The Girl Who Survived Toxaway Falls
This story began with a simple request last spring:
It’s always fun to pull on a little thread of history
and see where it goes…
It’s always fun to pull on a little thread of history
and see where it goes…
Sally Hyde Mueller remembers the story from childhood. “It was part of the family lore,” she says, though not spoken about often: That summer day in 1947 when her mother, Betsy Gilmour, went over Toxaway Falls—and, thanks to a quick-thinking local resident, she survived.
Back then, the Gilmour family lived in Charlotte, where Betsy’s father, Dr. Monroe Taylor Gilmour, practiced medicine, and his wife, Mary Nash Keesler, kept after their five kids. The family enjoyed spending time in the Western NC mountains; in fact, the couple had first met in the area at Montreat, so in some ways, it was a sentimental favorite.
The Transylvania Times, July 17, 1947
That particular summer, Betsy, the eldest of the Gilmour children, was in Brevard attending Mary Gwynn’s summer camp, while her parents were home tending to their youngest, a newborn son, Monroe. Also at home were twins Ethel and David, and another sister, Virginia (Gina).
It was likely a busy time in the household, and perhaps that’s why Betsy’s aunt, Ethel Keesler Garrad, and two of her daughters, Betsy’s cousins, were enlisted to pick up Betsy that day.
One local report of the incident notes that the first session of camp had just ended, and the group was sight-seeing at the falls before heading home (perhaps Ethel had heard about the film crew recently at the falls to shoot Tap Roots and wanted a peek at the scene?).
We were pleased to find historical images on Gwynn Valley Camp’s website —then further surprised when Sally was able to identify her mother in one of them! In this photo of a horse and buggy excursion at the camp, Betsy is the young blonde circled in red.
At any rate, on a warm July day, the Toxaway Falls Stand (opened just that year) was likely a welcome sight.
Floyd King was working the cash register that day, and his son Max, then eight, recalls that they sold three drinks to the three young girls, who they assumed at the time were sisters, before the group headed toward the overlook.
The Transylvania Times, July 24, 1947
According to Max King, his father hurried down the path alongside the falls, and though “he didn’t know exactly what to do,” he had quickly pulled Betsy from the water and, holding her over his arm, attempted to squeeze any inhaled water from her chest.
An interesting tidbit that Max also recalled was that a Sealtest milk delivery man had stopped above the falls and followed Floyd to the pool at the bottom, where he was able to provide CPR briefly until Betsy revived.
Nancy Henderson recalls a Galloway from Rosman delivered milk to the Quebec School when she was young. Does anyone know who this may have been?
You may think that’s the end of this story. Not so fast…
Sally Mueller recently had yet another surprise, when she came across this old postcard in her mother’s things from, of all people, Floyd King. It’s clear he was responding to a message from the Gilmours, and he appears to have also spoken with the woman from Miami who is mentioned in the Transylvania Times clip of June 24, 1947.
Nancy Henderson also shared memories of the King family in the Quebec News on November 22, 2022:
“I remember the Floyd King family, but not at the time they lived a year in a tent on Flat Creek Valley Road in the late 1940s. Beverly Wilson and Betty Fisher both can remember it well. The tent was a large Army tent. They had four children and were expecting a fifth. They lived in the tent through the winter with a cook stove set up for cooking and heating. Betty remembers a heavy snow that winter. It was an all-night ordeal to keep the snow knocked off the tent to keep it from caving in. There was a midwife in the community by the name of Stella Walker. When Christine started labor it was night and Stella’s son carried an oil lamp and walked with her to the tent for the delivery. Christine delivered her fifth child, a son, and he was named Joel. On a piece of property on Reid Siding Road, Floyd built a small two-room house and the family moved in. This is where my memories of the family start. Two of the girls were close in age to me, Marietta and Rachel. They were so carefree and fun to play with. Floyd was always a dreamer. He owned and drove a log truck. He heard that logging was a good paying job in Washington State. He spent months building a small room on the back of the log truck to make the trip to Washington. The last thing to load on the truck was the cook stove with a pipe sticking out the wall. He loaded all his children and their earthly belongings on the truck and headed out. When they went by early that morning I stood at the door and waved to my friends and they waved back from the one window. They were gone about a year and they came back but not to stay. The whole family came back in the log truck to pick up the grandparents and then they headed back. Floyd came back several times to visit friends in the area. Max, the oldest son, never left the mountains. It was in his heart. His residence may have been in Washington but his heart and spirit are still in North Carolina. I still hear from Max. Most of his family have passed away. He always wants to hear about his old friends. Floyd tried to get my dad to move to Washington, but anyone who knew Roy O’Dell knew he was not leaving Quebec. Thank goodness, we could have ended up living in a tent.”
Both Monroe Gilmour, Betsy’s brother, and Sally Hyde Mueller, her daughter, are grateful that Betsy survived the fall into the Toxaway River—and, as Monroe puts it, “you can see the full life that Floyd King made possible for her” when you review her obituary (Elizabeth “Betsy” Gilmour Hyde passed away in 2015).
SHARE YOUR STORIES
“Our memories are our treasures. They are who we are. Looking backwards some of us see our parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, cousins, longtime friends, teachers, preachers and the places we knew them – home, church, school, stores and fields. Those people and places of growing up define us. They are our anchors. They are our foundations. They are our roots.”
We look to Historic Toxaway residents and visitors to help us tell the tales of our #storiedcommunity—just email marketing@historictoxaway.org to send us anecdotes (past or present) about you and your family’s experiences in our area (if lengthy, just a few sentences to give us the idea and we’ll contact you for more). Or, submit a photo or video and we may feature it on our website or our Facebook and Instagram accounts. We will happily credit your contribution. Thank you!
