Judith Sutherland

Discover the power of letting go, embracing life's craziness, and finding quiet perspective in the non-judgmental space of the barn.

My childhood was common as dirt in every possible way, and I always figured every kid lived as we did.

My hometown of Jeromesville is a small but mighty village. I speak with pride when I say it only stands to reason that it was chosen in the Ohio Heritage Tree Project, setting off a celebration this past weekend.

Civil War reenactors march past a historic home at Century Village Museum in Burton, Ohio on May 24. (Paul Rowley photo)

(Photo courtesy of The Library of Congress) The siege of Knoxville, November-December 1863. Notice the photographer on the right.

Photograph of the War in the West. These photographs are of Hood before Nashville. Continuing his policy of the offensive at any cost, Gen. John B. Hood brought his reduced army before the defenses of Nashville, where it was overthrown by Gen. George H. Thomas on December 15-16, in the most complete victory of the war. If the date borne on this photograph is correct, it was taken in the course of the battle. (Coonley, J. F., 1832-1915, photographer)

Every Sunday morning, further back than the days my memory can reach, my mother dressed us in our finest and pointed the car south on our country road.

“Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.”

Sculpture of legendary country-music singer Dolly Parton outside the Sevier County Courthouse in Sevierville, a small city midway between larger Knoxville and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in eastern Tennessee. Named for the state's first governor, Indian fighter John Sevier, the city is the birth home of Parton, for whom a parkway and a theme-park complex in neighboring Pigeon Forge are named.

When I married into the Sutherland family, I came to learn a great story that created an early lesson in working with an eye on the clock for Doug and his younger brothers.