Writing in his history of Watauga County in 1915, John Preston Arthur provides a glimpse of the history of the Mount Gilead community in Avery County. Arthur was writing about
Lyndsey Wilcox thought she was going to die when she had her first child.
The Mount Gillead mother lost both of her feet at age 12 after a routine surgery for her scoliosis went south. When her doctor told her she needed a cesarean-section, she had flashbacks to her last invasive procedure.
The uneasiness didn t stop after Clayton was born, either. Wilcox said depression consumed her to the point that she didn t go back to work and can t remember the first three months of her son s life. It was an absolutely horrible time, Wilcox said. Even after my amputations, I was never in such a depression like that.