He got his weaving, among other things, from the Pi Phi Settlement School down in Gatlinburg. That is a school founded 28 years ago by the college sorority, to bring a better education to the mountaineers. Pretty Pi Phis come from all over to teach there.
A girl named Pauline Whaling came down from the north, to teach the mountaineers. She was out of Monmouth College in Illinois, and Northwestern University.
But whether she taught, or got taught, I can’t quite decide. For she married Jack Huff, and came to the mountain with him. And when their little boy was born, he came to the mountain too—a husky, tow headed example of a good life.
For seven years Pauline Whaling has been on the mountain, working with her own hands, helping run things. She is beautiful in her heavy boots and leather jacket.
She leaps around the terrace of the lodge like a gazelle. She was up at 4 this morning to see Jack off on an early trip down the mountain. She herself has hiked the tough eight-mile Newfound Gap trail in two hours flat. She is bountifully happy. “Up here is peace,” she says.
A mountaineer’s strength is in his heart, and not necessarily in a big body. Jack Huff weighs only 150 pounds, and stands sort of folded up with his hands in his pockets. But his walking feats are astounding.
He has walked 15,000 miles up and down this mountainside. He kept count of his round trips until three years ago, and at that time they had passed 1000. It is seven miles each way, and exactly a mile gained in altitude.
He has often made two round trips in one day, packing great loads up the trail on his back. There are some mighty men in these mountains. Listen to this story:
Andy Huff is Jack’s father. He owns the big Mountain View Hotel down in Gatlinburg. He has lived down there for 40 years, but he has never seen his son’s lodge up here, although it’s only two hours by horseback. “I just haven’t got time to go,” says Andy Huff.
But Jack’s mother saw Le Conte Lodge before she died. She made one trip. Just one. That trip sounds like a legend, but it’s true. She came up on her son’s back.