Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on April 28, 2022.

Leo Weddle was a Floyd Country Store Jamboree regular for more than a decade. With his trademark straw and feathered hat and his smiling face, he made quite an impression on everyone he met there.

“I love the Country Store. I loved the people. I met so many people all over the country and the world,” the Willis resident recently said.

For the last few years Weddle’s health has kept him largely housebound, but he stays optimistic. Three times a week he is picked up and driven to a clinic in Radford for kidney dialysis. He remains independent with the help of his family and hopeful that he will return to the jamboree. “I can’t walk, but I’m alright,” he said.

Soon to celebrate his 85th birthday on May 19, Weddle lights up when talking about his love of dancing at the Country Store. “I just can’t hardly wait,” he said about returning, noting that his brother was going to buy him a new pair of leather dance shoes.

As a younger man, Weddle lived in Roanoke and Basset where he made chairs at Basset Furniture for 29 years before returning to the Willis road where he and his siblings were born and grew up. He recalls that he started going to the Jamboree on occasion before it was owned by Jackie and Woody Crenshaw. After he lost his wife Rachel to cancer, he became a regular and learned to dance on the jamboree floor.

“That Woody (Crenshaw),” Weddle said endearingly, “He turned me out to be famous.” He recalled a Country Store group picture that was taken with him wearing his signature hat that was framed and sent to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. “They treated me like family,” he said about the Crenshaws and the Country Store employees.

Referring to the newer Country Store owners, Heather Krantz and Dylan Locke, Weddle clapped with enthusiasm, “The new young people are fine. I met them.”

“It’s been a few years,” Locke said when asked about Weddle. “We miss him and miss a whole lot of people from the late ‘90s early ‘2000s generation who have passed or who can’t get here for different reasons.”

“On the flip side,” Locke continued, “The Floyd Country store is a regenerative community. Literally, on the dance floor on Friday nights there are 4-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 35-year-olds, 60- year-olds and 80-year-olds. Everybody. We know that Leo and the others are happy that is a reality,” he said.

Locke recalled Weddle’s uniqueness, his smiling face and his openness to meeting the diverse people from all over the world who come to the Country Store. “Leo (and others like him) had so much fun because he was proud and honored to share what he loved, his culture and dance with others.”

“These are my cooks,” Weddle said, introducing his sister Ester Marshall and her daughter Wanda Howell who had dropped by to deliver Weddle a hot meal of roast beef, taters and green beans. “It’s Texas longhorn from his brother, said Howell, a nurse.

Marshall described her older brother (by 2 years) as “all boy” when he was younger who “tried to get into everything.”  “Leo is good to everybody,” Marshall said because their daddy and momma brought them up that way.

Weddle’s health has slowed him down but his activities have also been curbed because of the pandemic. He got his shots and wears a mask when it is called for but has been advised to keep a low profile. He has every intention of making it back to the Country Store but admits that he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to dance like he used to, “but I’m going to try, Lord willing,” he said with a thumbs-up.

His secret to keeping a happy nature?  Weddle says, “It’s like this: My daddy always said ‘we only live but one time in this world.’ Why do you want to sit around depressed? Enjoy your life! I am.”

____________Colleen Redman

Photos: Leo Weddle at home today. 2. Jason Gallimore, Leo Weddle and Mike Kravinsky, writer/director of the romantic comedy Geographically Desirable that was being filmed at the Floyd Country Store in 2013. More on that HERE.