Priscilla Richardson

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When you've traveled a good part of the world, do you get a teeny bit blase?

Fincastle's Helen Madine Gregory, 69, has traveled nearly everywhere but she didn't think to mention trips until we'd talked for more than an hour.

Then, "Oh, did I mention Linnie [her husband] and I just got back from Turkey, Greece and Italy?"

Well, no, she didn't. And that started more stories of her life.

When she went to Africa last year on a photographic safari by herself, the tour members rode in open cars.

"We had to be quiet," she remembered, so as not to scare off any beast. She said she felt perfectly safe, but the guide did carry a rifle in case of attack.

Other trips to China, Tibet, Japan, Europe and other places didn't result in any scares.

"Everyone spoke English," she said. "I felt embarrassed I didn't know more of the local languages."

She said her only travel trouble came in Bhutan, a tiny country between India and Tibet.

She got a small fish bone stuck in her throat. After dinner, when the tour guide had gone home, she realized she needed help and went to the front desk.

"The woman there did not speak any English."

It took a while but somebody called the guide back to the hotel. The guide took her to the hospital but the specialist needed to remove the bone wouldn't be available until the next day.

Waiting would have meant she'd have to miss some spectacular scenery, so she was happy when the bone seemed to have disappeared on its own the next morning.

"And it never bothered me."

Extensive travel around the U.S. fills her memory along with trips to England, Ireland and Scotland. She even was able to visit a school for boys north of London established by an ancestor, Richard Rich.

And speaking of ancestors, her great-grandfather William Rich Hutton was chief engineer on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and bridges and tunnels in New York.

"I most admire him, and I use his desk every day."

Hutton and another ancestor, William Rich, went on a Smithsonian trip out west during the 19th century.

While in California, "My great-grandfather discovered a rare bird species, so they named it after him. I have seen the two he brought back to the Smithsonian. They [at the Smithsonian] opened a drawer and here were these two little stuffed gray birds with my grandfather's name on a tag, 'Hutton's vireo.' "

Gregory started her life in Maryland, living as the sixth generation on her family's land.

One of her ancestors on that side is the artist Mary Cassatt. Does she have any of her works? "Don't I wish." One would be worth millions today.

But she has great memories of growing up in a 24-room house built in 1812. Unhappily, the state took the land and demolished the house. So Gregory and her late husband, Jim Madine, started looking for land to purchase.

Gregory had visited cousins in Roanoke during the summer, so they looked here and found the place she lives in today.

"I've been here for over 40 years."

Madine was a scientific glass blower and Gregory sold real estate.

For three years in the 1970s they ran a restaurant in the Old Tinker Mill behind Lord Botetourt High School. They also had a shop on the Roanoke City Market where they sold Madine's fanciful glass creations.

They used the Botetourt property to raise organic food long before it was the popular thing to do.

After Madine's death, Gregory rented out a cabin on her property to Liniel "Linnie" Gregory [profiled in this column April 13].

They married in 1998. His five children and her one make for a large family so they now share a host of grandchildren.

Gregory, an enthusiastic seamstress, formerly made her daughter's and her own clothes. "I made an Ultrasuede suit once."

Now her sewing talents go to aid the costume department of Attic Productions. She has acted in a play but greatly prefers the behind-the-scenes work, supporting her husband the actor.

Travel, family and volunteer work -- Gregory leads a life full of stories.