I read somewhere that to be healthier and to live longer, we should eat like our ancestors. The article said, “If your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as something she ate, then don’t eat it.” Truth is that today we eat so much processed food that our grandmothers or great grandmothers…
This article isn’t really about women of our region, but all people of our region. It is about the way we talk. The Southern Appalachian dialect, words and phrases have long been misunderstood. The way we pronounce words and the phrases we use, have long been the butt of many…
Sunday morning breaks across the Appalachian mountains. The sun makes the sky appear pink above the Blue Ridge. We awaken to the smell of fresh sausage frying downstairs on the stove. Mom has started breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits. The sound of a radio playing down in the kitchen…
The first time I met Emma she was 90 years old. She was a lovely woman with a ready smile and silky white hair. She was a short but stout woman, and like most women of the mountains, she had done her share of hard work. She was witty, a…
For the past few hours I have been staring at a copy of an old picture my brother posted on social media last night. The picture looks to be taken around 1910 or 1912. It is a group of people, clearly related to each other. The people in the photograph…
“Once there was a little old woman and one day she went to the neighbor’s to buy a pig. It was a fine, big pig and she was mighty proud of it. When she got to her fence, she said ‘Pig, pig jump over the fence so I can get…
I never knew my paternal grandmother. She died in 1950, way before I was born. I grew up hearing stories about her kind and loving attitude. She was always described as a meek lady with a strong character. Her husband, my grandfather, died when my father was only 14. She…
My sister Frances is thirteen years older than me. She is the oldest girl in our family and I am the youngest. My Mom called her “Sis”and our mom relied on Frances to help take care of the younger ones. Now my mother loved clothes and jewelry, but didn’t really…
Although the trip to the old home place was just a few miles away, Ann had to make sure that Bea used the bathroom before undergoing the car ride. Ann hated the idea of having to stop along the way, at a fast food restaurant or gas station, retrieve old…
We belong to the mountains. It’s just a feeling we have deep inside us, rising up, bursting forth as we stand in front of our ridges that surround but often isolate us. We were born here. Born of women who belonged on that mountain just as much as the mountain…
