Hello and welcome to Autumn Laurel.  My name is Laura and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance!

🕯️ Our Story

From Heritage and Hearth to the Hands That Light the Way

Autumn Laurel began as a return — not just to a place, but to a way of living.

I was born in Rhode Island, where the Atlantic wind met the hum of submarines. My father served as an Officer aboard a nuclear submarine stationed there and was a man of precision, patience, and quiet integrity. From him, I learned that even in the most complex machinery, there’s rhythm and calm if you know where to listen.

I spent my teenage years in York County, Virginia, very close to the banks of the York River in the small community of Tabb. The tide shaped my early days; salt air, pine, and the hum of cicadas were constants. As life unfolded, I wandered nomadically across the Midwest and New York for school and career, chasing purpose and perspective.

In Georgia, I met my spouse. That chapter brought clarity about the kind of life I wanted to build. But Virginia kept calling. Its voice was soft, like home remembered and a pull from both land and lineage.

The Blue Ridge Mountains finally wooed me westward, away from the seaboard and toward the heart of Virginia. In Virginia, I found the stillness I had been searching for, the kind that doesn’t just quiet the mind, but stirs the soul.

Coming home was more than geography. It was a return to heritage, to rhythm, and to grace.

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🌿 Our Roots

My story doesn’t begin with me. It begins with the soil of Colonial Virginia and the mountain ridges of Western North Carolina.

My great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Governor Robert “King” Carter, helped shape the early story of Virginia. His home still stands in Williamsburg, just steps from the governor’s mansion and is a testament to craftsmanship, refinement, and enduring legacy. 

Generations later, that same family line found its way into the rugged hills of Appalachia. My grandfather grew up in the hollers of Western North Carolina, a place of hard edges and gentle hearts, where resourcefulness was the only inheritance that mattered. In one of my most cherished photos, he stands as the child in the middle of a small, humble family, proof that even in scarcity, love and resilience grow wild.

From that unlikely pairing, colonial grace and mountain grit, came the soul of Autumn Laurel. Each candle and product I handcraft and develop s a bridge between the two: where heritage meets humility, and where the light we carry forward is shaped by the hands that came before us.

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🕰️ Rooted in Her

The women in my family were the quiet architects of strength.

My great-grandmother helped found the American Red Cross in Manassas, Virginia. She played basketball when most women were told to stay in the stands. My maternal grandmother joined the WAVES during World War II — one of the first women to serve her country in uniform. Her daughter, my mother, also quietly paved the way for me to find creative expression, as she is an artist in her own right, whether it was crafting delicate stain glass pieces or sitting at the potter's wheel and forming any number of breathtaking pieces for those she loved.

These women didn’t just live through history,  they shaped it. They were creative, intuitive, and deeply ethical. They stood for justice, but did it with grace. They built homes, raised families, and nurtured art and courage in equal measure.

I come from a long line of women who were both feral and refined, unafraid to speak truth, yet soft in spirit. They could mend what was broken, cook for a crowd, write poetry in the margins, and carry dignity like a second skin.

Autumn Laurel is their legacy, the place where wild meets warm, where intention becomes ritual, and where every flame honors their strength.

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✨ The Flame Today

Each candle I pour carries that lineage: the precision of my father’s hands, the courage of the women who served, the resilience of those who endured, and the quiet elegance of those who believed that gentleness is power.

Autumn Laurel exists to remind us that home is both a refuge and a rebellion — a place to create calm in a world that rarely stops moving.

Every scent tells a story. Every story carries a memory. Every memory lights the way home.

💫 “Find Stillness. Embrace the Season. Light with Intention.”

— Laura R.