A little more apple butter

It's fall, y'all. In the hills of East Tennessee, that has always meant one thing: apple butter. Two autumns ago, I came home from our family's apple butter weekend in Arcadia and wrote a short Facebook post about it. That little post has stayed with me ever since, because it was never really about apple butter. ROOTS IN THE ORCHARD Long before my time, my family cultivated apple orchards in these hills, starting with my great-great-grandfather William Hickam and his brother Mel. They pressed cider, churned applesauce, and perfected apple butter. If you were lucky, you might have snagged a slice of Aunt Mable Hickam Nottingham's legendary gooseberry pie. My great-grandfather Ray Hickam grew Stark Delicious, Winesap and Stayman apples. Those weren't just varieties. They were decisions. Somebody chose what to plant, knowing they might not live to see the best of the harvest. That's stewardship: planting for people you'll never meet. By the time I came along, the orchard had dwindled to just under an acre. But while the trees got fewer, the tradition did not. ARCADIA, TENNESSEE Arcadia is home, the dirt I was born from. It's a small, unincorporated community of fewer than 500 people, tucked in the upper corner of Tennessee. Kingsport was our closest city and the official address on our mail, but Arcadia was home. Its roots run deep. Arcadia began as the Reedy Creek Settlement, one of the earliest settlements in what is now Tennessee, and in 1775 the road through it became part of Daniel Boone's Wilderness Trail. We know that road today as Bloomingdale Pike. In 1836, Thomas Fain named his plantation here "Arcadia," and the community soon took the name as its own. His store along that same road doubled as the area's post office starting in 1846, and its later version, Joe Fain's Store, is the one I grew up hearing about. A LITTLE CHURCH WITH A BIG HEART At the center of it all sits Arcadia United Methodist Church — formerly Reedy Creek Campground and Cemetery — a little church with a big heart. It has outlasted many others because it holds tight to its commitment to neighbors. Like a death grip. My family's fingerprints are all over it. My grandfather, John Tee Hicks, helped build the current brick church. My other grandfather, William Clyde Gibson, led Sunday school and worship. My mom, Elizabeth Sue Hicks Gibson, played piano there for more than 40 years, and my dad, Gordon Wayne Gibson, led worship until he passed in 2012. My Gibson grandparents lived directly across from the church, where the orchard sat. My Hicks grandparents lived right beside it. The church sat in the middle, and so did I. So did apple butter, which literally united the two families — that and love. It's also where my faith took shape. Teachers like Sharon Livesey and Linda Stratton poured into me week after week. That's the gift of a good church: it multiplies the number of grown-ups who believe in a kid. THE WORK BEHIND THE JAR Today, my dad's close friend and cousin, Richard Nottingham, works tirelessly with his cousin Mary Emma Hickam Brackett, and now with my sister Jody, to keep the tradition alive. It isn't quick work: peeling, cooking and saucing the apples, then the long stretch at the copper kettle. And, of course, the great sugar debate. Aunt Mable swore by 30 4-pound bags per pot. Richard, her son, leans closer to 24. I won't settle that here. That's why I say every tradition worth keeping has a Richard and a Mary Emma. Traditions don't survive on nostalgia. They survive on people willing to do the work. The real heart of it, though, is the stories that surface while it cooks: Joe Fain's store, sledding mishaps, hay rides, and long nights of Pedro. My cousin Johnny and I were eventually banned from partnering because we won too often. My sister Angela, convinced we were cheating, enforced the ban. For the record, it was pure skill. I can still hear Uncle H (H. Loyd Williams Jr.) throwing down face cards and hollering, "Let the timber fall!" I'm told that saying was born on the front porch of Joe Fain's store. Around that kettle and those card tables, my uncles, aunts and an army of cousins shaped me as much as anyone. That's the real inheritance. IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE APPLE BUTTER In October 2024, Uncle H, then 89, said something I haven't been able to shake: "You know, it's really not about making apple butter at all. It's about bringing people together. It's about community." He's right. We live in a time when division seems to dominate, but a copper kettle of apple butter over an open flame tells a different story. It takes many hands and many hours. You can't rush it, and you can't do it alone. Somebody peels. Somebody stirs. Somebody brings the jars. Somebody tells the story that makes everyone laugh. Long before my work with young people, I was learning around a copper kettle in Arcadia. Community isn't a feeling. It's a practice. You build it the way you make apple butter: slowly, together, and on purpose. We don't make apple butter every year anymore. But this fall, on Oct. 17, family and friends at Arcadia fired up the copper kettles once again. And where was I? On vacation, writing this very article. Thankfully, Richard and the crew stirred away. So wherever you are, find your pot and start stirring. And if you're out Bloomingdale Pike, stop by the little church at the heart of historic Arcadia. It's still feeding neighbors every week. Maybe we all need a little more apple butter in our lives. From my family to yours. Dr. William D. Gibson grew up in Arcadia and is a former Club kid in Kingsport. He is president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Greater Triad in North Carolina.