Levering Orchard was founded in 1908 by Frank Levering's grandfather, Ralph Levering, who was originally a strawberry and sweet potato farmer in eastern Tennessee. Legend has it that he grew tired of having to stoop for a living. He wanted to reach for the sky as he picked his fruit. So in 1907, the Columbia University-educated Ralph Levering wrote the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C., inquiring about the best place to set out an apple orchard in the Southeast. Where would apples grow best to escape spring freezes? On the southeastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains came the reply. There, the soil is fertile and deep and the sunlight abundant. There the so-called "thermal belt" along the side of the mountain offers protection from freezes which often kill fruit in its embryonic stages at lower and higher elevations. In 1907, Ralph Levering took two legs of a famous walk. He walked all the way from from Asheville, N.C., to Roanoke, Va. and both times stopped at this particular piece of land in Carroll County, Va., that would eventually become Levering Orchard. One stipulation made by his wife, Clara Osborne Levering, was that the place have beautiful view. And a beautiful view it has. The other stipulation was that it be near a Quaker community, and that was answered too with the Quaker meeting in nearby Mount Airy, NC, just 12 miles to the south. In February, 1908, Ralph and Clara Levering moved into a log cabin on the lawn of what is now Frank and Wanda Levering's residence. There Clara, 9 months pregnant, gave birth to Sam Levering, the third of her three children. A well-known Quaker, Sam was Frank's father; he ran the orchard from 1939 until 1986, when he and his wife, Miriam, entered into a partnership with Frank and Wanda.