AppalachianFolkA Collection of Appalachian Stories

At the beginning of my dissertation, I quoted an article from Ford (1962) about the culture of poverty that continues to exist in the eastern appalachian region of Kentucky. His premise was that this was a learned behavior and that most from this area were illerate and uneducated. This of course not my words, but [...]

as i set here i think about my mothers old wooden cook stove, she would fire it up to make us breakfast and dinner on it. for breakfast we would fried taters, gravey, biscuts, some kind of meat and fried apples, what we had left over from breakfast we would have for lunch. i could [...]

I just finished watching the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter.  Its a movie that I have watched many times over.  I guess you could say that I’m a little obsessed with Mrs. Lynn.  She grew up about 40 minutes away from where I did in Johnson County, Kentucky outside of Van Lear in Butcher Hollow.  That in [...]

this story  was told to me when i was just a girl,  about black snakes that would milk the family milk cow, but any way here is how it was told to me.  There was a family of nine kids that lived up the hollow. They had a milk cow name besty, ever morning and [...]

a lot of things have  changed since i lived on mill creek road, i can remember there was a dirt road now black top, tv antanta now cable tv where thompson school used to be apartments, and well water now they are putting city water in. i rember the stores on mill creek  arbie and [...]

A long time ago, before The Trail of Tears, before the Red Indian was banished to the West, he roamed the hills of Appalachia. His skin was tawny, his limbs were strong and muscled. His face was regal and his war paint fierce. He was the Cherokee of the old days. There was a period [...]

Page 1 My mother tells me that in 1959, I was born in an old wooden house up a hollow not far from where I live now. The house had no electricity and was lighted by a coal oil lamp. Coal was dug from out of the side of the mountain for heat and cooking [...]

I was born and raised in Martin Co. in a little place called Beauty, Kentucky, right at the bottom of Buck Creek mountain in our family holler known as Charlie Maynard holler, Charlie being my Grandpa. I loved this place like no other I’ve been in my life time and wouldn’t change a second of [...]

You have heard it said many times, and so have I: “Oh, I love to read but I just never have the time.” I reject that statement–a false premise from the word go. Any omniverous reader will support my contention that if you are a reader, you will read–regardless of time, place, or circumstance. It [...]

Noah Maynard BACK IN 1960 WAS BAD AND GOOD TIMES FAMILY’S DID NOT HAVE MUCH BUT WE HAD LOVE DAD HAD A THIRD GRADE EDUCATION IN MARKUM HOLLOW MARRIED RUTH SHE WAS 14 HAD HARD TIMES LIVED ON $200 DOING ODD JOBS AND NINE CHILDREN BORN AT HOME NO HOSPITAL IN MARTIN CO KY FATHER’S [...]