From the Winston-Salem Journal:
"Not a day at work goes by that a stranger doesn’t approach Bill Stroh with questions as he clips and snips the flowers or buffs the wooden floors at St. Mary of the Hills Episcopal Church.
"Stroh is the sexton at the 89-year-old stone church in Blowing Rock, but to fans of Jan Karon’s books (photo courtesy of Amazon.com), he is working at the fictional Lord’s Chapel in the village of Mitford.
“Sometimes people knock on the door late at night and say they just have to see it,” he said. “I get a lot of people wanting to photograph me because they think I’m the sexton in the book, and I say, 'No, I took his place.'”
The books revolve around the life of an Episcopal priest at a church in the fictional town of Mitford, which is set in the foothills along the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The town of Mitford was inspired by Blowing Rock, where Karon lived in the 1990s.
The steady stream of people who visit Blowing Rock to see the inspiration for Mitford is about to become a wave of devotees. Organizers expect up to 18,000 people during the first Mitford Days in Blowing Rock. The Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce is getting 50 phone calls daily about the festival, officials said.
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