A five generation family portrait is a real rarity. This fact alone would have kept me smiling about it, but there's something even more important about this family. My late father purchased the farm now called Honeysuckle Hills from the great, great grandmother pictured here. Her husband's grandfather received the property from the U. S. government as part of his settlement for giving up his land in what is now known as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Brackins family wanted to have their five generations photographed at Honeysuckle Hills because it was where they grew up, and it was extremely sentimental to them.

They commented how glad they were that we have kept the land as close to its original state as possible. Too often these days we see developers raping the land in the Smoky Mountains, piling cabins as high as possible, and ruining what all our guests come here for in the first place.