by Roberta Clayton
Barbara Koblich connects with our community in so many ways. First is her interaction with thousands of town residents over a long career as a public employee. Second, by documenting and identifying places and buildings of Holly Springs. And third is her joy in giving service.
Barb and Gary Koblich came to town in 1993, when Gary accepted employment with a heating and air conditioning company in the Raleigh area. As did so many realtors at the time, hers tried to steer them toward flourishing suburbs a bit farther north in Wake County. But Barb was looking for something that felt more like the charming village of Lancaster, New York, where she grew up. She picked up a map from the Raleigh Visitors Bureau to give her an overview of the choices, then, in a scene from a Harlequin romance novel, she saw the name of the town and fell in love. She quickly switched to realtor Linda Garner and found her peaceful country vibe in the small town of Holly Springs.
Katherine Herring had a desire to form a women’s club in Holly Springs, and soon a group of excited ladies filled an old classroom at what is now the Hunt Center. Joanne Roth was the founding president of the General Federation Women’s Club of Holly Springs, or GFWC. Word went out that we could be charter members, which only added to the charm of our new town. I followed Joanne for a two-year term, with Ruth Rose, Barb Koblich and Margie Hochstadler serving thereafter. We had wonderful participation and leadership from locals and move-ins, old and young, and also from the husbands and businesses. It was exhilarating to look around and propose our own projects, because there was so much to do. We compiled fat albums of photos and articles about our yearly service.
Barb and I recently met in her home after not having visited in years, and I knew it would be a treat. There was that beaming smile, just as it had always been. A couple of decades fell away and we were busy young mothers again, working together with the ladies of the women’s club to better our new community, and make friends. Torrents of names poured forth as we remembered officials, friends, and club affiliates. COVID had brought changes to all of us. Barb’s hair was longer, because who wanted to go out into a crowd for haircuts? Her passion for history had been channeled into the genealogy books she compiled for over a year for her own family members.
Barb declared, “I am a story-teller.” But she is also a story builder. There’s a continuity in her heart that goes all the way back to colonial days, through the wars, the railroads and shipping lanes, the crops and sawmills, the cures and the ailments, the mourning customs and the merchants, to feel the beating pulse of this corner of the world. Did you see a performance of the stage production and musical, “Finding Patience”? I got to sit with playwright and director Angie Staheli, and with Dick and Molly Sears to watch a performance. I should have known Barb’s hand was in it, too. She and Angie were a great boost to each other as they collaborated on details and characters.
The characters she relates to are both the chatty and the shy, the downtrodden and the exuberant, as she meets them one on one. Barb tells of one gentle senior who came in every month to pay his water bill, holding it out with eyes respectfully lowered. She countered by lowering her head to catch his eye and give a smile. How many years would it take to loosen the grip of such a habit? He relaxed eventually and accept her offer of friendship.
The local senior ladies were invited guests of her favorite event, the Women’s Club Heritage Day Dinner. It was a way to honor them for building our community over a lifetime. There were favors, delicious home-cooked meals, and lots of stories. That was the part Barb really loved. It connected her to their past as well.
Mayor Gerald Holleman had the vision of what we would become. He knew we went to Cary to shop, to Fuquay for schools, and to Raleigh for culture. When Food Lion agreed to build in Holly Springs, he urged us to buy our Thanksgiving turkey right in our own town. Ribbon cuttings soon became commonplace.
And how about you? Did you move here and enter Town Hall to settle some business connected with your relocation and housing? Did you have questions that needed answers, or required a referral to the right department? Those of you who arrived between 1997 and 2019 were probably greeted with Barb’s familiar smile.
It all began when she and Gary decided to attended a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, held at the Hunt Center. The meeting was directed by Bill Rousseau, who showed up with a cardboard carton containing all the documents relating to the Chamber. Barb could see the need, and was drawn to seek that connection to her new community. She offered to act as the Executive Director, asking Mayor Holleman where to set up an office. There was a little cinderblock structure with green shutters on Main Street. It had been used as a police station, but was now empty and available. She was on one side of a partition, running her window AC unit. She turned it off if the phone rang, so she could hear better. There was an answering machine that greeted callers when she was out. The vacating police department had left a three-legged desk and a resident mouse. Local businesses started joining the Chamber, and soon the word was out—Holly Springs was the place to be.
The Women’s Club was given space on the other side of the partition for our volunteer library, which began with a box of nice books left over from a garage sale. I had met the county library head, who declined any involvement up to and including a visit from a bookmobile. That was liberating, because then we could do it our own way. I paid for a rubber stamp that said Holly Springs Library, and stamped away happily. The key was left next door at the gas station, with a drilled book on a chain to serve as a giant fob so nobody would take it home by mistake. Occasionally the county system mailed us back a book that had been returned to their facilities. Patrons wrote down the books they borrowed, left a phone number, and often brought back more than they took. They would buy the latest paperbacks for travel, then donate them to us. Jim and Jeri Guberski made and hung a spiffy sign for the library.
Then it all came to a crashing halt the night Hurricane Fran came to town. The storm hit September 6, 1996, killing 22 people as it blew across the state, and causing $6 billion worth of damage. If you were here at that time, you have your own story to tell. You are connected to us by your experience with the event.
Barb recalls locking up the Chamber building that afternoon after piling as much as she could on top of the desk and covering up the computer with trash bags. She wished the mouse best of luck and turned out the light. She walked home along the pecan tree-lined Center Street, and looked back at Dewars Antiques and the Leslie-Alford-Mims House, hoping that any winds or rain would not damage these historic properties. That night, along with most of the Triangle area, we were at the mercy of this monster hurricane that changed course, placing us in the direct path. Morning dawned to trees down, cars crushed, roofs gone and debris everywhere. Barb made her way up to Raleigh Street and tearfully embraced Vada Fiegler, who reassured her that she had already checked on Larry Dewar and Ed Mims and the buildings were okay. Because downed power lines prevented much looking around, it was several days until Barb made her way up to the Chamber/library. Several feet of water had surged around the old cinderblock building and the musty smell of mildew met her as she opened the door.
I, meanwhile, had gone to dinner with other ladies from Sunset Ridge at Macaroni Grill in Cary. We enjoyed our evening, not truly grasping the severity of what was going on until we drove home and found the entrances to the neighborhood blocked by fallen trees. It still is a heavily treed neighborhood, by covenant, and beautiful because of the mature forest. But it was severely thinned that night. As a crew removed enough debris to let us in, I dropped off the others and pulled into the driveway. With no electricity, the garage door opener would not work. I honked but could not be heard over the roar of the storm. How strange to be home but not home. Eventually I got in, we said our prayers and I slept soundly through that stormy night.
In the morning, six of our trees were down. A tall pine was draped across our roof peak, and a heavy tree had crushed the back deck stairs. Yes, the wind had blown them down, but it seemed that the rain just made the soil lose its grip, so they all leaned over in a tangle. People brought out their grills and cooked thawing meats to share. I had bought a cut gallon of nutty coconut ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Refusing to lose my investment, I strained out the nuts to bake into banana bread, and used the melted cream to make the loveliest pancakes ever.
Blue tarps appeared all over town. Some were still there a year later and some seemed to stay forever. Roads and cul-de-sacs were looking more like woodlots, with chain saws buzzing, stacks of cordwood rising up, and trucks loading all the timber. Some of the broken evergreen trunks smelled like sweet oranges. We had the loan of a generator for several hours and then passed it on. Power was restored in a few days, but the wood piles seemed to take forever to clear.
Because the little block building had flooded, Mayor Holleman found space on a porch at Town Hall for Barb to set up her beloved Chamber of Commerce. For me, he found space in the hallway to line up paper grocery sacks filled with books, allowing them time to dry and not be lost to mildew. We were later given a room at the Hunt Center. The little block building was never again useable. Sometimes we have to let go of what we think we want because we are to be given something better.
The Bass Lake Dam had washed out, leaving behind a mud flat that sat mocking the community for two years. When the town was able to step in and purchase the site for $230,000, we were eventually graced with the beautiful family hiking, boating, fishing, and nature center we now enjoy. It opened in 2004 as a treasured recreation site with a 50-acre lake surface.
Barb Koblich’s little porch location made her more accessible and visible, leading eventually to a full-time town job in the finance office collecting water bill payments. Then, when the new Town Hall was built, she became the main greeter as one of the duties of the town clerk’s office. She was also to gather the town history. In that capacity she authored the book “Holly Springs” by the Town of Holly Springs, produced by Arcadia Publishing. She did it as an employee of the town. I just ordered my own copy from Arcadia. What took me so long? There must be another book forming in Barb’s mind. Her historic research began in 1995 with the women’s club having a fundraising idea to produce a community cookbook. Barb volunteered to gather the town history while Kelly Guess took photos. Barb started her search to learn the history at Town Hall where she met Joni Powell, who had just started her job that week as the new town clerk. Joni pointed to the bottom drawer of a file cabinet where she had spied old newspaper clippings and then added, “Talk to Ed Mims and Larry Dewar.” Barb freely admits, “I was bitten by the bug. Vada Fiegler, Doris Jones, Faye Congleton, Jim Wright, Mary Macon, Cora Lassiter, LaVerne Cofield and so many others were all generous with their stories, photos and mostly, were the loudest cheerleaders for the preservation of their hometown.”
Another project the club undertook was the creation of a woven throw. I took photos and consulted about what features to include. The cardinal, the holly leaves, and the club logo are there, with the town seal in the center. Around it are placed the selected features, mostly buildings: Leslie-Alford-Mims House 1848; War Memorial 1923; Masonic Lodge 1853; Dewar’s Shop 1876; Holly Springs Elementary School 1996; and Devils Ridge 1991. Those last two were our glimpse of the future. We were excited to have a local school. It would have been Barb who proposed the featured buildings. I stay warm under my throw on chilly evenings by the TV. Ruth Rose gives hers pride of place as a wall hanging.
Barb’s pride and joy during her tenure as president of the Women’s Club was the Respect for America Quilt made by the Holly Springs Elementary students following the 9/11 attacks. The concept of the quilt was presented to the GFWC-HS by club member Christine Dickson. Upon completion, it measured 12 feet by 6 feet and was made up of one thousand individual squares. Each student was able to design an individual square, expressing patriotic pride. The banner hung with honor for many years in the school but has now been removed for preservation and will someday be on display in a museum.
We published cookbooks, raised funds at Casino Night, planted azaleas, funded a flagpole, had a handicap swing installed at the park, held candidate forums, celebrated Earth Day, made stamping projects, held arts festivals, and gave out prizes and funds to student scholars, artists, musicians and poets. We felt like we were holding the hands of a toddler. It was so purposeful and fulfilling. Today our town is a thriving young adult, strong and growing, thanks to residents like Barb Koblich. Now it is your turn to look for ways to connect. Like Barb discovered ‘back in the day,’ there will always be opportunities to serve.
