Appalachian History

Mrs. Hannah would have to leave the Cuban orphan girl behind

2009-07-14T05:00:00.000-04:00

Romance of the War.
Cuban Girl Who Was Brought to Tennessee by Gen. Harvey Hannah's Mother.

The Rockwood Times, Rockwood, TN
Thursday, 13 Sep 1906, Vol. XXVI, No. 34.

The steamer Whitney left Havana harbor April 6, 1899, for Tampa, FL. The boat was advertised to leave to 12 p.m., but did not leave until 6 p.m. The delay was caused by the late arrival of the Fourth Virginia Volunteer Infantry. A government official had secured transportation on the Whitney for the Virginia regiment. There were also several squads of Ohio soldiers returning home on the vessel.

The steamer was anchored in the bay and all passengers were brought to the Whitney in big row boats and small tugs. I was with the returning Ohio soldiers and was standing on the upper deck of the vessel watching the landing of the delayed Virginians, when I noticed a little Cuban girl in a row boat, accompanied by a lady and an oarsman.

The little girl was clapping her hands and throwing kisses to someone on board the steamer. An American lady who was standing near me was waving her handkerchief at the little girl while tears were rolling down her cheeks. When the Cuban girl and the American lady met on board the steamer they hugged and kissed each other and both were weeping--an unusual sight--an American woman and a Cuban girl fondly embracing each other and both shedding tears. What did it mean?

Loading camp supplies at Tampa, 1898. The scene must have looked quite similar from the Cuban dock as Mrs. Hannah embraced the young Lorena on the USS Whitney’s deck.

The lady was Mrs. McFerrin of Oliver Springs, TN. Her son, Col. Harvey H. Hannah, was Lieutenant Colonel in the Fourth Tennessee and commanded a detachment at Sancti Spiritus, Cuba. Mrs. McFerrin had been visiting her son. The Fourth Tennessee was stationed at Sancti Spiritus and Mrs. McFerrin occupied a tent in the camp. She was now returning to the United States on board the Whitney.

The little girl's name was Lorena Marie Lacarada Paidrone. She was the daughter of a Cuban patriot. Her home was at Sancti Spiritus (City of Holy Spirits.) Mrs. McFerrin told me that when she arrived at her son's quarters at the camp of the Fourth Tennessee regiment at Sancti Spiritus she "found this sweet, sad-faced child in the camp."

Through an interpreter she learned that the little girl's father was a Cuban soldier who died from the effects of a wound that he received in battle; that soon after father's death her mother became seriously ill. Lorena went to the soldiers to get a candle--the light of fate—to offer her dying mother, but when she returned with the candle her poor mother was dead.

Mrs. McFerrin became interested at once in the child and tenderly helped the little orphan and did all she could to relieve her distress. Lorena soon began to love the kind American woman and Mrs. McFerrin loved the Cuban dearly. Love begets love. She wanted to adopt her, and as Lorena had no home she shared her tent with her for two months.

On March 29 Mrs. McFerrin left the camp of the Fourth Tennessee, taking Lorena with her. She was going with her adopted child to her Tennessee home. At that date before leaving Cuba one had to go to the board of health and get a vaccination certificate. Mrs. McFerrin did not learn of this until she arrived at Havana the morning of the day she was to leave on the steamer. Her vessel would leave at noon.

She went at once with Lorena to the health office and was told that the child could not leave for the United States until she was vaccinated. Mrs. McFerrin was exempt, having been vaccinated just before coming to Cuba. Tickets had been purchased for passage on the steamer Whitney and the arrangement for their departure had been made in such a way that it could not possibly be postponed without considerable additional expense and great inconvenience to others.

The boat was soon to leave, and the Cuban girl who had learned to love this kind American woman, could not leave because she had not been vaccinated. What was the poor woman to do?

Part 1 of 2
Continued tomorrow...

Source: www.roanetnheritage.com/research/np0006.htm

Spanish+American+War Roane+County+TN Elizabeth+Gerding+Hannah appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

One time the boy next to me tried to bribe me to misspell a word

2009-07-13T05:00:00.000-04:00

There was virtually no work to be had for Papa in Berea, KY, so he had to remain behind in Lee County as long as his job lasted. But at no time, then or later, did he fail to provide for his family, as best he could. Mama, especially, bore a heavy burden, trying to provide shelter and sustenance for her children, while coping with an increasingly serious problem with her left kidney.

When we first moved to Berea, the best affordable housing Mama could find was a flat above a shop a stone's throw or so away from the public school. Life was hard for Mama there, but convenient for us children.

For the first time, Ralph had excellent teachers. Donnie quickly made a lot of friends, and developed here his ability for "horse trading." On one of his trades, he came into possession of a decrepit Barlow knife, and thru a series of trades, wound up with a dismantled bicycle, which he put together, and learned to ride. In all his trades, he somehow managed to make his partner believe that he was getting the better of the deal, and left him feeling happy.

Ruth's inclination toward scholastic achievement took form here. My own proclivity toward prowess in spelling reached fulfillment with one of my teachers. She had weekly spelling bees, and I quickly climbed to the top of the line, and held onto it for so long that she had to make a ruling that after two or three times, the head person got demoted to the foot of the class, and had to start over.

The extended Hopkins families in Kentucky. Not dated.

It usually didn't take me more than one session to work back up to the head of the line. One time the boy next to me tried to bribe me to misspell a word so he could be top boy, but I somehow just couldn't make myself do it. That love for spelling went back to my second grade teacher, who singled me out and gave me such a superb start.

Two of the huskier boys in the school used to get on one of the playground swings, facing each other, and pump up momentum until, with one super surge, they would go up and over the top bar. They tried to get me to do it also, but I didn't figure I had the weight - or the guts - to do it, so I declined. They later became daredevil riders on the bobsled and motorcycle riding in a dome.

I only completed the seventh grade there, and my teacher persuaded me to take the county exams for graduation that were held in Richmond. I passed them, and so went to the [Berea College run] Academy the next year.

Around the time I entered the Academy, the family moved to a ramshackle house on the east side of town. It belonged to a friend Mama made in the church, and she made it affordable for us. It was two story, with outside plumbing, and we had to get our water from the pump of a house two doors north.

But it had a nice woodshed, and a fenced lot where we could raise chickens. The owner had a son my same age, and we became the fastest of friends. While we lived in that house, Papa lost his job, because the oil field in Lee County was playing out.

Uncle Charlie, Aunt Emma and Grandma had left for a new oilfield in Wyoming, so Papa came home long enough to size up his chances in Berea, and finding nothing there, tried to persuade Mama to move with him to Wyoming. But Mama could not have endured another move of that magnitude even if she had wanted to. And she didn't want to; she had assured her children the opportunity for a good education, and adequate medical care for herself. So Papa went off to Wyoming alone.

Meanwhile, Mama had obtained a part-time job as housekeeper for the Churchill family, who had moved to Berea from British India, and established a weaving establishment, The Churchill Weavers, using the high-speed hand looms that he designed and patented.

Not too long afterward, Mama's kidney problem got so bad she had to go to the hospital and have it removed. The doctor said he almost had to cut her in two to do the job, and there was an anxious week or two when we didn't know whether Mama would survive. All the time her only concern was, "what will become of my children?" But she survived, and so did we.

Charles Howard Hopkins
(1907-1999)
http://home.comcast.net/~adhopkins/dadhist.htm

Berea+KY spelling+bees Churchill+Weavers appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Listen Here: weekly Appalachian History podcast posts today

2009-07-12T05:00:00.000-04:00

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with a piece by guest blogger Tipper Pressley, author of the widely loved blog 'Blind Pig & the Acorn.' She looks no further than her own backyard to illustrate 3 or 4 common plants that have a long history of medicinal uses in Appalachia.

Dr. William Glass of Sissonville, WV braved snowstorms, muddy roads and flooded river crossings to ride by horseback up into the hollers to reach his patients. In this oral history segment he shares some harrowing incidents where he and his horse were nearly swept away and drowned.

‘Musty’ is one of those old-fashioned words you don’t hear used much anymore. You might on occasion refer to a damp basement that way, and that’s about it. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the word struck fear in the hearts of mountain folk. We’ll take a look at the connection between musty corn and the disease pellagra.

“While I am not one of the people about whom I write,” novelist Will N. Harben told a reporter in a 1905 interview, “my childhood and most of my life was spent amid such scenes as I have attempted to portray. Those people and the customs and conditions of their lives are as real to me as your own family life is to you.” Harben goes on to share with us the methods he uses to develop his characters.

Some of the engineers and conductors, when talking in private, predicted all sorts of doom and destruction due to befall the railroad now that the Virginia and Southwestern had hired a woman---no, a girl---to handle routing and sidetracking orders for the trains. But 17-year old Georgia Harmann, the first telegraph operator hired by that railroad, proved them quite wrong in the end.

We’ll wrap things up with a 1976 article by Carl Freeman. His father ran a typical country store in North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century, and Freeman opens the old accounts books to us. The books tell quite a bit about people and the times. Changes in attitudes, customs, dress, and even the thinking of the people in a given community can be plainly detected and charted from those old transactions.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by Ernest Thompson in a 1924 recording of "Red Wing", a turn-of-the-century sentimental popular tune by Kerry Mills.

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

The story told by an old account book

2009-07-10T05:00:00.001-04:00

"It is really surprising how much old account books can tell about people and the times. Changes in attitudes, customs, dress, and even the thinking of the people in a given community can be plainly detected and charted. For example, my father's old account books, for the period April 1904 through January 1923, tell me there was but little money around, barter was the usual way to procure everyday necessities, and most of the people did their trading with the local merchant. There wasn't any running into town to pick-up an item or two needed at the moment.

"With the prevailing roads and means of conveyance, going to town was an all-day exhausting task for man and beast. No credit cards during that period, much of the business with local merchants was on credit, but credit was a far cry from the credit of today. Credit in those days was payment when the crops were sold, and without interest and carrying charges.

"My father's old account books tell me who in the community bought on credit. That is, who made arrangements in early spring to be "'run" for the crop year. They also tell me who paid their accounts well ("were good pay"), who paid their accounts reluctantly and had to be prodded ("were poor pay"), and who did not pay at all ("were bad pay"). Naturally the "'bad pay" were refused the next time around---the next crop year.

"These old account books tell me the various items people bought and the quantities bought along with the prices paid for each item. Prices have gone up considerably.

"They tell me who paid in cash for everyday necessities (mostly groceries) and who traded eggs, hams, side-meat, chickens, beeswax, corn, and even huckleberries (in season) for them. Barter was the usual way for obtaining flour, sugar, pepper, salt, molasses, coffee, snuff, and tobacco until about 1918, when money became more plentiful and the "due bill" business almost disappeared.

"Those old account books reveal the kind of clothing the women wore and the kind of shoes (mostly "Brogans") the men wore; who sported supporters, "galluses" to hold up their "Sunday pants," and sleeve holders to keep their cuffs in place, also on Sunday (bib overalls was the week-day wear for men); which women bought the calicos, the ginghams, the silks, and the satins; who wore frilled and beribboned shirtwaists; and--sort of on the secret side-"whalebone" corsets.

Mast General Store in Blowing Rock, NC was founded in 1883, and still retains the old 'general store' atmosphere to this day.

"Women wore "side combs and back combs" in their hair and beaded pins, ten or twelve inches long, in their hats; men wore celluloid collars. Men's work shins were made from "'shinning" and "shantung" and sheets were made from "yellow cotton." Little boys, like little girls, wore dresses until school age.

"A woman would not wear a shoe larger than size five-and-one-half, therefore many dainty toes got squeezed and corns grew rampant while "high-top button" shoes, with extra sharp toes, were in fashion.

"Hats were cheap, but that didn't make much difference with the women because country women wore home-made bonnets, except to church. Bonnets were fine for the "fair sex." They kept the sun off, completely. That is why so many novels, in past years, referred to women with "au lait" complexions.

"They tell which men "chawed Red Apple and Brown's Mule" and who smoked "Duke's Mixture or Green Frog" and which women used snuff-"Railroad Mills," sweet or strong, "weighed-out" from a "'bladder." A further revelation, among the men, was who bought whiskey, until the advent of the 18th Amendment placed it in the secret class.

"My father's country store was a typical country store. In present day language the term for it would be, "he sold everything from toothpicks to tractors." The prices for which most items were sold today's young people would call ridiculous, but they were high for those who had little or no money.

"Some of the family names have gone. Some of the habits and customs have gone, and most of the business establishments my father dealt with have gone. But their story is still there in those old, tattered and worn, and most revealing accounts books."

Source: The State / Down Home in North Carolina, "Story Told by an Old Account Book," by R. Carl Freeman, April 1976, Vol 13, No 11, p. 31-33; edited for this blog post
Located at http://tobaccodocuments.org/nysa_ti_s1/TI54850987.html

country+store appalachia +appalachian+history +history+of+appalachia

His horse, saddle bags, and himself slipped into the river and went under

2009-07-09T05:00:00.003-04:00

Dr. William James Glass, Sr. (b. 1879) owned about twenty-five saddle horses. He made an effort to buy the very best. The average horse he bought would last about three years, but he had a few wonderful horses that lasted him much longer. Prior to 1916, he used the horses year around.

Following that time, he used them only in the winter when the roads were impossible for a car. In October, he would bring the horses in from the farm where they had been on pasture all summer. It was usually the first of June before the roads dried up sufficiently to use the car.

Dr. William J. & Pearl Milam Glass in an undated photo.

During the active part of his career he would ride a horse on the average of 25 miles a day, often in the mud and very frequently in the ice and snow. It was not unusual for him to swim a horse across a high river. He had only one horse that was such a good swimmer that he could get up in the saddle and not get wet. Once while Dr. Glass was returning from the Frogs Creek area, the stream became so swollen that he couldn't get across. After he'd waited an hour or two, two men living near the stream advised him that it had fallen sufficiently to ford.

He started across on a high spirited horse. When the cold water and chunks of ice began to hit the horse's side, it apparently became excited and starting lunging down the stream. Both went under, but after a short time, Dr. Glass pulled the horse onto the bank where the horse was able to get a footing.

Both of the men who had advised him to cross had already stripped off most of their clothes in anticipation of going in after the doctor, who was clothed in everything from arctics to a full length sheep lined overcoat.

On another occasion when Poca [Pocatalico] River was a little too high to ford, he was going around a steep bank across the river from Fisher Chapel Church when the bank gave way. His horse, saddle bags, and himself slipped into the river and went under. He scrambled out and ran down the river to catch his saddle bags.

Mrs. Mable Lanham, who lived six miles above Sissonville on Poca, had typhoid fever when she was eighteen years old. Her father came after Dr. Glass one summer day and said she was hemorrhaging. At that time, the doctor owned a beautiful red roan horse that was very fast. He saddled the horse and reached the Monk residence in about thirty minutes. Apparently the horse was so overheated that a few days later it developed pneumonia and died.

He had a few horses that never seemed to tire. One was a large mare named Minnie. She was an intelligent horse that needed very little urging and scolding. She was a beautiful bay with a black mane and tail, had a good running gait, and could cover a lot of ground in one day.

The Pocatalico River on a foggy morning, near Sissonville, WV.

Another was a dun horse with a black mane and tail that Dr. Glass bought from a man who couldn’t handle him. The man shot the horse once through the neck with a .38 pistol to control him. Through kind treatment, such as giving the horse a little bit of candy every time he saw him, Dr. Glass was able to tame him and make a very useful horse of him. He was a beautiful horse and well gaited. No matter how hard he was ridden during the day, he would kick up his heels, neigh, and start running when Dr. Glass came in sight of the stable.

The best horse he ever owned was a large chestnut sorrel mare named Gert reared at Maysville, KY. She was deep chested, had tremendous endurance, seemed to never tire, was high spirited, and extremely gentle. She was the easiest riding horse he ever had, that is, he tired less riding her than any other. She had a running gait and a trot. She could cover a tremendous amount of ground in a day. He acquired her when she was ten years old and kept her longer than he did any other horse. He sold her at the age of twenty and learned that she was still going good at the age of thirty.

---Excerpt from 'The Dr. Will Glass Story,' from Sissonville, A Time to Remember, compiled by The Sissonville (WV) Historical Awareness Committee of The Sissonville Village Association, 1988
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wvkanawh/Sissonville/hphphp87.jpg

Sissonville+WW medicine+in+appalachia Horseshoe+Diamond +Dr.+William+J+Glass appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

If you made a mistake you could cause a head-on collision

2009-07-08T05:00:00.000-04:00

Post News
Kingsport, TN
May 26, 1977

APPALACHIA, VA---Miss Georgia got aboard the Virginia and Southwestern train headed for Daniel Boone (then known as Albert Yard.) The year was 1907.

She showed her pass to the conductor, Captain Folmsbey. He snorted “Hmmmph. We’re going to have women operators on this line?”

“Yes,” she said and took a seat by the window of the passenger car.

Captain Folmsbey was later to become a great friend of the 17 year old wisp of a girl who boarded the train that day on her way to becoming the first woman employee of the Virginia and Southwestern Railroad.

Her name was Georgia Harrman but she married Dr. William B. Peters in October of 1911. Mrs. Georgia Peters is 87 years old and lives in Appalachia, VA, the last place she worked as a telegraph operator for the railroad.

Miss Georgia at her desk, Intermont Office of Virginia & Southwest Railroad, Appalachia, VA, 1911.

Miss Georgia had always wanted to study telegraphy. Her brother, Jr. R. Avent, was a dispatcher for the railroad.
“He helped me a lot when I took the telegraphy course,” she said.

When the train pulled into the Albert Yard that morning in 1907 the sun had not been up long. As a relief Telegraph Operator she was to work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., a shift that seemed a bit long for a 17 year old girl. She would spend all the daylight hours indoors on the second floor of the tower that served as an office.

“They had a semaphore that I had to pull down with a rope,” she said. “If the train saw a red light he stopped and picked up his orders. If there were no orders he didn’t stop.”

Railroad men drifted in and out of the office as the 17 year old girl they to learn to call “Miss Georgia” took her place at the telegraph key. There was skepticism of course. And there is little doubt that some of the men, when talking in private, predicted all sorts of doom and destruction due to befall the railroad now that the Virginia and Southwestern had hired a woman---no, a girl---to handle routing and sidetracking orders for the trains.

But the men quickly learned that Miss Georgia did not make mistakes.

“Some of the men wondered about it,” she said with a smile. “I think they wondered whether I would be a good operator, but all the railroad men were real nice and did anything they could to help me.”

It is not hard to understand why the men, particularly the engineers and conductors, were a bit wary. The operator took their routing orders.

“You really knew you had a particular job. If you made a mistake you could cause a head-on collision. You had to be careful,” she said.

It was an education for a young girl. An education in responsibility. The pay was not fantastic. Even though she made the same salary as the new male operators it still amounted to about $40 a month.

“I enjoyed the work. I learned a lot about people because I came in contact with so many different types,” she said.

In a year and a half Miss Georgia worked relief in the Bristol Yard office and the telegraph office at Benham. She was then transferred to the newly opened Glenita office (now known as Natural Tunnel.)

View from window of Intermont Office of Virginia & Southwest Railroad, Appalachia, VA, 1911

If nothing else, if the hours were long and the pay short, Natural Tunnel was a beautiful place to work. The rock and laurel were stacked in front of the office window like a screen for nature’s own television program.

“When I was working at ‘the tunnel’ people from Bristol would come on a passenger train and have a picnic between the two tunnels. They would take another train back in the afternoon,” she said.

In 1910 Miss Georgia got her last transfer, to the Intermont office in Appalachia.

“I enjoyed my work at Appalachia best,” she said. “There was heavier traffic here. But I only had an 8 hour shift. Everywhere else the shifts were 12 hours.

“It was interesting work. I don’t see why more women didn’t go into it. It was a big responsibility then. At that time it was harder for a woman to get a job. It has to be easier for them to get a job now.

“I miss riding the trains,” she said glancing out the window at the mountains. “I wish we had them like we used to have.”

source: Post News, Kingsport TN, May 26, 1977; This version edited; original at: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3GcPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZIYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4033%2C1790763

telegraph+operators Appalachia+VA Virginia+and+Southwest+Railroad appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Musty corn and the dread scourge pellagra

2009-07-07T05:00:00.006-04:00

‘Musty’ is one of those old-fashioned words you don’t hear used much anymore. You might on occasion refer to a damp basement that way, and that’s about it. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the word struck fear in the hearts of mountain folk.

One of the great comforts of jokes is that they help us live with life’s terrors. Defang a fear with laughter, as it were. My grandmother Pauline Winifred Tabler, who was born in 1901, told us kids a story involving mustiness which she thought uproariously funny, but which made our eyes roll every time she told it again. She knew something about mustiness that we’d never have to experience, however.

Pauline loved to bake cakes, did so frequently from scratch, and was quite proud of her culinary ability. One fine summer morning her friend Hattie Rakestraw dropped by when Pauline had just finished baking. They got to chatting over a cup of coffee while the German chocolate cake cooled on the open windowsill. Finally they cut a few slices to try. Hattie, an inveterate trickster, stopped chewing mid-forkful and looked Pauline dead in the eye. “Pauline,” she said slowly, “this cake is musty!” She carefully set the plate down and stepped back.

Pauline panicked. “How could that possibly be?? Hattie, I swear to you I was just to town the other day to get all the ingredients fresh."

Hattie was known to gossip, and the last thing Pauline needed was to be the local pariah, the hostess who poisoned her guests.

"You know that cake couldn't possibly have mold---you saw yourself it came straight out of the oven!” She was very near tears.

Hattie struck a long theatrical pause.

After watching her mark squirm sufficiently, she swooped back to table edge, grabbed the fork and pronounced “I MUST have another piece.” And they both broke down laughing in relief.

When Pauline and Hattie were both growing up, musty corn (and any food containing contaminated corn products) was thought to be the cause of the life-threatening disease pellagra, a condition that we understand today results from a lack of niacin. Mountaineers of that era noticed that it struck in the winter season. And of course for families who relied on the store of dried corn to make it through the winter, it must have been a daunting choice to either eat corn that had gone musty, risking pellagra and death, or go without, risking starvation and death.

Here’s an article from the July 14, 1910 issue of Kentucky’s “Springfield Sun,” which discusses the scourge of ‘the dread pellagra.’

"Perryville, Ky., July 14.---After a careful examination attending physicians announced yesterday afternoon that Laura Bottoms, colored, of this city, is afflicted with pellagra, a disease of comparatively recent origin, which became more or less prevalent in the southern States. This is the second case to have developed in Kentucky, the other having resulted in the death of a lady at Nicholasville last fall.

"Photographs were taken of the patient this morning and they will be sent to the medical journals to be used in a scientific study of the disease, which has puzzled the medical specialists of the nation. The disease, which is not considered infectious, is said to be caused by the eating of foods made from musty corn products. Scales develop on the body of the patient and the results are similar in some respects to leprosy.

Unidentified family, all suffering from pellagra, c. 1920. Photo from National Library of Medicine.

"Among its first symptoms is usually a kind of ‘sunburn’ of face, chest and hands. This is followed by skin rash, catarrh of stomach and intestines, feverishness, lassitude and weakness, and as the trouble recurs in spring and autumn, year after year, the weakness increases and often leads to lunacy and death.

"Believing the disease to be infectious, Dr. J.J. Wolfe, of Durham, NC, has been lately seeking its organism in pellagrous blood and has obtained some spherical bacteria, without certain evidence that they are the cause of the disease. He has found a similar organism in a culture from damaged Indian corn."

sources: Springfield Sun, Wednesday, July 20, 1910 at Kentucky Virtual Library http://name.kdl.kyvl.org/spr1910072001

appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia medicine+in+appalachia pellagra

The old ways are almost gone and I'd better be finding an apron and bonnet for gathering

2009-07-06T05:00:00.003-04:00

Please welcome guest blogger Tipper Pressley, author of the widely loved blog 'Blind Pig & the Acorn.' Tipper says she's "a mother, wife, daughter, sister, artist, and hopefully considered a friend to many. I consider myself a mountain girl (even though my husband, The Deer Hunter, likes to remind me the mountains here are not nearly as big as the ones he came from a whole three counties away.

When my girls were small, one of their favorite bedtime books was about a little old lady who went out into the woods to gather plants to use for medicinal purposes. Oh the girls didn’t really care about the gathering part-it was the interesting characters the little lady ran into along her way they liked.

As I’ve begun the busy task of preserving our garden bounty for the coming winter months, my mind has drifted back to the little lady in the book. Truthfully-I’m thankful I don’t have to add gathering medicinal supplies to my already too full summer schedule. But my wandering mind would not rest until I made time to research the subject.

My two favorite research sources for Appalachian Culture are interviewing elders in my community and consulting the Foxfire Books. I decided to concentrate on the plants that I'm familiar with-the ones that grow plentifully around my house this time of year.

Jewelweed grows in a ditch at the bottom of my driveway. Generally the plant grows in shady damp places and can reach 2-3 feet tall. The juice of the plant is a natural cortisone and is an excellent remedy for poison oak, poison ivy, bee stings, and bug bites. Jewelweed is sometimes called Wild Touch Me Not-because once the plant begins to produce seed pods, the slightest touch will send seeds flying in all directions.

Pine trees are common throughout Appalachia. The pine needles can be boiled to make a tea which is good for coughs and colds. Pine resin is said to be good for cuts and abrasions. Although I’ve never used the resin for medicinal purposes-I can promise you it is hard to remove from your clothes or skin-it pretty much has to wear off.

Sassafras trees grow in abundance around my house. They can reach 100 feet in height-which would make it impossible to gather their leaves. Pap said when he was growing up the leaves and roots were gathered from sassafras saplings. A tea was made from the roots and tender twigs of the tree. It was used as a blood builder or as a general tonic to get the body up and running in the spring of the year.

A local lady, Sylvie Lee, shared memories of her Grandmother making a spring tonic each year from sassafras with me. Sylvie said the children were never sick, and the Grandmother retained her smooth fair skin well into old age. Sylvie regrets never taking time to write down her Grandmother’s recipe.

Yellow Root grows along creek banks. It is a low growing shrublike plant which is gathered for its roots. Even though the roots are very bitter tasting, they are used to brew a strong tea which is used for sore throats and stomach disorders, and is said to lower high blood pressure.

Yellow Root is the only old time remedy I have personal experience with. Back in the day when I was a young woman preparing for my wedding I developed horrible mouth ulcers-I’m sure it was due to the related stress and worry of planning a wedding. The pain was so severe I could barely talk-and when I did talk you couldn’t understand what I was saying. As the big day drew closer I began to worry that I wouldn’t even be able to say “I do” clearly. Pap went to the creek and gathered some Yellow Root. We didn’t even brew a tea-I just chewed on those horrible bitter roots. It actually worked, my ulcers began improving quickly.

I enjoyed reading through the Firefox books-searching for information about using wild plants for medicinal purposes. Yet, as I listened to the elders of my community share their memories of plant uses, thoughts of the little old lady from the book grew stronger. She seemed to be telling me the old ways are almost gone and I'd better be finding an apron and bonnet for gathering before next summer. Maybe that’s what my wandering mind was saying all along.

Tipper Pressley, sassafras, yellow root, jewelweed, mountain herbs, appalachia, appalachian history, history of appalachia

Listen Here: weekly Appalachian History podcast posts today

2009-07-05T05:00:00.002-04:00

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with a look at the family business of Kentuckians John Wesley & Katherine Langley. Professional politics was their game, and when John was jailed in 1926 for bribing a Prohibition officer, Katherine ran for and won John’s Congressional seat. Several years later when he got out of jail he expected her to turn the position over to him. She wasn’t budging.

In a 1953 speech to the Homemakers Club of Mt Savage, MD, Mary Bowen will take you back to courting days at the turn of the 20th century. Bicycle rides, stopping for licorice at the corner store, and of course the swirl of the local dance floor on Saturday nights. She’ll make you want to fall in love all over again.

Dr. Charles T. Pepper, an ex-Confederate surgeon, opened a successful pharmacy in Rural Retreat VA after the war.
In addition to dispensing patent medicines, he spent time mixing mountain herbs, roots and seltzer into a fizzy brew. But he wasn’t the one who brought the famous soda we know as Dr Pepper to market. And the man who DID bring it to market may have named it after the good doctor, or not.

Next we’ll jump forward to the present. Meredith Doster Edgerton, of Appalachian State University, has received an Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship at Berea College.  The fellowship program encourages scholarly use of Berea's non-commercial audio collections that document Appalachian history and culture, especially the areas of traditional music, religious expression, spoken lore and radio programs. We’ll have a look at how Doster Edgerton won this honor.

If you’re a lacrosse fan, you’ll appreciate our next segment: a Cherokee fable centered around the game of stickball. A tiny mouse wants to join a team full of animals many times his size and weight. But they scoff at his potential as a player. He figures out an ingenious solution to get around his perceived disadvantages and gets the best of them in the end.

The woods are full of raspberries, huckleberries and blackberries in July. Before the era of plastic containers if you were out and about, and happened upon a stand of berries, you could fashion yourself a bark berry basket from a nearby poplar tree. Let’s find out how they’re made.

We’ll wrap things up with an article written by one C.G. Fennell, in the summer 1930 issue of The Alabama Historical Quarterly. He challenges just how good the so-called ‘good old days’ really were by comparing the difficulty of traveling from Huntsville to Deposit Ferry on the Tennessee River in 1860 to his own day. What had been a full day trip on rutted roads in olden days had been reduced to a 2-hour trip on hard paved roads by 1930.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music by the Six Bits of Rhythm Jug Band in a 1939 recording of “Old Man Moses.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

2009-07-03T05:00:00.001-04:00

Get yourself over to Norris, TN this weekend if you can, and treat yourself and the family to an authentic Appalachian Fourth of July tradition: the anvil shoot.

The Museum of Appalachia will be celebrating the day with an explosion of sound. Says their website: Folks as far as 15 miles away have reported hearing our Anvil Shoot, and certainly everyone gathered for the excitement feels the earth shake under their feet.

Anvil shooting used to be a fairly common way that rural folks celebrated special events--they "shot the anvil" to celebrate the nation’s Independence, Christmas, and even Davy Crockett’s election to the U.S. Congress. A few years ago, two men, each more than 100 years old, watched the Museum’s anvil shoot and recalled this tradition from their early boyhood.

So shooting the anvil has come to be the highlight of the Museum's fabulous July 4th Celebration. Along with the big boom several times during the day, there are patriotic ceremonies and lots of music—the old-time mountain music and folk tunes of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

He wears the breeches but the lady has the brains

2009-07-02T05:00:00.001-04:00

John Wesley Langley resigned from Congress (R., Kentucky 10th Congressional District) in January 1926, after losing an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States to set aside his conviction on charges of conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act. He'd been caught trying to bribe a Prohibition officer and sent to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. From his jail cell he made a plea to his constituents to elect his wife to vindicate his name. He claimed that he was 'practically penniless' and that the only hope of saving their home was to send his wife to serve a term in Congress while he sat in prison.

When Katherine Langley (1883-1948) hit the campaign trail that spring, her husband’s conviction was a cause celebre---the feeling was widespread that her husband had been the victim of a political conspiracy. She delivered over 100 speeches, each time glorifying the name of her husband and promising to carry out his goals.

Katherine Langley was well prepared to for the task. She had worked as secretary to her husband during his 18 years in office; was an active member of the Kentucky Republican Party; was the founder of the Women's Republican State Committee; had served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1924; and had served on the Kentucky Railroad Commission. "John Langley wears the breeches," winked one newspaper editorialist, "but the lady has the brains."

Original photo caption reads: Both Once Congress Members - They Celebrate Silver Anniversary; Mr. and Mrs. John W. Langley as they appeared on the celebration of their silver wedding anniversary at their home in Pikeville, Ky. Mrs. Langley is a Congresswoman from the 10th Kentucky Congressional district, having succeeded her husband after he was charged with violation of the prohibition laws. At left is their two daughters, left to right: Miss Susannah Langley and Mrs. Katherine Bentley., 11/29/29.

She won the Republican primary election against a field of seven other candidates, including Andrew J. Kirk, who had been elected to finish out Langley's unexpired term; and that fall she defeated her Democratic opponent to become the seventh woman elected to the House. Because of the growing controversy over Prohibition, her victory attracted wide editorial attention. Most comment was favorable; major Kentucky newspapers expressed the view that Mrs. Langley's election was traceable to "the inherent loyalty of the mountain folk."

Not all her congressional colleagues accepted her, politics being what it is. "She offends the squeamish by her unstinted display of gypsy colors on the floor and the conspicuousness with which she dresses her bushy blue-black hair," one newspaper sniffed. She was also criticized for her flowery oratory on the House floor, a result of her earlier career as a speech teacher. These issues had no affect on the voters she served, however; she was re-elected to the 71st Congress in 1928 by a larger vote than she'd received in her first run.

Mrs. Langley lobbied President Coolidge to grant clemency to her husband, which he did with the understanding that John Langley never again seek office. However, in 1929 Mr. Langley chose to disregard that understanding and announced his intention to regain his former House seat. When Katherine Langley said she had no intention of stepping down for her husband or anyone else, the result was a publicly aired domestic quarrel that doomed the political futures of both husband and wife. When election day arrived, it was Mrs. Langley's name that appeared on the ballot, but many Republicans stayed away from the polls, insuring victory for the Democratic candidate.

Sources: Notable American Women, 1607-1950, by Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer, Radcliffe College
http://www.runningstartonline.org/young-women/hall-of-fame/katherine-langley.php
Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women, by Karen Foerstel

appalachia Katherine+Langley Kentucky+politics John+Wesley+Langley appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

A day's trip in former years may now be made in 2 hours

2009-07-01T05:00:00.001-04:00

Men of advanced age are apt to think of the Good Old Days only in retrospect, but as a matter of fact, there is no comparison between the conveniences of life now, and those we enjoyed in 1860.

[Back then] the Tennessee River afforded the only means of ingress and egress for a large section of North Alabama, except by crude dirt roads and horse-drawn vehicles. The highway, then known as the 'big road,' was the main artery of commerce from the livestock and fruit growing section of Tennessee and Kentucky to the cotton belt of Alabama and Georgia. This highway led directly from Huntsville to Deposit Ferry.

Large droves of mules, and swine, were driven through the country and crossed the river at Deposit. Facilities for handling large bodies of stock were crude and primitive. Boats were pulled across with oars, and 20 or 25 head of mules made a load. Traders had arranged with farmers along the road to provide food and troughs for mules and horses, and lodging for the drovers. These farms were about a day's march apart, and were known as mule stands.

Where crops were growing, the road was fenced in, making a lane that was of great assistance to the drovers in keeping their mules from straying while waiting for the final load. Hogs were usually fed in the road and they were generally fat, showed little disposition to stray away, but would promptly tumble down as soon as they were fed. One such stand was located about four miles from the river, and another some thirty miles further south, at the foot of Sand Mountain. This road and ferry were kept in use until about 1890, when the county established a free ferry at Guntersville, when the business at Deposit gradually shifted to the free ferry.

The ferry was not free to non-residents, but the old road was always bad, and was worked by the old plan of ten days work for each able bodied man along the route. It was never a satisfactory method, and the road grew steadily worse, until with recent years, the ferry at Deposit has been discontinued. Late in the last century, the long projected railroad from Gadsden to Guntersville was completed and the people of the valley began to think that they had arrived at the zenith of modern progress. Telegraph lines followed the railroad, and it really was a great step forward. Soon thereafter the telephone came, and we knew that our section would be heard from.

After the telephone came the automobile, which was received with many misgivings. It was really a torture to ride in a car on the roads that we had. At first, it was expected that only rich people could afford to own a car, and grumbling was loud and persistent about keeping roads in order for a chosen few. Teams were frightened and many accidents made the auto very unpopular, until the model 'T' put them in reach of all.

Original caption reads: Around 1928, the old Guntersville Ferry is seen crossing the Tennessee River where the Whitesburg Bridge is now located.

Then went up a shout for improved roads, and the shout was heard and road building began on a small scale with county means. This was so satisfactory that bond issues began for road building. The impulse reached the state and adjoining states, and the result is that every man who has sufficient credit now owns a car. Travel has increased from a distance, and cars may be seen now in any town, with tags from Canada to Florida.

The steam ferry at Guntersville has become inadequate, so that now a splendid bridge, the George S. Houston Bridge, spans the Tennessee River at Guntersville. The road from Guntersville south is hard surfaced and the trip that required a day in former years, may now be made in two hours.

source: "The Good Old Days in Marshall County," by C.G. Fennell, The Alabama Historical Quarterly, Vol. 01, No. 02, Summer Issue 1930.

Guntersville+AL Huntsville+AL Guntersville+Ferry appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Doster Edgerton receives Berea Fellowship

2009-06-30T05:00:00.000-04:00

re-posted from Appalachian State University News
June 29, 2009

BOONE, NC— Meredith Doster Edgerton has received an Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship at Berea College.

The fellowship program encourages scholarly use of Berea's non-commercial audio collections that document Appalachian history and culture, especially the areas of traditional music, religious expression, spoken lore and radio programs. The fellowship will support four weeks of research in the college’s archives.

Edgerton is a student in the master’s degree program in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University. She is also a fourth-generation shape note singer. The fellowship will allow her to incorporate extensive archival research into her master’s thesis on the study of music in two Independent Baptist Churches in Watauga County.

Appalachian State University graduate student Meredith Doster Edgerton is researching the shape note singing tradition in the South, particularly at two churches in Watauga County. Her work is supported by an Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship at Berea College.

"The archives at Berea are a great resource. Their collection includes papers presented at a hymn symposium held on campus in the late 1970s, and archived sound files," Doster Edgerton said.

Doster Edgerton's interest in shape note singing brought her to Appalachian. "There are not a lot of places in the country where you can see the seven-shape tradition actively practiced," she said. "I knew there were active congregations in the region that incorporated shape-note signing in their services."

Edgerton's research focuses on the conflicts between the four- and seven-shape traditions of the 19th century as one example of the tension created when traditions and their rituals change.

She is studying two rural churches whose singing traditions have their roots in the seven-shape Gospel tradition. The stories of sacred song and singing in Mount Lebanon Baptist Church and Mountain Dale Baptist Church in Watauga County, N.C., highlight the evolution of sacred music traditions at the local level. Her study also analyzes the deep-seated ties between land, culture and religion in small, rural communities and the collective impact of those Appalachian qualities on worship practices.

Shaped notes, such as these in a hymnal in Appalachian State University’s Appalachian Collection, help singers more quickly read the vocal sections of a hymn. Appalachian State University graduate student Meredith Doster Edgerton is researching the shape note singing tradition in the South.

Doster Edgerton plans to continue exploring these themes in a doctoral program after completing her master's degree.

Doster Edgerton was the Cratis D. Williams Scholar for the 2008-09 academic year, the highest honor bestowed upon a student entering the Appalachian studies program. She earned a bachelor's degree in music from Columbia University in New York.

The Appalachian studies master's degree program is administered through the Center for Appalachian Studies, a unit within Appalachian's University College. The center develops, coordinates and facilitates curricula and programs that deal with the Appalachian region.

A Cherokee stickball legend

2009-06-29T05:00:00.000-04:00

It started back when the animals of the forest had a ball team.

The forest animals had a rough line up, a big line up. The Big Bear was the captain. In his lineup he had the Fast-Running Deer. And he had the Big Wolf, and the Big Bob Cat, and the Big Panther.

The Big Bear liked to boast. He'd get in front of all his ball players and show them how strong he was by picking up boulders and tossing them, or maybe picking up a big log, and tossing it. He said there's no team can win over us.

While he was talking and boasting about his team and himself, there was someone trying to get his attention. And this someone was so small that he couldn't get the Big Bear's attention. All he could do was tap him on his toes. Maybe Big Bear would feel that tapping and get the signal and look down.

And sure enough, the Big Bear wondered what was tapping him, and when he looked down it was a little mouse about as big as your thumb looking up at that big giant.

He said, "I come to play ball with you. I can join your team. I'm a forest animal, you know.”

The Big Bear thought that was the funniest sight he had ever seen. He fell backwards laughing at that little mouse. Then when he finally got up, he pointed his finger at that little mouse and said, "I want you to tell me what in the world you can do in a ball game? Just look at you, and look at your size! I don't know about you!" And then he kicked that little mouse way out into the bushes.

And when that little mouse landed, of course his feelings were hurt. And then he said, "That's no way to treat a person." He got thinking he wasn't going to give up. He got thinking, there's another team way in the distance. They're getting ready to play ball. I think they're having a big ball dance before they play ball. So the evening before the game he thought he'd go see that team, and maybe they'd let him play on their team.

He walked for miles, and he finally arrived. There was a big eagle, Captain Eagle, a fowl of the air, who had a team. And they had the Falcon and the Big Hawk, and the Big Buzzard, and all those big birds of the forest. And they were getting ready to put on a ritual.

And the little mouse explained to the eagle the story of what happened between him and the Bear, what the Bear did to him. And he said, "I still want to play ball." He said, "May I join your team?"

The Eagle said, "Why sure! You can join us. But one thing, though, you don't have any wings. You need wings to play with us. You've got to fly."

They looked around real quick and they found a piece of leather, and they cut him out a little set of wings. And they attached them to the little mouse's sides. And after they'd finished, they took him high up into the sky, the Eagle did, and dropped him. When they dropped him, he could fly. The little mouse could fly, and he fluttered all the way down to the ground.

And they were so proud of him because he could fly. And they said, "You can play with us tomorrow. We're going to play the Big Bear and his team."

Pair of Cherokee stickball sticks, made 1916. Split oak bent in half to form head at one end; net made of woven wire. Names of Soco team members and owner’s name—Robert Crow---written on sticks.

Well, the next day was ballgame time. So after all the speeches were made, the rules were set up: twelve points is the ball game. Whoever gets twelve points, wins the game. The goal post is two little bushes that are cut and set in the ground about eight feet apart. You've got to carry that ball through between those little bushes.

When the ball was tossed up for the center man, they batted the ball -- I don't know who batted it, the Bear or the Eagle.

But before that ball ever hit the ground, that little mouse with the new wings swooped down and grabbed that ball, and went between all those big vicious animals -- they were trying to knock him down with their paws as he passed. And he went in and out, in and out. And he went out into the clear, and he was gone! He scored!

Again and again and again he scored. And he dominated the game. And he beat that Big Bear who had kicked him out into the bushes. He won over that Big Bear.

Don't ever underestimate the size of a person or the looks of a person or the color of a person when he wants to join you. Whatever you have going, always welcome him in, because if you don't, he just might turn and beat you.

source: http://hilltop.mhc.edu/050508/JerryWolfe/StickBallLegend.asp

stickball Cherokee+myths appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Listen Here: weekly Appalachian History podcast posts today

2009-06-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with an oral history from Brenda Collins Dillon of Richwood, WV. She describes how her grandfather lost his older daughter, his wife, his sister-in law, and his brother-in law to the Great Flu of 1918. The man was crazy with grief and left with a baby (Dillon’s mother) whom he felt wouldn't live either. He wrapped the tiny baby and placed her into a cigar box, covered it with a towel, dropped her off with a trusted neighbor, and disappeared from town forever.

Kentuckian Sara Ogan Gunning lost lots of loved ones prematurely, too. But her grief was tinged with rage over the local company bosses and the wretched conditions they forced on their workers. Luckily for us she was talented enough to write it all down in song. We’ll take a close look at one of her pieces, “I Hate the Company Bosses.”

Remember Beta vs. VHS? That same kind of rivalry happened between the Victaphone and Movietone methods of adding sound to the movies. Sherwood Anderson, later to become a world famous novelist, edited the Smyth County News for a time, and his 1929 article explains the difference between the two systems.

Ever run into an old school flame far from home, only to strike it up again? Steubenville Ohio’s ‘Harding Bee Hive’ newsletter kept school alumni apprised of who was dating whom long after graduation. In this next segment recent college grad Jimmy Roberts encounters ‘Mary’ at a business seminar in Cleveland and they dive headlong into a whirlwind romance. Not so strange for old high school flames, perhaps, but ‘Harding Bee Hive’ was the newsletter of Harding JUNIOR High School.

End of June means time to bring the hay in if you’re a farmer, and before the advent of tractors, that meant pitchforks, strong backs and a haywagon. Martinsburg WV native son Kenneth Tabler relates how as a teenager it was his job to stand atop the wagon as men on either side heaved forkfuls in his direction. He had to tamp the hay down properly so it didn’t slide off the wagon. In this piece he gets to drive the wagon for the very first time.

Summer time is carnival time. If it seems to you that every time you try you fail miserably at games such as ring toss, there’s a reason for that. This 1930 article from Modern Mechanix magazine lays out in glorious detail all the tricks of the trade to keep you from winning those big stuffed toys.

We’ll wrap things up with a look at the ongoing controversy between artifact collectors and archaeologists. Both value antique treasures that emerge from the ground, but who’s got rightful claim? We’ll zoom in on a dustup that occurred in Dayton, TN around the turn of the century between these two camps.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Internet Archive we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music The Bluegrass All-Stars in a 1930s recording of “White House Blues.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

He placed the tiny baby in a cigar box and walked to the Godfreys

2009-06-26T05:00:00.002-04:00

"Mother was born April 4, 1919, Zelma Zane Bennett. She was all of two pounds and fit very nicely into a cigar box. She was the daughter of Fred and Mollie (Perry) Bennett who lived in Curtin, WV. Fred was a fireman on the logging train that ran through the mountain community.

"The Flu outbreak of 1918 & 1919 hit the little community hard and the Bennett family did not escape the sickness. Fred and Mollie cared for their elder daughter, Eva Maxine Bennett, but the girl did not pull through. She was laid to rest along side her grandparents in the Alderson Church Cemetery in Craigsville, WV in October, 1918. Mollie was pregnant with Mother at the time. Tired from caring for Maxine and grief stricken at her loss she became sick too. Mollie really never got over the flu and in April 1919 she finally went into labor and delivered Mother early. A week later Mollie's sister and her husband also died.

"Fred Bennett had lost his older daughter, his wife, his sister-in law, and his brother-in law, and was left with a baby whom he felt wouldn't live either. He wrapped the tiny baby and placed her into a cigar box and covering it with a towel, walked a few doors down to the Godfrey house.

"Claire and Sylvanis Godfrey had tried without success to have a family but it was just not meant to be. Sylvanis, nicknamed Doc, was the engineer on the same train that Fred was fireman. They were great friends and he knew they were good people. Fred left the tiny infant with Claire and disappeared from Curtin.

"Zelma was tiny but she was a fighter. With Claire's love and care Zelma thrived.

"One day Doc wanted to go to the store. Zelma being about 3 years old at the time cried to go with him. He took her hand in his and off they went. The store was a hangout for all the men in town. They would gather and collect the news.

"Well, Doc and Zelma came walking in and everybody knew Doc loved to tell stories so they asked him to set a spell and tell a story. Doc didn't want to tell a story but said he had a joke for them......he told the joke and everybody roared with laughter.

"Then he decided to sing a dirty song.....well wouldn't you know Zelma caught onto the tune real quick and everybody thought she was just the cutest thing standing on the table of that store singing a dirty song.

"Doc and Zelma collected their things and went home. Claire greeted them at the door and asked if they had a good time. Zelma popped up with "Yes, and Dad taught me to sing a new song..." and she began to sing. Well, Doc turned 40 shades of red and couldn't get out of that house fast enough.

"When Zelma started her first day of school she was enrolled as Zelma Godfrey. The next summer the Godfrey's left Curtin, WV and went west to Lewis County, WA where Doc's family had settled several years before. Doc got a job as an engineer on the trains and Claire operated a boarding house that sat close to the tracks. Zelma grew into a young lady there in Mosseyrock, WA.

"When Zelma was 14 Claire took sick and as she laid on her death bed she explained how Mom came to be their daughter. Claire told her everything she knew about her natural parents but she couldn't tell Mom what happened to the father who'd left the tiny bundle with them and walked away.

"After Claire's death Doc decided to take Zelma back to West Virginia to live with his sister while he was working. Zelma by this time was starting high school. It was a good plan but shortly after their arrival Zelma's aunt Jane Spencer took sick and Mother was tossed from one family member to another. The days of her happy childhood were over and for the next few years she shed a lot of tears."

Brenda Collins Dillon
(1944-2006)
b. Richwood WV

sources: http://www.saponitown.com/brenda-collins-dillon/mother.htm http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wvnichol/bd/godfrey.htm

Brenda+Collins+Dillon Curtin+WV Spanish+flu appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

I tell you, company bosses, I'm going to fight

2009-06-25T05:00:00.001-04:00

I Hate the Company Bosses

A Song by Sarah Ogan Gunning

I hate the company bosses
I'll tell you the reason why
They cause me so much suffering
And my dearest friends to die

Oh yes, I guess you wonder
What they have done to me
I'm going to tell you, mister
My husband had T.B.

Brought on by hard work and low wages
And not enough to eat
Going naked and hungry
No shoes on his feet

I guess you'll say he's lazy
And did not want to work
But I must say you're crazy
For work he did not shirk

My husband was a coal miner
He worked and risked his life
To try to support three children
Himself, his mother, and wife

I had a blue-eyed baby
The darling of my heart
But from my little darling
Her mother had to part

These mighty company bosses
They dress in jewels and silk
But my darling blue-eyed baby
She starved to death for milk

I had a darling mother
For her I often cry
But with them rotten conditions
My mother had to die

Well, what killed your mother
I heard these bosses say
Dead of hard work and starvation
My mother had to pay

Well, what killed your mother
Oh tell us, if you please
Excuse me, it was pellagra
That starvation disease

They call this the land of plenty
To them I guess it's true
But that's to the company bosses
Not workers like me and you

Well, what can I do about it
To these men of power and might
I tell you, company bosses
I'm going to fight, fight, fight

What can we do about it
To right this dreadful wrong
We're all going to join the union
For the union makes us strong

"About 1939, Moe Asch-later the proprietor of Folkways Records-first heard Sarah sing this piece. He complimented her by commenting that it was the most radical composition he had ever heard in his life. It is sometimes sung and called "I Hate the Company Bosses," but the original title was "I Hate the Capitalist System;" the song was recorded as such for the Library of Congress.

"Sarah thought of it as autobiographical-a response to the death of her loved ones-and not polemical. Although she stated to me that the music was made up out of her mind, it is clearly related to at least two tunes known in mountain tradition: a Carter Family melody for a broadside usually called The Sailor Boy (Laws K 12); a haunting air printed by Josiah Combs from his mother's singing on Troublesome Creek, Knott County, Kentucky, about 1889 (On the Banks of that Lonely River in Folk-Songs from the Kentucky Highlands)."

---from notes written by Archie Green for the booklet that accompanies the recording "Sarah Ogan Gunning: 'Girl of Constant Sorrow,'" Folk-Legacy 26, published in 1965 and still obtainable from Folk-Legacy Records.

appalachia appalachian+history coal+mining history+of+appalachia Sarah+Ogan+Gunning union+songs

The chance to pilot the haywagon by myself just about had me bursting all my shirt buttons

2009-06-24T05:00:00.000-04:00

There were plenty of days to 'make hay while the sun shines' the summer I worked for the Grant brothers. Lee started by driving the team of horses pulling the wagon to the far corner of the field. The fluffy piles of sun-cured alfalfa hay smelled as wonderful as they looked. I kept my eye on Lee before he got down from the empty wagon. He reached up over his head, looped the free end of the check reins around the tip of the front uprights and tied them in a loose-fitting knot.

Lee instructed me: 'You stand atop the wagon while George and I do the heavy lifting. We'll keep the team moving down between two windrows. That way you can build the load from each side." Two strong men vying for attention kept me hopping as I moved back and forth. They would lift a forkful, lean back and pivot at the right moment so as to exact every possible ounce of leverage as they hefted each pile of hay.

Both ends of the huge platform had a set of vertical uprights to stabilize the load from front to back. Each one was about six feet high. The anterior support was narrow, ladderlike and hinged so it could be lowered out of the driver's way when the wagon traveled empty. The stationary prop stretching across the rear was different. The two stakes kept the load from shifting and had a single crossbar. The configuration resembled a miniature set of football goal posts.

I labored mightily to carry out the loading plan and made sure each layer of hay was tamped uniformly across the wide hayrack. An even bigger challenge was to methodically see that the build-up was square along the edges and securely tied-in with the middle. The double binding insured that no section was apt to slide off and threaten the stability of the whole load while en route to the barn. Furthermore, if the job of interlacing each forkful of hay had been done properly, the wagon could be easily unloaded in the barn with a two-pronged hay fork penetrating two or more layers at a time.

George hoisted the last pile of hay to top out the center. With a long-handled pitchfork in midair he called out "Oh boy, it's all I can do to reach you!" The load was so high I was standing on top of the world. It was time for a breathing spell; beads of sweat ran down my face. A big red handkerchief helped wipe away the perspiration. I must have struck a proud stance, for my maneuver caught Lee's attention.

"You've done a fine job topping out that load, Kenneth. Find your way up front and grab hold of the reins. I've seen you cruising back and forth to town with Maude hitched to the spring wagon." The chance to pilot the haywagon by myself just about had me bursting all my shirt buttons. My concentration shifted to driving the team of horses as they strained in their collars. The wagon's wood creaked as they pulled the massive load through the field and on towards the barn.

---Excerpt from The Day is Far Spent, by Kenneth A. Tabler, Montani Publishing, 2006
b. 1926, Martinsburg, WV

appalachia appalachian+history haymaking history+of+appalachia Martinsburg+WV

It wouldn't be long till Mary would be his own

2009-06-23T05:00:00.000-04:00

“Well, if it isn’t Jimmy Roberts, where have you been the last two years? I have asked people about you but no one seemed to know,” inquired Mary as she spied Jimmy at the door.

“Why---hello Mary! It sure is good to see you again. I don’t believe I have seen you since graduation night two years ago last June. I have been working for the Transport Power Company ever since I left college. Most of my work has been traveling and out of doors. I started out as a surveyor and that was the reason no one knew much about me. But now I’m an electrical engineer in the General Office. Isn’t that great? Where have you been all this time?”

Unidentified couple. Based on period costume and age of couple could be a couple much like Jimmy & Mary.

“Oh me? I worked several places the summer following my graduation but for the past eighteen months I have been working for the Company at Chicago. I am a private secretary for the General Manager and that is the reason I’m here. Here comes Mr. Walsh and I will have to go now, but I’m staying at a friend’s house, Mrs. J.W. Kenny, 642 S. Pine St. in Cleveland and I wonder if you would like to call---maybe this evening?”

“Do you really mean it, Mary? Gee, I’d be tickled to death. Sure I’ll come, and this evening too. I never---“

“Well, so long Jimmy, I’ll see you this evening,” said Mary.

“So long, Mary,” replied Jimmy.

After that Jimmy Roberts was a different man. Immediately after dinner he went to his room to get dressed for the evening. He sang all the while he was getting ready. It seemed as though the world was all laughter and sunshine to him.

A happy man it was that strolled down Pine St. dressed up in his very best, and his mind very rapidly turning over recollections of the afternoon’s incidents. He took the card, which Mary had given him with her address on it, to make sure of the right house.

1912 postcard view of Market Street at night, Steubenville, OH.

At half past eight he was rapping on Mrs. Kenny’s door. Mary answered the door. They talked all evening of many things that had happened since their graduation. Each one told of his or her particular incident.

That night Jimmy couldn’t sleep. Too many things were on his mind. He was so happy to think that it wouldn’t be long until Mary would be his own.

---excerpt from “Jimmy Roberts,” by Virginia Hopkins
Harding Bee Hive
Printed and Published Weekly by the Students of Harding Junior High School
Steubenville, OH
Jan. 22, 1903

appalachia appalachian+history courting history+of+appalachia Jefferson+County+OH Steubenville+OH

Sound comes to the photoplays

2009-06-22T05:00:00.001-04:00

‘How the Talking Pictures Talk’
Smyth County News
Thursday, June 27, 1929

There are two main ways of making talkies. One is the so-called disc method and the other the sound track method. In the disc method, the cheaper and less satisfactory of the two, discs something like regular phonograph records are used and the sound is synchronized with the movements of the actors. This is the Vitaphone system and it is all right but rather difficult if the film breaks or the machine gets out of whack.

When pictures are made by this method, the action of the play is photographed in a sound proof studio and at the same time the records of the voices, music, and incidental sounds are made.

The other system is the sound track system. It is the one used in the new Lincoln Theater. Under this system the sound is recorded on the film at the same time the picture is photographed in the sound proof studio. A film with a small track of different substance at one side is used. The recording is done by light which plays over the sound track, made of a delicate chemical substance, and the light varied by the sound of the action caused vari-shaded little bars on the sound track.

This system is the Movietone system.

When the picture is shown, another needle of light in the projecting machine plays on the marked sound track and through it to the delicate electrical apparatus. As the light is varied by the shades on the track, the sound is varied and the human voice, the noise of machines, music, etc. comes out of the speakers.

These are located behind the screen, which is of a special cloth full of little holes to let the sound through unmuffled. Back of the screen, except where the speakers are placed, is a heavy black cloth to cut off the light.

Marvelous things have been accomplished by this method. Exact synchronization of sound and action in the picture play have been achieved and the characters moving on the screen never get ahead of or behind the sound of their voices. To the audiences it is like the characters were speaking their parts.

Undated early photo of Lincoln Theatre in Marion; collection of Lincoln Theatre, Inc.

In addition to this equipment there is another special outfit in the new Lincoln. This is a disc outfit not intended to go with the showing of talking films, but to furnish incidental music to the performance of silent films and to furnish overtures and the like. It will play the finest of organ solos as played by Jesse Crawford in the Paramount Theatre in New York and it will play the music of some of the country’s greatest orchestras.

Altogether, the Lincoln Theatre is completely and finely equipped for the reproduction of sound with the showing of its photoplays. The equipment is of the finest; nothing cheap has been used. It is far ahead in quality of the equipment used in sound reproduction in theaters of some of our neighboring towns.

Costing thousands of dollars, well into five figures, this equipment promises much entertainment to the citizens of Smyth County and those citizens of our neighboring counties who will come to Marion to visit the finest picture house between Roanoke and Knoxville.

source: Sherwood Anderson Newspapers Collection/Smyth-Bland Regional Library
www.sbrl.org/sa_newspapers.htm

appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia Lincoln+Theatre Marion+VA Talkies Vitaphone

Listen Here: weekly Appalachian History podcast posts today

2009-06-21T20:17:00.000-04:00

We post a new episode of Appalachian History weekly podcast every Sunday. You can start listening right away by clicking the podcast icon over on the left side of your screen. If you'd rather grab the show off itunes for later listening, click here.

We open today's show with guest blogger Dylan Thuras. Thuras is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the website ‘Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica.’ We’ll follow him into the night of the Great Smoky Mountains, which in mid-June light up as fireflies begin to blink in beautiful, astonishing unison. The fireflies, who can sense when their neighbor fireflies are flashing, and attempt to flash before them, send waves of light cascading down the hillsides.

Next we’ll follow the youthful high-jinx of Kentuckian Ralph Hall and his brother Mutt, as they connive of ways to get rid of Betsy, the mean old family cow, in this excerpt from Hall’s recently published autobiography “Why Daddy Sold Old Betsy.”

Juliette Gordon Low was originally from Savannah GA. But she founded the first Girl Scout camp, the one that bore her name, in Chattooga County, best known today as the longtime home of folk artist and country philosopher Howard Finster and as the place where Sequoyah developed a written alphabet for the Cherokee language.

Speaking of camp, if you like scary stories told round a fire, listen in as an elderly black preacher in Clayton, GA regales us with the tale of Fiddler’s Mountain. During the 1930s and 1940s Rose Thompson worked as a home supervisor with the Farm Security Administration in Rabun County, and we’re lucky she wrote this tale down for us.

Knoxville retired judge Oliver Perry Temple hit a burst of creative activity in his last years. One of his dear friends bemoaned the fact that “our southern people will not write their own history, nor even prepare materials for the future historian. Hence our noblest deeds and characters are forgotten, or misrepresented.” He took that as his call to action and produced three history books, starting at the tender age of 77.

We’ll wrap things up with a look at the toys you can fashion from summer mountain woods and meadows. Skipping stones across a creek or running alongside a fence, stick in hand, clacking the fenceposts---these pastimes are available any time of year.   But the summer meadow has always held special treasures.

And, thanks to the good folks at the Digital Library of Appalachia we'll be able to enjoy some authentic Appalachian music from Jim Lurson, in a 2006 recording of the traditional Irish tune “Coleman’s March.”

So, call your old blue-tick hound up on the porch, fire up your corn-cob pipe, and settle in for a dose of Appalachian History.

The Great Smoky Mountain synchronized fireflies

2009-06-19T05:00:00.000-04:00

Please welcome guest blogger Dylan Thuras. Thuras is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Joshua Foer. The following post ran originally on Boing Boing.

Happening right now, and for the next few days, the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee will light up as P. Carolinus fireflies begin to blink in beautiful, astonishing unison. The fireflies, who can sense when their neighbor fireflies are flashing and attempt to flash before them, send waves of light to cascading down the Tennessee hillsides.

One of the best spots to see them is in one small area, near the Little River Trailhead in Elkmont, TN.

Long thought to be an exclusively Southeast Asian phenomenon, the dazzling behavior was only discovered in an American firefly species (P. Carolinus) in 1992. The American fireflies were first brought to the attention of scientists by a reader of Science News, who thought it odd that an article on Asian firefly synchronicity mentioned nothing about the bugs near her own home. She wrote a letter to a Steven Strogratz, a Cornell mathematician who studies synchronization:

I am sure you are aware of this, but just in case, there is a type of group synchrony lightning bug inside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park near Elkmont, Tennessee. These bugs "start up" in mid June at 10 pm nightly. They exhibit 6 seconds of total darkness; then in perfect synchrony, thousands light up 6 rapid times in a 3 second period before all going dark for 6 more seconds. "We have a cabin in Elkmont... and as far as we know, it is only in this small area that this particular type of group synchronized lightning bug exists. It is beautiful.

In 1995, scientists confirmed the existence of the Great Smoky Mountain synchronized fireflies, and have subsequently discovered other populations in the Congaree Swamp in South Carolina and other high altitude locations in the Appalachian mountains. As this curious phenomenon remained undiscovered for years, it is quite possible that there are other varieties of fireflies blinking in unison throughout the United States, perhaps even in your own backyard.

More info on the Smokey Mountain fireflies here and here; more info on bioluminescent spots around the world on the Atlas bioluminescent spots page.

appalachia Elkmont+TN synchronized+fireflies Great+Smoky+Mountains+National+Park appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Some cows never learn

2009-06-18T05:00:00.004-04:00

"That night, as Mutt and I lay on the featherbed that Grandma had made, we talked by the light of the coal oil lamp. We were working on a plan on how to get rid of Old Betsy. That cow just had to go, we reasoned, and soon. Our first plan was to throw rocks at her all the way to the barn, hoping she would fall and break a leg and become a part of dinner. Well, we rocked her to the barn every day for about a week, and not once did she fall. So it was time to work on Plan Two. Betsy was smart, be we were smarter than any old cow.

"Here was our plan: There was this small path that ran alongside this small cliff. Mutt would do about anything I ever told him to do, me being his bigger brother and all, so we came up with this great plan. How could it fail? We asked ourselves.

"I said, 'Mutt, you rock Old Betsy down the hill like you always do and I will stand in the path and wave my arms and cry 'Shoo, Betsy, shoo!' and she will run over the cliff and kill herself.' The next day, we figured, would be Betsy's last day on this earth. After all, how could a great plan like that fail?

"So, that next afternoon, old Mutt ran Betsy down the hill, throwing rocks at her and cussing all the way. I was ready. Standing in the path, I hollered, 'Shoo, Betsy, shoo!' I saw Betsy coming down that narrow path---800 pounds of speeding dynamite looking me straight in the eye. I was doing everything that I was supposed to do, waving my arms and crying 'Shoo, Betsy, shoo!'

"But that stupid old cow didn't understand one word I was saying. She hit me like a speeding locomotive and I went sailing over the small cliff intended for Betsy. When I landed, I hit hard. And boy, did I ever hurt. Nothing was broken but I sure was in a lot of pain for the next few days.

"On Saturday afternoons, Mutt and I always went to the movies. Most of the shows were cowboy movies, and Mutt and I just loved cowboys. Sometimes, the cowboys would ride bulls in the movies. That gave me yet another plan. Betsy hadn't won yet. No one could ever get me to say 'uncle,' and no cow was going to beat me.

"So I told Mutt, 'Here's what we will do.' I planned it all. I told Mutt that I would get on top of the barn and that he should run Old Betsy out through the barn door. 'As she comes out the door,' I said, 'I will jump on her back and ride her into the ground.'

Mutt said, "Ralph, do you think you can do that?"

I said, "Sure I can."

Well, I climbed up onto the barn roof and readied myself. Then I called out, "Okay, Mutt, let her rip!"

"Out the door came Old Betsy, sailing straight away. I leaped off the roof and landed right in the middle of her back! Away we went--down through the barnyard, out through the gate and into the backyard of our house. Betsy and I were headed straight for my mother's clothesline. Betsy decided to take me right into it. I caught the line full in the middle of my neck --- the darn thing almost took my head off! As I fell, Betsy went one way and I went the other, landing on the ground, square on my butt. Yep, some cows just never learn."

Excerpt from Why Daddy Sold Old Betsy, by Ralph Hall, Ithaca Press, 2009

Ralph Hall, born 1936, was raised in Melvin, KY.

farm+chores Melvin+KY appalachia appalachian+history +history+of+appalachia Ralph+Hall

Juliette Low establishes First Girl Scout camp

2009-06-17T05:00:00.000-04:00

Camp Juliette Low, in Chattooga County GA, today is a private, non-profit summer camp for girls ages 7 to 17. Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, was instrumental in getting this camp underway; in fact it's the only camp she personally helped establish.

Low brought girl scouting to her hometown of Savannah, Georgia, with a troop of just eighteen girls. She envisioned, however, that Girl Scouting would eventually be "for all the girls of America." And indeed, more than fifty million women and girls have belonged to the organization since its founding on March 12, 1912.

As the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low correctly intuited what activities girls would enjoy. She envisioned an organization that would combine play, work, and healthy values to shape girls into active, modern women. The group participated in outdoor activities, camping, and sports, attracting girls and women with leadership qualities.

Gypsy Troop at Camp Juliette Gordon Low attend campfire, 1927.

In 1921 John and Will Ledbetter, representing the Cloudland Park Corporation, developers of the mountain resort known as Cloudland, gave a ten-acre tract of land to the Cherokee Council of Boy Scouts at Cloudland for camp purposes, at the same time donating nearby land for what became Camp Juliette Low.

Dorris Hough, who headed of the Southern Regional Headquarters for Girl Scouting, was the first camp director.

A few shacks were built by the boys in 1921, and in 1922 others were added. The girls had an assembly hall 40x72 ft. A portion of the adjacent Little River was dammed to create a swimming area for campers. Camp stay was two weeks, and the camp stayed open for 8 weeks in the summer, taking on about 100 girls per season.

The county surrounding the camp is named for the Chattooga River, which flows through the area and is the smaller of two Georgia rivers bearing that name. (The larger Chattooga River forms part of the state's northeast border between Georgia and South Carolina.) The county may be best known as the longtime home of folk artist and country philosopher Howard Finster and as the place where Sequoyah developed a written alphabet for the Cherokee language.

Camp Juliette Low dissolved its affiliation with the Girl Scouts in 1937, when it incorporated as a non-profit camp.

sources: http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Fa-Gr/Girl-Scouts.html
A history of Rome and Floyd County, State of Georgia, United States of America, by George Magruder Battey

appalachia Girl+Scouts Juliette+Gordon+Low Camp+Juliette+Low,appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

Our noblest deeds and characters are forgotten, or misrepresented. How different in New England

2009-06-16T05:00:00.001-04:00

University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C.
June 29, 1889
O.P. Temple, Esq
My dear Judge
I have read with great interest every word of the Knoxville Journal, concerning John Sevier, etc. The occasion was on of deep historic interest. I hope you will send me the more permanent publication which will doubtless be issued hereafter.
Your own contribution is of special value & beauty. Allow me to suggest that you should devote some of your leisure to the composition of a History of East Tenn. No living man is perhaps so well qualified as yourself for this work. At least you might select some special topic, if no more. Ein kind regard to your family. We are well.
Yours very truly, Ed. T. Joynes

University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C.
July 11, 1889
Dear Friend –
Your most interesting letter recd. Let me hope you may yet carry our your plans, if only on the narrower lines such as you suggest. It is a deficit in our southern people that they will not write their own history nor even prepare materials for the future historian. Hence our noblest deeds and characters are forgotten, or misrepresented. How different in New England. Regard G Flemming If I can run off for a week, I shall come to Knoxville this summer if only for a planning visit with him and a talk with you
very truly Ed. S Joynes

Oliver Perry Temple (1820-1907) did indeed carry out the plans referred to in the second letter. He took the idea Joynes proposed about writing histories of East Tennessee and went on to author ‘The Covenanter, the Cavalier, and the Puritan (1897)’; ‘East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899)’; and ‘Notable Men of Tennessee,’ which was published posthumously in 1912.

Joynes was well qualified to spot writing ability in his friend. By the time he wrote the above letters, he’d already published “Introductory French Lessons,” “The Education of Teachers in the South,” and “A German grammar for schools and colleges.” He went on to publish 10 more books, mostly in the same ilk.

In the preface of his first book, Temple introduces himself as ‘OLIVER PERRY TEMPLE, For twelve years one of the Equity Judges of Tennessee,’ and dedicates the book ‘To the Scotch-Irish Society of America, which is doing so much to rescue from oblivion the history of the Covenanter People.”

The Covenanters were Scotsmen who in 1638 signed the National Covenant, a covenant confirming their opposition to the interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Temple named his estate ‘Melrose’ after the ruined abbey in Scotland near which his wife had been born. All his maternal ancestors were from Scotland. Scotch-Irish issues were personal.

“The publication of this little book in its present form is due to an accidental circumstance,” he continues. “The matter it contains was prepared as a part of a larger and perhaps more important historical work, on which I am now engaged, and which I hope will soon be in print. Happening to show some of the chapters to a friend, in whose judgment I had great confidence, he said to me : Why not publish these chapters as a separate book?

"The matter they contain is only remotely related to that of the main book, and the two should not appear together. It happened that my own mind was running in the same direction, and had nearly arrived at the same conclusion. The publication of this book, in its present form, is, therefore, mainly due to that interview. It is, as it were, a leaf torn from another book.

"The chief reason for writing so fully, or at all, about the Covenanters is given in the opening sentences of Chapter IV of this book. The error and injustice there referred to are remarkable, indeed amazing; but it is not too late to correct them by letting in the light of history. A brief comparison of the record of the Covenanters with that of the Cavaliers and the Puritans shows in how remarkable a manner the former people have been neglected and ignored in the history and the public thought of the country. If I shall be able to quicken the interest in this great race, already existing, awakened by the noble efforts of The Scotch-Irish Society of America, I shall feel that I have, indeed, done a good work."

Sources: The O.P. Temple Papers/University of Tennessee Special Collections Library
http://www.archive.org/details/covenantercavali00temprich

Oliver+Perry+Temple Knoxville+TN Covenanters Scots-Irish appalachia appalachian+history