An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. The letter had probably arrived days ago. That was the frustrating part. A family living along a mountain road in 1900 might know that a son in Roanoke had written or that a husband working railroad construction had mailed word he was coming home. The letter had likely…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. A farm truck pulls up at the edge of an orchard in the Shenandoah Valley. Men climb from the back wearing dusty work clothes stenciled with large white letters: PW: Prisoner of War A few local workers pause long enough to look them over. Then the ladders come…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. The trail crosses a low ridge and flattens for a short distance beneath the trees. At first, nothing about the spot stands out. Leaves cover the ground the same way they do everywhere else in the woods. Oak and poplar rise on both sides. The slope drops away…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. Something in the Woods The trail bends through second-growth timber. The ground shifts first. It turns uneven underfoot, as if something was built here and then let go. A low rise crosses the path, a line of stone that no longer holds its shape. A few steps farther,…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. Payday at the Window Payday in a coal camp didn’t look much like payday in town. Miners lined up outside a small office window near the tipple. Sometimes the pay envelope held paper notes printed by the company. Sometimes it held small metal tokens stamped with the mine’s name and a dollar…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. The trees were cut weeks ago and left where they fell. Oak, poplar, chestnut. Thick trunks lying crosswise in a field that needs to be planted. One man can clear brush. He can trim branches and split smaller lengths for rails. He can’t move logs that size alone….
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. Imagine a winter morning in 1910. You step outside before dawn and pull the kitchen door shut behind you, listening for the latch to catch. The cold doesn’t creep in gradually. It smacks you in the face. Snow lies crusted across the yard, firm in some spots, hollow in others, and your boot finds yesterday’s path…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. The sheriff knew where the trouble was coming from before anyone notified him. Raised voices carried down a company road cut into the hillside. A family was loading what they could onto a wagon. A company foreman stood to the side, arms folded, eyeing them closely. Two armed…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. You’re sitting at the table with a box of old photos. Some are loose. Some are stuck together. A few have curled at the corners. You recognize faces, but not always names. You know they’re family, but you can’t always say how. You turn one over,…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. Scroll through enough social posts, and you’ll see the same Appalachian stereotypes repeated: Poor. Backward. Uneducated. Stuck. The wording shifts, but the judgment stays the same. It’s often delivered with confidence and very little curiosity. Yes, hardship was real. Poverty was real. Options were limited. Work was hard,…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series. The phrase “catching a song” once had a literal meaning in the Southern Appalachians. A singer shared a tune, someone else listened closely, and the melody passed from one memory to another. Nothing was written down. The old songs stayed alive only as long as someone could remember…
An installment in our Appalachian History and Culture series If you spend enough time with Appalachian family history, you notice the spaces where names should be. Old Bibles with half-filled pages. Photos with faces nobody can place. Stories that trail off when someone asks a question that a generation never answered. The gaps feel small…