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PELHAM — When Hazel Dean Boyd Mitchell was 4 years old, her mother gave her an old dough tray and told her to throw it in the gully.

As she ran her hands over the surface, the little girl made a decision that ultimately led to an eclectic display of things from her past.

She decided to go against her mother’s wishes and hide the tray, which in those days was used to make biscuits and other flour-based items. She took the tray out to a barn, turned it upside-down and slid it into a recessed shelf.

From then on, she carefully saved things that were headed for the gully her family used as a dump. She hid them in barns and buildings on the property of her parents, the late Charlie Henry and Eliza Mabel Rakes Boyd.

Today, Mitchell displays her saved things in 12 buildings — former barns, cabins and storage buildings — on 140 acres at Boyd’s Cross Roads in Pelham.

She has a large farm house, an old country store and other buildings from across the state and Virginia.

Each building is named after the former owner, such as “Captain Cooper Corn Crib,” “Boss McKinney Crib” and “Henry Noble Storehouse.”

“It’s my passion,” she said about the items she collects. “I love them.”

People come from far and wide to see the collection. Mitchell has been written about in local newspapers, five national magazines and other publications, including Country Living in May 1995.

Mel Steele painted six pictures of her Old Country Store in 1991.

Each Christmas, Mitchell lights the fire in the stone fireplace in her Christmas Cabin and makes her famous Ruffin tea. Church organizations, clubs and other guests drop by. She serves walnut cakes and hickory nut pies, made from the nuts gathered on her farm.

In other seasons, she often has a picnic or a stew. Many church groups and organizations come to her Hearth Gatherings at Christmas.

Her Papa, as Mitchell lovingly calls her father, had several stores in Patrick County, Va., where the family lived before moving to Rockingham County.

He opened a store in Eden and three in the Pelham area.

“He had many stores,” she said. “That is all he ever did was tend stores.”

It was from these stores that Mitchell got display merchandise when her father decided to discard something.

Mitchell spent many hours in the store in Pelham. When she was 9 years old, her father went to work surveying tobacco land for the state.

On the morning he was leaving, he announced, “‘You tend the store and do it right now,’” Mitchell said. “I did, and I never made a mistake but once.”

Her mistake involved slabs of fatback (salt pork) that were in a wooden box at the end of the counter.

A customer asked about the price of the big pieces of meat. When Mitchell told him 15 cents a pound, the customer bought it all.

When her father came home, he asked about the fatback and told her it should have sold for 25 cents a pound.

“The part that hurt the most at that age was that somebody had taken advantage,” Mitchell said.

She starting collecting when she was 5 years old, she said. “I liked the stories I had heard about the items, and I thought they should be treasured.”

One day when she was 18, she thought about the dough tray and went out to the barn and reached back into her old hiding place.

It was covered with dust, but it looked like it did the day she put it there.

Her mother saw it, and Mitchell explained what had happened to the tray and then gave it back to her.

“Mama cherished that thing for the rest of her life,” she said.

After she graduated from Ruffin High School in 1956, she married Charles Mitchell. He died in 2002.

Over the years, Mitchell has pulled out her treasures and put them in buildings on the family property. When those buildings were full, she and her husband bought old barns and cabins, restoring them and using them as backdrops for the many items she collected.

Mitchell made many of the items on display: plaques, picture frames, potpourri — even pincushions fashioned from old-style baby shoes. 

“I can’t even sleep at night for thinking about what I want to make,” she said.

Her son, Michael, helps her with framing. Her daughter, Renee Mitchell, assists in the preparation of the food for the gatherings.

A neighbor, carpenter Ray Weatherford often “saves the day for me.”

Usually, Mitchell can tell you stories about the things she has so lovingly displayed.

“I like to see something come back to life,” she said, adding that she takes old broken baskets and reworks them. Those baskets are hung across the rafters.

“It’s a challenge, and I love to do it,” Mitchell said.

Because she can’t throw away anything, Mitchell said,  she “hides” it from herself, then goes back later and works on it.

Once she found a child’s blouse in the attic of a cabin that she bought. Now, the blouse has a prominent place in one of her displays.

“If something is loved, it becomes pretty,” she said. “You can pick up an old ragged Teddy bear and dust it off, and it gets pretty.”

Ann Fish is a Reidsville native but has lived in Eden since 1979. She is a retired newspaper editor and reporter. Contact her at annsomersfish@yahoo.com