In 1755, Col. George Washington rode his horse to Staunton and stayed a night before continuing a journey to Fredericksburg.
A future American author named Edgar Poe was three years old when he traveled to Staunton with his foster parents. He later attended UVA and perhaps visited the Queen City again where he had family.
The American Civil War, Thornrose Cemetery, the American Hotel, the Virginia School for the Deaf & Blind, the Clock Tower building, the Western Lunatic Asylum and so much more are all mentioned in a new book by Charles Culbertson.
In “The Staunton, Virginia Bathroom Reader,” Culbertson brings lost histories back.
“I’m a Staunton boy,” Culbertson, a Robert E. Lee High School graduate, said. “I came to Staunton in 1961 with my parents and stayed here until five years ago.”
In the 1960s, Staunton was like Mayberry on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
“Nobody locked doors to their cars or houses. It was just a great place to be, for a kid to grow up.”
After high school, Culbertson enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. Afterward, he traveled before he returned to the Queen City to pursue a career as a writer. He freelance wrote for 40 years at the Staunton News Leader newspaper, was a staff member of the Waynesboro News-Virginian, wrote several books and served as public relations for local colleges, including Bridgewater College.
Now retired, “The Staunton, Virginia Bathroom Reader” is his 7th book, and includes a compilation of columns that were snippets of stories published in the Staunton News Leader.
“So, that’s the Genesis of the book,” Culbertson, who lives in Waynesboro, said.
Virginia is a great state for history, according to Culbertson.
“Over the years, you collect little snippets of history [as a writer], and they’re not big enough to make a story out of,” Culbertson said. “They’re just not and what a waste to have all these hundreds of things.”
So, he compiled “The Staunton, Virginia Bathroom Reader” from 87 News Leader columns and a few new pieces.
Previous books by Culbertson included two Staunton picture books for which he wrote text, two “Staunton, Virginia: A Treasury of Historic Tales” books, “The Staunton, Virginia Anthology,” a book about World War II soldier Jack Manch and a book about a Confederate veteran who died on railroad tracks in Staunton titled “Hell Bent.”
“An appreciation for the people and the times that they lived in,” Culbertson said he hopes readers take from his new book. “Perhaps not judge people in the past using modern sensibilities because they don’t always apply. Just get a feeling for what people had to go through as they moved through history.”
Raymond Oscar Fauber was missing for nearly two and a half years when his body was found buried in a block of cement in the basement of a home on Fayette Street in Staunton in 1991. His wife and son-in-law were arrested in connection with his death and for forging checks in Fauber’s name after he was dead.
Copies of “The Staunton, Virginia Bathroom Reader” are available on Amazon and at the Virginia Made Shop, 54 Rowe Rd., Staunton.
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Rebecca Barnabi
