Appalachian History

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The Russell House
2008-02-21 14:30:00
William Ganaway Russell had the good fortune to buy a farm exactly halfway between Walhalla SC and Highlands NC.In 1849 an industrious group of Charleston German businessman were looking for a suitable parcel on which they could create a new settlement in SC, and formed the German Colonization Society to do so. Their plan was simple: they would buy a large fertile expanse of land, subdivide it, and resell it to immigrants who they would recruit from Germany. After much deliberation, the Society purchased from Colonel Joseph Gresham 17,000 acres in Pickens District near the base of the Appalachians (in the center of modern day Oconee county.) They named the town they laid out Walhalla –‘paradise’ in German-- and within two years, the first settlers arrived and began to clear & farm the land. The Society took an active role to insure that the new Blue Ridge Railroad ran from Anderson, SC to the new town, thereby providing the last leg of a solid rail connection all the way t...
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Sweet, sticky maple wax
2008-02-20 16:08:00
"Sugar making time was looked forward to with pleasant anticipation by the young people," writes George Benson Kuykendall in a family geneaology published in 1919. His uncle, Isaac Kuykendall, purchased a 670 acre farm near Huttons, Garrett County, MD in 1881. "It came along in the early spring when there were clear days and frosty nights and pretty hard freezing, but the days were warmer, with sunshine that started the sap flowing. In the groves of 'sugar trees' was the sugar camp, where the sugar makers camped and boiled down the sap. When 'sugar weather' came around, the trees were tapped by boring auger holes in them."Tubes or spiles were then inserted to conduct the sap to the sap trough. The sap trough was made by cutting a small green maple log or stick of wood into lengths two feet long and splitting them through the middle, then digging out the wood on the split side with an axe and adze. These troughs were set under the drip of the spiles to catch the 'sugar water....
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You were likely to encounter everybody you ever met
2008-02-19 14:30:00
"[My father] started one trend that horrified all the old friends. He put the kitchen on the front of the house. This was a thing unknown, inconceivable to the local populous. You didn't put the kitchen on the front of the house. People built houses on Montford Avenue where there was a superb view in the back of the house, with porches that had the whole Pisgah range...the whole Cold Mountain, Pisgah, Spivey, Eagle's View panorama...in those days it was just clear as crystal all the time, that view. In those days you could see it, but now all that stuff is just a crick in a particulate fog. "Anyway, they put a streetcar track on Montford Avenue, and there was a certain amount of traffic, and a certain amount of streetlights. People had porches on the front of their houses, where they could see nothing but whatever went on on Montford Avenue. This is entertaining, I think, because it illustrates the standards and mores of the period, and I guess of the people. The interest...
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Now don't tell a soul I told you this...
2008-02-18 14:30:00
"Why--it's taken for granted that women are gossips by nature, by instinct and by training," said the Sparrow. "Women ought to deny that charge every time they hear it, too!" she exclaimed. "It's just one of the many accusations men have repeated over and over until they have come to believe it." The birds are used to hearing warm debates spring up between the Sparrows, shriek and flutter and prance for a while, and die amicably away. Their part is usually to provide a fair field and no favor, but when it comes up they sometimes listen, knowing that no marital infelicities can be brought about among settled Bird couples."If you would listen better to street conversations," the Sparrow declared, "you would have found out long ago that it's the women who talk scandal and start idle rumors." "They're not a bit worse than men! I tell you more than half the mischievous talk is retailed by some married woman, who heard it from her husband, who got it, of course, at his clu...
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The Waldensians in North Carolina
2008-02-15 14:30:00
The largest Waldensian colony in the world outside of Italy--Valdese, NC--was officially incorporated as a town on February 17, 1920.The Waldenses, or Waldensians, are a Christian sect founded in the 12th century by Peter Valdo (hence Valdese = Waldensian), a merchant of Lyons, France who lived only a short time before St. Francis. For many years the group was confined to a rugged area in the Cottian Alps along the boundary between Italy and France. King Louis XIV was determined not to let Protestant beliefs seep into Catholic-driven France and persecuted the Waldensians mercilessly. Not until the Edict of 1848 did the sect finally receive freedom to worship as they wished. Toward the later part of the 19th century many Waldenses emigrated to North and South America to form missionary colonies—no longer because of religious persecution but because their small strip of land in the Alps had become overcrowded. They migrated to New York City, Chicago, Missouri, Texas and Utah, as wel...
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You can send me pretty flowers, you can send me valentines
2008-02-14 14:30:00
You can send me pretty flowers you can send me valentinesSend me letters every day but it won’t payLeap to my desire, nothing else will doIt’s goodbye and so long to youYou can hang around and love me you can hang your head and cryHang my picture on the wall but I won’t fallKiss me when you’re dreaming, no good that will doIt’s goodbye and so long to youYou can give me your affection you can give all your loveGive me all the things I’ll crave but I’ll be braveAll the things you offer, make me sad and blueIt’s goodbye and so long to youYou can call me your own darling you can call me what you mayCall me on the telephone I won’t be homeKeep your old love letters, I’m all through with youIt’s goodbye and so long to you"Its Goodbye and So Long to You"recorded by the Osborne Brothers with Mac WisemanThe Essential Bluegrass Album, 1979Famed for his clear and mellow tenor voice, Mac Wiseman (b. 1925) has recorded with many great bluegrass bands, including those of Mol...
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Virginia outlaws marijuana
2008-02-13 14:30:00
By 1937, when "Drug Czar" Harry Anslinger, then Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, introduced the Marihuana [sic] Tax Act to Congress, lurid testimonies were being introduced that cannabis caused "murder, insanity and death." And just the year before, the film now known as cult classic Reefer Madness was financed by a church group and made under the title Tell Your Children. This highly exaggerated exploitation film revolved around the tragic events that follow when high school students are lured by pushers to try "marihuana:" wild parties with jazz music lead to a hit and run accident, manslaughter, suicide, rape, and descent into madness.But despite the national media hype, most states passed anti-drug laws without much scientific study or debate and without attracting public attention. In Virginia , for example, the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act passed the House 88-0 on February 16, 1934, and was approved 34-0 by the Senate on February 22. Although the Act as passed in ...
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A racy book, full of the thrill of mountain adventure
2008-02-12 14:30:00
In winter one must draw the little hickory split chair close to the hearth, for most of the heat from the great glowing fire goes up the chimney. The house may have a small window-sash immovably built in. Often there is none. The woman cooks breakfast before sun-up, and supper after dark, by the smoky light of a tiny kerosene lamp with no chimney. It is difficult to carry lamp chimneys long distances in saddle-bags. There are many homes where even the moderate luxury of kerosene is not found. A sliver of pine knot gives an even more smoky light, and occasionally a “ladle” is used. It is preferably made by a blacksmith, an iron saucer with a handle to hang it by. Narrow strips of cotton cloth, twisted or plaited together, are laid in the ladle in grease. The end of the rag is hung over the edge and ignited. Its illumination is not measured in candle power.The Land of Saddle-bags by James Watt RaineThe Land of Saddle-bags is one of the three most important books from the...
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Let it snow, let it snow!
2008-02-11 14:30:00
[Eastern Kentucky, 1920s] Caption reads: Two boys, wearing knit caps and short pants with long socks, and a little girl, wearing a fur coat, play with a dog and a sled in the snow.Caption reads: Children Building a Snow Fort at Arthurdale, W. Va.Snow Battle at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA, winter 1932-33. Caption reads: First suitable snow in three years, therefore, three classes ('34, '35, and '36) were in it. It was a big one.sleds snowball+fights snow+forts Arthurdale+WV Blacksburg+VA Virginia+Tech appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The accidental town
2008-02-08 14:30:00
There is a town in Maryland’s westernmost county of Garrett that got its name from a happy accident. In 1750, Maryland settler George Deakins was granted 600 acres of land as a payment of a debt from England’s King George II. Deakins sent out two corps of engineers, each without knowledge of the other, to survey the best land in this area. When the two crews presented their findings, to their surprise and to Mr. Deakins’ satisfaction, they had both marked the same oak tree as their starting and returning points. Doubly vindicated that this land was prime, Mr. Deakins had it patented "The Accident Tract."The town was eventually settled by the Dranes. James Drane moved to the area in 1803 from Prince George’s County, which was part of the Maryland tobacco belt. Apparently Drane intended to turn his farm into a tobacco plantation. However, the climate of Garrett County proved unsuitable for growing tobacco, and he turned to normal farm crops. The Dranes lived in a log cabin b...
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Carter G Woodson, father of Black History Month
2008-02-07 14:30:00
February is Black History Month (if you’re in the UK and reading this, make that October!). West Virginia educator Carter G. Woodson, the son of former slaves, was pivotal in its development. Woodson (1874-1950) was a graduate and later principal of Douglass High School in Huntington, WV, a dean at West Virginia State, and was the second African American to earn Harvard Ph.D. (1912).Dr. Woodson authored numerous scholarly books and magazine articles on the positive contributions of blacks to the development of America. He reached out to schools and the general public through the establishment of several key organizations, and founded Negro History Week (precursor to Black History Month). On September 9, 1915, Woodson and four others organized the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The purposes of the organization, in Woodson's words, were "the collection of sociological and historical data on the Negro, the study of peoples of African blood, the publishing of bo...
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Ah, how poets sing and die!
2008-02-06 14:30:00
Black Man o' Mine,If the world were your lover,It could not give what I give to you,Or the ocean would yield and you could discoverIts ages of treasure to hold and to view;Could it fill half the measure of my heart's portion . . .Just for you living, just for you giving all this devotion,Black man o' mine. Black man o' mine,As I hush and caress you, close to my heart,All your loving is just your needing what is true;Then with your passing dark comes my darkest part,For living without your love is only rue.Black man o' mine, if the world were your loverIt could not give what I give to you.Poet Anne Spencer, of Bramwell WV, was born on this date in 1882. Many of Spencer's poems convey a romantic concern with the human search for beauty and meaning in a disgusting world, as well as people's wasted attempts to enforce order on God's earth. While attending Lynchburg's Virginia Seminary Spencer penned her first poem, The Skeptic (1896), and also met her future husband, Edward. Th...
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Sixty years of change in Ironton Ohio
2008-02-05 14:30:00
Los Angeles, February 6, 1934 Editor Tribune: Sixty years have passed since the writer answered an advertisement in the columns of The Tribune's honored predecessor, The Ironton Register, resulting in his employment as a boy in the Register office. That was on February 6, 1874. I remained in the service of the Register twenty-seven years, until moving to Chicago.What changes have come about in sixty years? Then, the "Old Brick" school in Ironton was standing, on the Kingsbury site. The high school had one teacher, and afterward two. Part of the time, its principal was also the school superintendent. Superintendents changed frequently. Saul Wood and Jos. Le Sage were successively long time janitors. They suffered more devilment from the kids than did the school heads. "East Ironton" then had a few scattered houses not many blocks ("squares" we called them) beyond Adams Street. The direction is now known as south because of the confusing diagonal position of Iron...
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We need a certain class o’ people workin’ in the mine
2008-02-04 14:30:00
Black Mountain, near the town of Lynch in Harlan County, is Kentucky's highest point, rising 4125 feet above sea level. It runs along the border of Harlan and Letcher counties, and also along the Kentucky -Virginia border.Thousands of families, most of them Eastern European immigrants, streamed into the shadows of Black Mountain between the World Wars to mine coal. "I come to this country in 1938. I started workin' the mine when I was 19 years old. And United States Steel, they got a d.v. job in the mine before even I come to this country, and I work for United States Steel for 30-some years. We come over here and my Dad was workin' in Lynch, my brother, my cousins—my Daddy, even his grandfather was working Tom’s Creek back in the 1800s. "Back in the days it was a different company. They’d recruit. They’d recruit the Italian fellas because most of them was rock masons. They was rock masons, see, and all these big companies like Lynch [The Benham and Lynch Company]...
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Time for a skate!
2008-02-01 14:30:00
Ice skaters glide on the frozen Jackson River at Covington [VA] in 1897No wonder these skaters look so carefree! The 1890's brought economic boom to Covington, VA. Population jumped from 704 in 1890 to 2,950 at the turn of the century. The railroad ran fourteen passenger trains daily through Covington and the city was the fourth largest freight paying station on the entire C&O Railroad after Chicago, Cincinnati and Richmond. The first industries included the Covington Iron Furnace in 1891 (in Sunnymeade) which produced 110 tons of pig iron daily, the steam powered Deford Tannery (near present Superior Concrete Plant) in 1892, the E.M. Nettleton planing mill, and the Covington Machine Shops, which produced coke extractors for use in furnace cleaning in the steel making process. The town also boasted two flour mills, two brick yards and the Alleghany Pin and Bracket Company. source: www.allhighlands.org/area_history.htmJack son+River Covington+VA ice+skating appalachia appalachian+hi...
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The Lincoln Memorial, the NY Stock Exchange, and Tate, GA
2008-01-31 14:30:00
Small marble quarries had been active in north Georgia since the discovery in the 1830’s of the rare, bright pink marble that the area is famous for. But under the 3-generation dynasty of the Tate family, the Georgia Marble Company, begun in 1884, rose to monopoly status.Georgia Marble Company stone can be found in monuments and public buildings around the world, including New York’s Stock Exchange annex, the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, the Lincoln Memorial and the twenty-four columns of the east front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.Sam Tate (1860-1938), the son of Stephen C. Tate and grandson of founder Samuel Tate took the firm to prominence in Georgia's marble history. Previously involved in the company's store operation, Sam Tate became president and general manager of Georgia Marble Company in 1905 (at the urging of his predecessor Henry C. Clement). With the help of family and friends, he acquired 6,791 shares of the stock. He immediately added equipment, ch...
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I were tellin’ some mount’n stories
2008-01-30 14:30:00
Jane Gentry -- piano teacher, Appalachian folk-music historian, weaver -- was an inspiration for the movie Songcatcher. She was born Jane Hicks in 1863, the first child of Ransom and Emily Hicks, in Watauga County, NC. "My pappy were a minister, name of Ransom Hicks. Mammy were always peckin' me over the head with a stick. She were turrible ill and cross, pore woman! I were that foundered with the peckin' that I declar'd that I would never whup ef God sent me childern. You'll whup as much into `em as you whup out o' em." And later, Jane said of her life growing up, "Twere like a three-legged cat's. They didn't show me till I were nine yur old. I used to walk miles and miles bar'foot in the snow." She was twelve years old when the family moved to the Meadow Fork section of Spring Creek in Madison County. At sixteen, Hicks married Jasper Newton Gentry, though her parents were against the marriage because of her age. Around 1912, the Gentry family bought 'Sunnybank' in the ...
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Lengthiest murder trial in WV history begins
2008-01-29 14:30:00
When non-union miners in Mingo County, WV went on strike for the right to join the United Mine Workers in the spring of 1920, mine guards from the Baldwin-Felts detective agency evicted miners from their company-owned houses. After twelve Baldwin-Felts men arrived in Matewan, chief of police Sid Hatfield encouraged townspeople to arm themselves. The situation exploded into a gunfight in which seven detectives and four townspeople were killed, including Matewan’s mayor, Cable Testerman.One week after the shootings, Hatfield and Testerman's widow, Jessie, were caught in a Huntington hotel and charged with "improper relations." Having already bought a license, the couple was married upon their release from jail the next day.The trial of Sid Hatfield and twenty-two other defendants for the murder of one of the detectives, Albert Felts, began on January 28, 1921. Some forty armed Baldwin-Felts agents lined the streets of Williamson that morning to influence the pro-union jury. At tria...
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We cannot believe Christ would use tobacco in any form
2008-01-28 14:30:00
"A discourse on The Use of Tobacco was delivered by evangelist M.S. Lemons and discussed by others. After due consideration this assembly agrees to stand, with one accord, in opposition to the use of tobacco in any form. It is offensive to those who do not use it; weakens and impairs the nervous system; is a near relative to drunkenness; bad influence and example to the young; useless expense, the money for which ought to be used to clothe the poor, spread the gospel or make the homes of our country more comfortable; and last we believe its use to be contrary to the teaching of Scripture, and as Christ is our example we cannot believe that He would use it in any form or under any circumstances."We further recommend and advise that the ministers and deacons of each church make special effort to use their influence against its use, deal tenderly and lovingly with those in the church who use it, but insist with an affectionate spirit that its use be discontinued as much as possible. ...
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George W. Christians, American fascist
2008-01-25 14:30:00
It is the privileged role of the Art Smiths, the William Pelleys, and the George Christians to lay only the cornerstone of fascism. It is in their rudimentary organizations that the petty bourgeoisie receives its first elementary schooling in dictatorship. It is from the Smiths and the Pelleys that it learns to scrap its democratic scruples, to hate the Jew as the Mephistopheles responsible for depressions and to detest the Communist as the companion creation of the Devil. It is in their lecture rooms that the small shopkeeper and the petty officers avidly absorb the bombastic emotional rantings of the would be American Hitlers who intoxicate their listeners with glorious hallucinations of the past and still more glorious visions of the future under the aegis of fascism. Religious animosity is of course, stressed more than anything else.--Class Struggle, Vol 4, No 3 March 1934 (http://www.weisbord.org/FourThree.htm)Te nnessean George W . Christians, chief officer of the fascist Crus...

The things you'll find in a barn
2008-01-24 14:30:00
"One of the most popular pages of the monthly publication of a tool collectors’ club is its Whatsis Column. Antique gadgets that stump the experts are frequently turning up. In the era of hand-made tools, it was logical that one-of-a-kind implements were created—the man who custom-made his own tools could allow himself the luxury of making tools to meet his needs. "Then, too, there were devices that had many uses. Ladders were used as tobacco driers; the bars of a ladder-back chair held candleholders; meat hooks doubled as grappling hooks that retrieved things from the bottoms of wells. If you think it strange that a hook was so necessary to a household, remember that the well was used many times a day, that foods needing refrigeration were often lowered into it. "Items lost beneath the water could not, of course, be seen, so they could be retrieved only by groping. The well hook was used as much as any other implement of the old-time household. After all, who wanted to ...
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The Greenbrier Ghost
2008-01-23 14:30:00
On January 23, 1897, Elva Zona Heaster Shue of Lewisburg WV, a bride of three months, was found dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor of the log house where she lived with her new husband. Her body was discovered by a neighbor, a boy of about 11 years, who did chores for her. Her case remains to this day a one of a kind event in the American judicial system ... the only case in which the word of a ghost helped to solve a crime and convict a murderer!A state highway marker several miles west of town sums up Shue’s amazing story: "Interred in a nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her death in 1897 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the exhumed body verified the apparition's account. Edward, found guilty of murder, was sentenced to state prison."Upon finding the dead woman, Andy Jones, the neighbor boy, ran back to his home where he informed his mother, and then contin...
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The Little Niagara of the South
2008-01-22 14:30:00
Geologists estimate that the rock over which the Cumberland River plunges is about 250 million years old. The falls is 65 feet high and is 125 feet wide. When the Cumberland River is at flood stage the width of the falls can quickly expand to 300 feet. Long known to Native Americans of the area, Cumberland Falls received its name from Dr. Thomas Walker during his 1750 exploration of Kentucky. The Duke of Cumberland was a son of England's King George II. Kentucky historian Richard Henry Collins, in his 1874 History of Kentucky, wrote that the surrounding countryside "presents to the eye of the traveler a succession of scenery as romantic and picturesque as any in the state." Beauty can contain treachery, however, and on February 12, 1780, Zachariah Green and four companions had to quickly abandon their boat when the rushing waters of the Cumberland River carried it over the falls.The first official record of the falls ownership appeared in 1800, when the Commonwealth of Kentucky g...
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A Day in the Life of Beckley
2008-01-21 14:30:00
Dr. and Mrs. W. B. Lilly and family of Mercer Street have returned to their home after vacationing in Florida.Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Eanes of Sophia had as Sunday dinner guests, her mother and brother, Mrs. A. B. Hill and Harry, of Princeton, and Hill's daughter. Sharon, all of Princeton.Mr. and Mrs. Leo Cipolat of Atlanta, Ga., have returned to their home after visiting his brother-in-law and sister. Mr. and Mrs. French Williams of Mercer Street.Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Slanley and son, Bill, of Mercer Street, spent Monday in Charleston on a shopping trip.Mr. and Mrs. Charles R. Angell of Sophia had as Monday guests, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hunt, Jr., of 703 Johnstown Road.Judy and Johnny McGinnis, young son and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jack McGinnis, of Glen White, have been ill at home.Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Tabor of McAlpin, were Sunday guests of their son-in-law and daughter Mr. and Mrs. Eddie McGinnis and family of Burgess Street.Staff Sergeant and Mrs. Jerry Eanes of New Brunswick. N. J. have ...
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They would put up a quilt
2008-01-17 14:55:00
"The ladies would cook dinner, and maybe five or six of them would quilt. They would put up a quilt. I can't remember doing any of that, but I've heard, you know, my family talk about it, and then, maybe, they'd eat lunch and then a lot of them would stay for supper, and maybe they'd have a square dance at night."A neighbor across over here has [my quilting frame]. It sits up on the floor. I haven't used it, but I'm going to get it. I had trouble with my hand. I like to do that kind of work by hand. "Maxine, my daughter-in-law, Larry's wife, liked [the wedding ring quilt pattern], so I said I'll make you one some day. So I made her one, and she said, well I didn't think you'd ever manage to finish it, and so, then after I got hers done, I said I'm going to make me one, but her's is prettier than mine is."Some of [the cloth] I bought, and a lady that I worked with, her son worked in a printing factory. He would bring home ends and pieces, and she would call me, and she s...
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Too young to care
2008-01-17 14:30:00
A.S. Hinds Company of Portland, ME distributed its Honey and Almond cream nationally from 1890 till 1930. This 1928 ad, from Ladies Home Journal, reads in part: “Chapped, bleeding knuckles, roughened cheeks, cracked lips – protect your children from them. For chapping damages the delicate texture of children’s skins. But you can prevent this happening to your children- with Hinds Honey & Almond Cream.”advertisements appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history Hinds+cream
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It's winter. Engineers, to the dog house!
2008-01-16 14:30:00
During the early decades of the 20th century, hundreds of short-line railroad existed across the nation, and most all were regarded by the local people as their railroad. There was something appealing about the character of a little railroad that was trying to complete with the big lines, and usually the short line's tiny locomotives and makeshift equipment had a certain flavor to them that set them apart from the uniform look of the big railroad lines. The Kanawha, Glen Jean & Eastern Railway was no exception. The average citizen between Glen Jean and Mt Hope, WV came to be able to identify the engineer on the KGJ&E train even before the train came in sight just by way the train's operator blew the train's whistle. Before long, most of the people of the era came to refer to "their" short line railroad on a first-name basis, simply referring to the line as the "KG." The man who owned the line (William McKell) was usually referred to as Bill, and rarely called William. With the st...
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We shook hands with them all, including two held for murder
2008-01-15 14:30:00
"The administration of justice in the isolated areas still surprises the visitor with its differences from the ways of the town. Despite a few modern touches, a cuspidor or two missing, or the presence of some young lawyers fresh from the state university, a mountain trial is in spirit much the same as when I first visited the Cumberlands thirty years ago, and court was opened with an old fiddler's contest. A court session is still the great event of the year."It is the informality, like so many other phases of mountain life, which instantly charms the visitor."I was in a mountain court one afternoon, sitting on the bench with the judge as he prepared to swear in the annual Grand Jury."The jurist turned to the tobacco-munching farmers arranged solemnly before him on a double row of chairs. 'Before I swear you in, I want to ask you,' he said. 'Is there anybody sitting here that's under indictment for anything? I don't want nobody on my jury that's under indictment.'"Ther...
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Albert J Ewing, photographer
2008-01-14 14:30:00
Albert J. Ewing was a traveling photographer who worked on a floating studio aboard the Water Queen showboat that cruised the Ohio River. Way's Packet Directory, 1848 - 1994 indicates that the Water Queen operated from 1880-1915. Ewing, who lived in the town of Lowell, Washington County, OH, photographed thousands of residents of southern Ohio and West Virginia, documenting living conditions and family life in Appalachia at the turn of the century. These two photographs were taken between 1890 and 1910. The Ohio Historical Society owns about 170 of his photographs.related post: A National Treasure, Almost Lost ForeverAlbert+J+Ewing Lowell+OH appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history
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Uncle Nathe wuzn’t no hand to set at home by hissef
2008-01-11 14:30:00
"Am I to understand that our good brother was married four times?" "You shore air," said Len. "There lays four of as good wives as a man ever had. Them tombstones don’t tell no lies. They’s all ’fore my time, savin’ Aunt Lindy, his last ’un, but I’ve hearn enough to know what they wuz.""But four? Isn’t it a little unusual?" "Well, maybe it is, but Uncle Nathe wuzn’t no hand to set at home by hissef." from Highland AnnalsNew York: Scribners, 1925Poet, playwright and novelist Olive Tilford Dargan, widely considered to be one of the best authors ever to come out of the Appalachian South, was born Jan. 11, 1869 in Litchfield, KY. Dargan’s writing focused on women and working class issues of the region. Few have surpassed her in description of mountain beauty or in her sympathy for the less fortunate. She was especially interested in fighting the stereotypes of mountain people and culture that were propagated in local color writings, especially Earley Muriel Sheppard'...
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