AppalachianFolkA Collection of Appalachian Stories

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I was raised at the mouth of Pigeon Roost in Martin County.  My Pa El (my grandpa) lived across the road from me.  He would often go up in the head of Pigeon Roost and watch for bees and later go back to rob the honey.  As we would sit on a rock or log [...]

When I was a little girl a favorite past time of mine was going bare footed during the warm summer months of June, July, & August.  Dredjing my feet through the warm, sandy soil on the roads and yards of my youth.  Looking back I can still feel the heat and silkiness of the dust as [...]

I just finished reading Our Southern Highlanders written by Horace Kephart in 1913. The book documents the lifestyle of the Southern Appalachian People in the early 1900′s. I enjoyed the book and thought it neat that I recognized many of the locations mentioned in the book. Of all the subjects covered, the chapters on dialect [...]

I live in the same mountain holler I grew up in, and sometimes I find myself dwelling on the changes I’ve seen take place. If I could show my girls what the landscape looked like when I was their age, I believe they would have trouble recognizing it’s the same place. One house is gone, [...]

I remember those clear summer nights. Never too hot never too cold. I could see clearly, Climbing to the top of the mountain pushing our bicycles with sleeping bags in tow. The three, sometimes four, of us were on our way for a long night of camping usually Jimmy, Johnny ,Eddy and myself . I recall [...]

When my brothers and I were growing up, Granny had all kinds of admonitions about storms, specifically about lightning. According to Granny you can’t take a shower, talk on the phone or run water when it is lightning. You also can’t flush the potty or stand by a window. And, at all costs, Granny said [...]