In the summer of 1948, Hendersonville danced.

A promotional Photo from the 1948 Chicago Rail FAir. Peggy Jones Mahaffey is second from Right

It danced on Main Street between Third and Fourth, where forty couples might whirl at once under the glow of a setting sun. It danced at Poplar Lodge in Laurel Park on Tuesdays, at the pavilion atop Jump Off Rock on Wednesdays, and in the barn at the Saddle Club on Saturday nights. It danced to fiddles and banjos, to callers’ singsong voices, and to the steady beat of shoes on wooden floors.

And right in the middle of all that motion was a seventeen-year-old girl named Peggy Jones.

“I’d been dancing most of my life,” Peggy says, now in her mid-90s but with her eyes still bright at the memory. “We always went to the street dances in downtown Hendersonville, even when I was a little girl. That was the big thing to do on Monday nights.”

Peggy grew up on North Main Street and attended Hendersonville High School. Her mother was from Saluda in Polk County; her father hailed from Andrews near Murphy. They met while working at the American Enka Company, the massive rayon plant that helped anchor the region through the Depression and beyond. By the late 1940s, their daughter was busy anchoring the dance floors of Henderson County.

“We danced every night of the week.” Peggy’s eyes smile as she remembers the halcyon days of her youth. She loved square dancing, but she loved round dancing too. “That’s what we called smooth dancing. Couples dancing just with each other.”

School, she admits, wasn’t always her first priority. “I didn’t make real good grades,” she says with a grin. But what Peggy lacked in academic motivation was more than offset by her passion for dancing. And when Peggy danced, she made an impression on those who watched her.

The Connemara SQuare Dance Team Performing in Mountain DAnce and Folk Festival in Asheville

Her talent caught the eye of Frank Mintz, the square-dance caller who also worked at Carl Sandburg’s farm in Flat Rock. Sandburg and his wife Lilian had moved there in 1945, and their barn soon became a gathering place for music and dance. Mintz invited Peggy to join the Connemara Square Dance Team made up of eight couples who practiced every Monday night in the Sandburg barn, accompanied by a live band.

“Our band was Vernon Rogers and his string band,” Peggy says. “Bobby Ponder played with them. He could really get going on that fiddle and play ‘down yonder.’” Peggy’s favorite calls still echo in her memory. Shoo-Fly Swing. Birdie in the Cage. Ladies Left, Men Right. Four-Leaf Clover.

One Monday night, her family surprised her with cake and all the trimmings in the Sandburg barn. It was her sixteenth birthday. Carl Sandburg often came to watch the practices, and Peggy suspects he was there that night also. “Probably was,” she allows. “He came practically every Monday.”

The Connemara team soon proved they were something special. At the 1948 North Carolina Apple Festival square dance competition, held in the Hendersonville High School auditorium, they competed against other local teams and won. The auditorium was packed and when it was announced that Peggy’s team had been selected as champions, the audience roared their approval. The event also crowned 16-year-old Juanita Thompson as the Apple Festival Queen.

Apple Festival Queen, Juanita Thompson, Tosses Henderson County Apples to the Crowd at the Chicago Railroad Fair

In 1948, winning the Apple Festival competition meant much more than a ribbon. The winning prize was a trip to perform at the Chicago Railroad Fair, a massive exhibition celebrating 100 years of railroading west of Chicago. Thirty-nine railroads participated. Over five million people would attend over the course of two years. Walt Disney himself would walk those grounds and carry the inspiration of what he experienced back to California. An experience that one day would inspire Disney to create Disneyland.

For Peggy, it was literally the trip of a lifetime. “I’d been to Virginia,” she says. “I had relatives there. But Chicago was a big thing.”

A troupe of about 30 – the 16 members of the dance team, the band, Miss Apple Festival and her parents, and local dignitaries - traveled by bus, stopping overnight in Indianapolis. When they arrived in mid-September 1948, Chicago gave them a royal welcome. Officials, photographers, and crowds jostled to get a better view of the mountain dancers. On Michigan Avenue - at the “busiest corner in the world” - traffic jammed as Frank Mintz called the figures and the Connemara dancers set the city spinning.

Peggy and her team danced on a platform in The Loop and they danced every day at the Fair. Queen Juanita threw Henderson County apples to delighted “Windy City Slickers.” Newspaper headlines back home in Henderson County excitedly reported the story of a talented troupe of “hillbillies” from Hendersonville winning over Chicago.

Indeed, in addition to winning the hearts of “Yankee” spectators, Peggy and her dance mates won an even bigger prize. Against thirty-six teams from the Midwest, the Connemara Square Dance Team took top honors. Hendersonville was proclaimed “the Dancingest Town in America.” Back home, the stories grew larger with every retelling. When asked if she and her fellow dancers were famous when they returned home, Peggy smiles. “Yeah, I suppose we were.”

Peggy Jones Mahaffey Wedding Announcement. 1951

After her Chicago adventure, Peggy’s life settled into a more normal routine. But she kept on dancing – right into the next chapter of her life. One of Peggy’s square-dance partners had a cousin in South Carolina. The cousin came to visit in Hendersonville. Peggy met the cousin, Paul - at a square dance, of course. Dancing led to romance, which led to matrimony. Paul Mahaffey and Peggy Jones were married in 1951.

Peggy continued dancing regularly until she began raising a family. Later, she would run the Henderson County License Tag Office for more than forty years, working out of the old courthouse and then the basement of the Skyland Hotel. But the rhythm of dance never really left her. She danced into her mid-eighties. “The last time I danced was at the street dance,” she says. “This fellow from one of the dealerships asked me. I told him I couldn’t do the Shoo-Fly Swing.” She laughs. “I wouldn’t know how now. I don’t think I could fool anybody.” What she can still do is remember.

Peggy Today at home with her son, Mickey Mahaffey .

Peggy Jones Mahaffey, now in her mid-nineties, may have lost a step or two, but when she talks about square dancing, her eyes still light up like Hendersonville streetlights in the summer of ‘48. The joy of that summer - the barn at Sandburg’s, the fiddle’s song, the applause of strangers in a faraway city - still shines through the eyes of a young girl who lived the adventure of a lifetime. Even now, when the caller’s voice rings out, “Promenade home,” Peggy Jones Mahaffey is carried back to where she has always belonged.

The girl who once spun under the lights of Main Street and danced in the heart of Chicago is still there, carried by the music of her memories.

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Addendum
Transcript of Hendersonville Times-News Article
September 1948

Queen, Dancers, Band Back From Glorious Chicago Trip
By Dave Cooley

Connemara Farms square dance team, Vernon Rogers’ string band, a quartet from Black Mountain, Juanita Thompson, queen of the North Carolina Apple Harvest Festival, and P. M. Camak, official manager for the trip, returned home Thursday night—champions of a square dance jubilee held at the Chicago Railroad Fair in Rock Island’s Rocket Village.

The delegation representing Hendersonville—“the Dancingest Town in America”—took top honors from some 36 teams and 25 competing bands from Midwestern states. They were handed the title of “Rock Island and Chicago Railroad Fair Square Dance Champions” at their final performance Wednesday afternoon before a crowd of about 7,000 “Yankees,” who were beginning to believe that Hendersonville was truly the “Dancingest Town in America.”

William Brennan, publicity director for the Rock Island Lines, told the onlookers that “It was the greatest show that I’ve ever witnessed and these troopers from North Carolina are some of the greatest showmen that I’ve ever known.”

Rock Island Railroad officials and those connected with the Chicago Railroad Fair welcomed the “hillbillies” from Hendersonville Monday morning at 7:30 o’clock when their bus halted in front of the Congress hotel on Michigan avenue. Newsmen from all Chicago papers were present and were “fighting” for the best shots, especially those of Queen Juanita Thompson. For three days all of the papers carried pictures and stories about the North Carolina delegation and their doings in the “Windy City.” Acme News Service, a commercial news service, sent photos to many northern newspapers, and the State News Bureau in Raleigh has been doing the same, according to reports received here.

Chicago’s Loop, publicized as the “busiest corner in the world,” was the center of attraction at noon on Monday. Some 35,000 business people and passersby “jammed traffic” to see the show that was being “reeled in” in the heart of Chicago’s business section.

Vernon Rogers and his Blue Sky Rangers gave out with the “Alabama Jubilee” and Frank Mintz and his “goat farm team did the “Shoo Fly Swing.” Raymond Peek and his “Cloggers” from Black Mountain, which consisted of Misses Betty Crouch and Byra Moody and Jack Peek and Bobby Bright, set sparks flying across the 40-foot platform that could have been the makings of another Chicago fire.

Queen Juanita, her mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Thompson, William C. Hayes, Rock Island official, and Les Lear, WLS comedian, made their appearance at the close of the square dance exhibition. Queen Juanita threw Henderson county apples to the “Windy City Slickers” and was given a royal welcome by officials present at the ceremony. She was also crowned.

The troupe then went to the Railroad Fair, lunched at the Rock Island Diner and gave two performances that afternoon before audiences of 3,000 and 5,000 respectively. Monday night all officials were present and the Hendersonville outfit made its grand entrance with a Chicago band …

(Continued on page four)

FESTIVAL GROUP TO GO TO CHICAGO SATURDAY
(Continued from page one)

…three years ago. He also called his first dance on the street here and stated that he don’t know which “figures” he likes best. His teammate is Miss Hazel Arrowood, formerly of the Jump Off Rock team.

James Hinson and Peggy Jones have been participating in the mountain pastime for about three years. Peggy’s favorite is the “Four-Leaf-Clover,” and James favors “The Garden Gate.”

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Williams favor the “Swings,” the “Shoo-Fly-Swing,” and the “Sweet Girl Swing.” They have been dancing together for five years. Bob says that he has never called a dance, but the “Know How” is still present. “I’ll get the nerve to try some day,” he said.

Cecil Hyder, a veteran dancer of seven years, and Miss Helen Drake, strawberry blonde from Birmingham, Ala., know the “game” well. Both of them like the “Dive and Dip” as their favorite figure.

Reynolds “Bull Durham” McGaha is celebrating his silver anniversary in the square dancing world. His leading lady and wife Emma, has been dancing with him for 15 years to date. Their favorites are “Bird-in-the-Cage” and “Georgia-Rang-A-Tang.”

A square dance wouldn’t be complete without a band, as a shoe wouldn’t be complete without a sole, and Vernon Rogers and his Blue Sky Rangers “Fill the gap” and round out the party.