The Monroe journal., 1922-11-14

The old quack of Bethune, 5. G..
who gathered hundreds Of dollars
from the MAIN and afflicted Of this
section during the halcyon days OF
1919 and 1920, when one could al
ford to be sick. has been forgotten.
No one ever makes the long drive TO
his backwoodS home for the privilege
Of being rubbed with a little kero-
sene. None of his alleged cures were
permanent. Ii is doubtful if there
IS a man or woman in Union county
who will now say that the faith
healer's" ministrations made him
well person. -.
He has passed off the stage. His
name is never mentioned.
People. however, are SIN gulllole,
and another faith healer" has ap-
reared on the stage in his place. He
Is Joe Mundy of f'the Abbeville, 5. c.,
section.
Possessed of a divine power 10 cure
divers maladies. he believes, Mundy is
watching the world beat a path to
his door over a narrow, spring break
ing road. up Buzzard Roost Hill and
around the bend to the old Mundy
home, where the healer lives part OF
the time with his brothers family,
A. H. Mundy. Many believe in the
power of Joe Mundy to cure disease,
and as his fame increases. the dis
tance also leng,hens over which comes
the sick. the lame and the halt. One
day last week, a North Carolinian
suffering from cancer, wended MS
wearisome way up Buzzard Roost
Hill and sought the power Of the
healer. Another day a woman suf-
fering from pellagra, from Anderson
county, journeyed over the Jolting
roads TO Buzzard Roost. Almost ev-
ery day some distant sufferer comes
and beseeches Joe Mundy to look at
him. For that't all he does. just
looks at him, and 10, the disease is
healed; so he claims, and so many
who have visited him claim.
Mundy is about sixty years of age,
and all of his life he has lived near
Buzzard Roost. Part of the time now
he spends with his daughter, Mrs. Ida
Hodges, who lives near Simmons
station on the Greenwood-Donalds Ids
road, but large part of the time he
still lives at Buzzard Roost, with the
family of his brother Aiundy is a
hunter, such as Nimrod was, and Buz-
zard Roost is not far from the
swamps of Long Cane, where fat
grey squirrels scurry up tall willow
oaks and where ones gun speaks fire.
Quen,ly.
Buz2ard Roost is little more than
a hill. but hill sleeper than most
hills are between Hodges and Able
vile. There is a graveyard there,
and one or two old houses nearby.
but aside from that only open fields
and patches Of woods surround Buz-
zard Roost. A topsoil road is being
built through the Unnamed commun-
ity and soon the healer's dwelling
place VIII be accessible 70 those who
seek his power.
In the years before the 18th
amendment, when men made pilgrim
ages to Abbeville for the wee drop
they brougt back inside and out, the
steep hill between Hodges and ABB
beviile proved the Waterloo of many
of the soggy tipplers, and they perch
ed in fiocks, so the legend runs, and
thereby came the name Buzzard
Roost
To find Joe Mundy the healer of
Buzzari Roost, at home one must GO
early and stay late. Frequently he
shoulders his gun and goes early into
the solitude of the forest, only re-
turning after nightfall. Ii one wish
es to see, one must wait.
Such was the fate of newspaper
man Thursday afternoon who jour
eyed to the Mundy place to get a
picture of the healer and hear from
his own lips, the story of his power
But Mundy had long been gone into
the Long Cane swamp, and now anc
then the distant echo of the gun
miles away, told Of tumbling squir.
rels that were filling his bag. See
ing the healer was out of the ques.
ton, but his sister-in-law, Mrs. A
II. Mrndy, told what she knew Of hi,
power.
Mrs. Mundy sat in the back hal