A Few Thoughts

by Alice St. Clair

Long Sam: The Story of Dorothy Brown

The year was 1957. The United States suffered its first military casualty in Vietnam. Elvis Presley continued to get the bobby soxer bunch all shook up, and Leave it to Beaver premiered on CBS.

And in the small town of Mooresville, NC, the talk was of plans by Duke Power Company to dam up the Catawba River and create a lake.
On a summer day, Tom McKnight and Fletcher Davis of the Mooresville Tribune were tramping through the woods to investigate where the new lake would possibly be located, when they spotted her.

She was barefoot and dressed in a shirt tied at the waist and cut-off blue jeans.”She” was a 16-year-old girl named Dorothy Brown. And her life was about to change dramatically.

Fletcher Davis snapped some photographs of the young woman. In the next edition of the Tribune, Tom McKnight described Dorothy as “a statuesque young girl carved from the pattern of a Greek goddess.”

This backwoods beauty, Dorothy Mae Brown, was born in 1940 in Wilkes County, one of 10 children. At the age of three, her family moved to the banks of the Catawba River near Mooresville. The family lived in abject poverty, and Dorothy had left school after the seventh grade to help her mother tend to her younger siblings and help her family financially through babysitting jobs.

The story in the Tribune caught the eye of Charlotte Observer columnist Kays Gary, who did his own splash on Dorothy and gave her the moniker that would be associated with her for the rest of her life: Long Sam.

“Long Sam” was a United Features Syndicate comic strip created by Al Capp, which ran from 1954 to 1962. The title character was a tall, voluptuous mountain girl who had been raised in a hidden valley by her “Maw,” who hates men and wants to protect her from them.

Gary’s Observer column was picked up by the wires, and a whirlwind began. Life Magazine sent a photographer. These Life pictures captured the attention of Ed Sullivan. And Dorothy found herself on a train to New York to be a guest on Sullivan’s show, “Toast of the Town.”

Introduced by Sullivan as “stepping out of the Carolina hinterland in the Cinderella story of the year,” Dorothy won over the hard-nosed New York press by her down-to-earth charm. Dorothy began to receive all kinds of offers: “The Steve Allen Show,” “The $64,000 Question,” and a part in the Broadway musical “L’il Abner.” She declined them all.

What did Dorothy really want? To go back to school. Dorothy found a benefactor in Ross Puette, a Charlotte paperboard manufacturer, who offered to pay for her education.

She finished her high school diploma at Wingate Junior College. Of her classmates there, Dorothy was quoted as saying, “Some of them act surprised when they first meet me. I think they expect me to be wearing tiger skin and swinging through the air like Tarzan.”

From there, it was on to Women’s College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC-Greensboro) where she received a teaching degree.

Dorothy’s time in the limelight was over. She married and taught in a Charlotte elementary school for a time. Occasionally, reporters would find her to do a “Whatever Happened to” update.

In a 1995 story, she said she had “no regrets” about not parlaying the Long Sam frenzy into a show business career. “An education was something nobody could take away from me.”

Dorothy Brown passed away on March 5, 2023.

Alice St. Clair

The year was 1957. The United States suffered its first military casualty in Vietnam. Elvis Presley continued to get the bobby soxer bunch all shook up, and Leave it to Beaver premiered on CBS.

And in the small town of Mooresville, NC, the talk was of plans by Duke Power Company to dam up the Catawba River and create a lake.
On a summer day, Tom McKnight and Fletcher Davis of the Mooresville Tribune were tramping through the woods to investigate where the new lake would possibly be located, when they spotted her.

She was barefoot and dressed in a shirt tied at the waist and cut-off blue jeans.”She” was a 16-year-old girl named Dorothy Brown. And her life was about to change dramatically.

Fletcher Davis snapped some photographs of the young woman. In the next edition of the Tribune, Tom McKnight described Dorothy as “a statuesque young girl carved from the pattern of a Greek goddess.”

This backwoods beauty, Dorothy Mae Brown, was born in 1940 in Wilkes County, one of 10 children. At the age of three, her family moved to the banks of the Catawba River near Mooresville. The family lived in abject poverty, and Dorothy had left school after the seventh grade to help her mother tend to her younger siblings and help her family financially through babysitting jobs.

The story in the Tribune caught the eye of Charlotte Observer columnist Kays Gary, who did his own splash on Dorothy and gave her the moniker that would be associated with her for the rest of her life: Long Sam.

“Long Sam” was a United Features Syndicate comic strip created by Al Capp, which ran from 1954 to 1962. The title character was a tall, voluptuous mountain girl who had been raised in a hidden valley by her “Maw,” who hates men and wants to protect her from them.

Gary’s Observer column was picked up by the wires, and a whirlwind began. Life Magazine sent a photographer. These Life pictures captured the attention of Ed Sullivan. And Dorothy found herself on a train to New York to be a guest on Sullivan’s show, “Toast of the Town.”

Introduced by Sullivan as “stepping out of the Carolina hinterland in the Cinderella story of the year,” Dorothy won over the hard-nosed New York press by her down-to-earth charm. Dorothy began to receive all kinds of offers: “The Steve Allen Show,” “The $64,000 Question,” and a part in the Broadway musical “L’il Abner.” She declined them all.

What did Dorothy really want? To go back to school. Dorothy found a benefactor in Ross Puette, a Charlotte paperboard manufacturer, who offered to pay for her education.

She finished her high school diploma at Wingate Junior College. Of her classmates there, Dorothy was quoted as saying, “Some of them act surprised when they first meet me. I think they expect me to be wearing tiger skin and swinging through the air like Tarzan.”

From there, it was on to Women’s College of the University of North Carolina (now UNC-Greensboro) where she received a teaching degree.

Dorothy’s time in the limelight was over. She married and taught in a Charlotte elementary school for a time. Occasionally, reporters would find her to do a “Whatever Happened to” update.

In a 1995 story, she said she had “no regrets” about not parlaying the Long Sam frenzy into a show business career. “An education was something nobody could take away from me.”

Dorothy Brown passed away on March 5, 2023.

Alice St. Clair

Happy Easter, 2025

A few thoughts as we celebrate this Resurrection Day, April 20, 2025:

Human beings basically have two problems they can’t solve on their own- a sin problem and a grave problem.

We ALL sin. Every single person who has ever lived has sinned. We do things that are wrong. We fall short. It’s because we are human. Now we know that nothing sinful can be in God’s presence. That presents a problem.

The second problem we face is death. We all at some point will come to the end of our days. What then? What will happen to us?

Well, I have great news for you, and it’s all about this holiday called Easter. Jesus was crucified to take away our sins. Completely wiped out and forgotten like it never happened. Our slate is wiped clean. Secondly, because He overcame death by Resurrection, we will overcome it also. We will definitely leave this world, but we will go to Heaven if we put our trust in Him. It really is that simple. Just believe and have faith.

Happy Easter and may God bless you!

By Alice St. Clair

All my adult life, the piercing wail of bagpipes has made me yearn to go back to a place I’ve never visited. It’s rather difficult to explain, but something stirs in my being when I hear this music. It beckons me to an ancient past.

On April 13, Tom and I attended the Loch Norman Highland Games at Rural Hill near Huntersville. It was a grand celebration of Scottish heritage and culture. Highland Games have been held since midieval times. The chieftain of each clan would select the strongest and fittest warriors to represent that clan on the field of honor, and they would compete in various games of skill and strength.

In addition to the sports aspect, there were stations of all the various clans, Highland dancing, food booths, and merchandise vendors selling all things Scottish, from kilts to coffee mugs, earrings, swords, belt buckles and beyond.

An absolute treat for me was found at the Tartan Station. My ancestral link to Scottish Highland heritage is from the McLaughlin family. That is the surname of my paternal grandmother. I did not locate the “McLaughlin” tartan, but I found four tartans of Clan MacLachlan, which is another spelling of the same clan. I do know names were switched around back in the days when the first settlers were coming to this country, and in many cases, a family stuck with the name somebody wrote down when they got off the ship. So that’s a pretty good explanation of how it was changed from one spelling to the other. I had no idea what my ancestral tartan looked like, or indeed, if there even was a tartan. So this was a treasured piece of information to have.

I have always been fascinated with speech and words, and a brogue accent is particularly interesting. We stopped to ask one of the volunteers where the Highland cows could be found. “No, I really don’t know where the COOS are,” he said. “Do ya have a wee map?” I love to hear that accent, and feel drawn to it, just like sound of the pipes.

Unless I win the Power Ball or sell a kidney on the black market, I most likely will not get to visit Scotland in person. (I don’t gamble and I plan on keeping my vital organs). But for one day, I got a wonderful taste of a people that helped to build this great country. They have held fast to their traditions and their culture and are happy to share it with all who are interested.

I can’t wait until next year!!!

Alice St. Clair