On a quiet afternoon at King’s Grant, resident Mabel Peters sits at her kitchen table, studying the space where her family will gather for Thanksgiving. She’s still trying to determine how eight people will fit around a table that, somewhere across decades of moves, lost its extra leaf. She laughs about it — a practical, good-natured laugh that comes from years of making do.
Her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren will travel in from several states. Her son-in-law will handle the turkey. And Mabel will host from her cottage, a home filled with objects that hold pieces of the life she has lived.
Roots in the Blue Ridge
Peters’s story begins in Pembroke, Va., at the base of Mountain Lake in Giles County. It was a rural childhood defined by one-lane roads, dense forest and Sunday gatherings at her grandparents’ farm in Clover Hollow. The drive included a series of dips so dramatic her brother nicknamed them the “whoopty-doos.”
The oldest of eight siblings, Peters grew up in a family that still returns to the old homeplace for reunions. Over the years she developed a deep interest in genealogy, tracing her mother’s family back to the first settlers in the region. She uncovered local legends, handwritten letters and family histories that pointed to ancestors who traveled on early mountain trails, including one forebear who reportedly died of food poisoning while dining with a group of Native Americans on the way south.
Her research revealed something else: a keen instinct for preserving stories before they slip away.
A Teacher and Mother Who Followed Curiosity
Before Peters ever stepped into a darkroom, she built a career in science education. She taught biology and eighth-grade science in Roanoke County, work she still speaks of with affection.
Her husband, Randy, entered the picture then. He stopped by the school one afternoon to pick up his mother, a seventh-grade principal in the same building. Peters was staying late, straightening desks. He lingered. He called later. That was the start.
Their marriage lasted 60 years, carrying them through moves to Marion, Martinsville and eventually to King’s Grant. They raised two children, immersed themselves in PTA meetings and Scout programs, and became active members of their church.
When their children were grown, Peters returned to the workforce as a volunteer at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. She later became education coordinator, a role that sent her across Virginia delivering programs in schools, field centers and rural communities. Some assignments placed her alone in remote farmhouses or research outposts, experiences she recalls as both eerie and oddly peaceful.
Working in the Darkroom
Photography arrived in her life as an unexpected gift — literally. A new camera, a class at Roanoke College and a growing fascination with the craft eventually led Peters to her own basement darkroom.
She remembers the first photograph she developed: a portrait of a man whose face slowly emerged in the developing tray. She ran upstairs with the print in hand, proud and a little stunned. A visiting friend joked, “Mabel made a man.” It irritated her at the time, but it also fueled her determination.
Soon she was the person families called for wedding prints, portrait restoration and old negatives that needed saving. When the Martinsville Women’s Club took on a project to compile a photographic history of the area, Peters became essential to the work. She was trusted with century-old images, which she copied and restored using a methodical process she perfected on her basement wall.
When she learned that a collaborating photographer had been quietly duplicating submitted photos for a private collector, she stepped in and took over all the printing work herself. It took a year. She preserved every photograph.
Later, she built a darkroom for the Natural History Museum as well. Few people used it, she admits, but one staff member carefully followed the written instructions she taped to the wall and successfully made a print. She still smiles when she tells the story.
A Collector With an Eye for Detail
Photography was only one of many hobbies. Peters carved wooden Santas, molded clay figures, restored old photos and developed an eclectic collection of perfume bottles, greeting-card figurines and her husband’s childhood toys. Her shelves hold carefully arranged displays of objects picked up over a lifetime — not clutter, but evidence of steady curiosity.
Her involvement in Broad Street Christian Church in Martinsville runs deep. She researched the congregation’s history, tracked down photos of nearly every past minister and traveled to Lynchburg College and denominational archives for missing records. Over several years, she assembled a complete visual history of church leadership spanning more than a century.
Finding Community at King’s Grant
Three years after Randy’s death, Peters moved to King’s Grant — a decision she had been thinking about even before she became widowed. Her daughter encouraged it, and now the family stops by nearly every weekend on the way to their property in Floyd County.
Peters quickly folded herself into community life. She attends book club, participates in workshops, plays bingo and remains active in her church. She’s busy enough, she says, that she sometimes has to choose between activities.
Her cottage is bright and orderly, filled with her carved figures, restored photographs and carefully tended collections. It looks, in many ways, like a living archive.
A Life Preserved
What becomes clear in conversation with Peters is not simply how much she has done, but how deliberately she pays attention to the world. She documents. She researches. She restores. And she holds these stories with care.
Now, in the quiet of her King’s Grant cottage, surrounded by family photos, hand-carved Santas and decades of memories, Peters continues to do the work she’s always done: notice, preserve, and make meaning out of what might otherwise fade.
In a community she long hoped to join, Mabel Peters has found a place where her past and present coexist — both held clearly, both still in focus.
