.

[light guitar music] - So Elkin, it's in the hardy Yadkin Valley.

We're here at The Wisdom Table.

We're located in downtown, right on the corner of Bridge Street and Maine.

Originally a textile town that in the late '90s, early 2000s started to see a lot of that vanish.

But now with the resurgence of all the wineries and agritourism, there's a lot more attention coming to downtown Elkin.

- Everyone's very nice to everyone, even if you don't know them.

Just a nice, small, friendly town.

- [Deborah] with the burgeoning wine industry in the area, it made perfect sense to Jeremy and Krystle Stamps to capitalize on their passion for wine and open a business that catered to wine enthusiasts.

- We realized there was this huge demand for after hours.

Why can't you just come to one place, try four or five different North Carolina wines at once?

- [Deborah] So it was decided early on that educating people about wine would be important in creating a business model.

Hence the name, The Wisdom Table.

- He's got a lot of knowledge.

He brings that to the table as far as that goes.

He's got several winemakers in the area.

They'll come out here, and they're growing these same grapes in their vineyards, and he'll give them a schooling on how it works maybe in France or how it works over in New Zealand or how it works somewhere else around the world.

- Have you ever been able to put a French tannat, a tannat from, you know, Uruguay, one from Oregon and one from North Carolina all in one setting?

You know, put that all in one flight and realize, okay, what is the difference between North Carolina tannat?

Thank y'all for coming.

So let's go ahead and start off with a little pinot noir from Oregon.

You're gonna get a lot more cherry, bright, low re-tannin off of this.

Basically with red wine, it gets its color, with a few exceptions, it gets its color through the skins and the seeds and the stems.

It gets that tannin to it.

So the skins are actually what creates the pigment.

And you're dying that juice that comes out clear, you're dying that to whichever red color you'd like outta that, so.

- [Deborah] The mission statement at The Wisdom Table is sip, learn, repeat, drink something different and expand your knowledge of wine.

- We wanted to have a sense of community, be, one, a central place where different winemakers and growers and wine enthusiasts and customers and patrons and local folks and people from out of town can all come in and learn about wine.

- [Deborah] Jeremy, a certified sommelier, offers classes periodically that share his knowledge of wine and food.

- Back to that educational piece.

He wanted to teach his classes, educate people, unwind, make it not so much afraid of something, and to have it more kind of a friendly space for people to kind of get that education.

- We're doing, from what I understand, a wine pairing with sparkling wines.

And tonight, we're going to serve a sort of a fall-winter salad type of thing.

It'll have some roasted butternut squash, some craisins and some apples.

It'll have a champagne vinegarette sort of go with what we're doing out here.

- He's just so incredibly knowledgeable.

Like I never forget the first time she brought me here.

She said, "You gotta come to Wisdom Table.

Like it's such a great place."

And he came in.

He was like, "So what kind of wine does she like?"

And I was like, "I like Italian wines."

He starts naming off with all these different characteristics of wine.

It was like, I never really thought about that I liked.

I was like, "He's right.

This guy knows his stuff."

- So it's a different type of experience.

A lot of places you go into, you just order a glass.

Here, you find out what it's all about as well.

- You can come in, you get the knowledge, you get the fun time.

You just, you get to really hang out with people.

It's very personable.

[cheery outro music] - The Wisdom Table is at 101 East Main Street in Elkin, and it's open Thursday through Saturday.

For more information, give them a call at [336] 258-8077 or visit them online at wisdomtable.com.

Well, that's it for tonight's show.

We've had a wonderful time out here at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines.

It is a beautiful, inspirational place to explore.

And if you've missed anything in today's show, just remember you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org.

Have a great North Carolina weekend, everyone.

[upbeat music] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] - [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokey Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[bright music]