Hard to believe that a highly successful vineyard once flourished in the Greenville, South Carolina, neighborhood now known as North Main.And according to a recently published historical fiction novel on the history of the area, the vineyard and wine-making business was the work of a diminutive woman from Bern, Switzerland.“When He Was Gone,” by Carla Field, tells the tale of Upstate pioneer Elizabeth Garraux.The five-foot-tall, fiercely determined woman crossed the Atlantic with her husband and eight children in 1867, surviving a harrowing weekslong trip. Garraux ultimately had a total of 11 children as her remarkable life unfolded in post-Civil War America, landing her and her family in Greenville.Field, retired digital managing editor for WYFF News 4, was first intrigued by the Garraux story when she and her life partner, Eric Johnson, moved into a stone home on Russell Street in the North Main area. “I was curious about why two …
