The Mountain Spirit
Contents From Our President..........................................................3
Features: The Lady and the L ake............................................... 4 He’s Not Different, He’s My Brother........................ 9 Before the Rivers Ran Black....................................22 Departments: Letters ........................................................................ 8 E ditorial.....................................................................13 The CAP Closeup..................................................... 14 Appalachian Arts and Culture.................................. 16 Around the P roject................................................... 18
The Magazine of the Christian Appalachian Project July-August 1983 Volume II, No. 4 Editor-in-Chief..................................................Rev. Ralph Beiting Editor...................................................................R. Kenton Craven Associate Editor..................................................Margaret Gabriel Graphics Coordinator..................................... Phyllis Underwood Advisory Board-----Mike McLaughlin, Bill Begley, Ed Wardle Subscriptions.............................................................Kathy Stathers Typesetting.......................... Phyllis Underwood, Kathy Stathers
The Mountain Spirit is published six times a year. The annual subscription price is $5.00. Subscriptions and other correspon dence should be sent to The Mountain Spirit, Christian Ap palachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Road, Lancaster, Ken tucky 40446. Copyright 1983, The Christian Appalachian Project, Inc. All rights reserved. Member, Catholic Press Association. The Christian Appalachian Project is a non-profit Christian service organization operating throughout Eastern Kentucky. We rely on private donations for over 99% o f our funding. The Project operates on the philosophy that “ helping people help themselves” is the best approach to Appalachian poverty.
The July-August Theme “ Paint ’em green, and turn ’em loose!” That’s what many Kentucky parents used to say about children in the summer time. In this issue, we celebrate the wonder of children exploring the wonder of summer—in CAP’s summer programs, in a report on street preaching on the mountains, and in a new children’s literature anthology that celebrates the perennial values. We also visit with Beverly Sexton in Jackson County, and hear from Jeremiah’s Journal. On the COVER, Camp Cliffview Director Ric O’Connell and a young camper in one of CAP’s summer programs feed ducks on the Dix River (photo by Gabriel). On the BACK COVER, old time baptizin’ (photo courtesy of BEREA COLLEGE ARCHIVES). BELOW, folks you’ll meet in this issue. Happy Summer!
Herschel, p.9.
Jeremiah, p. 22.
Ellen, p. 4 and p. 14.
Summer time has always been a special time for me. I love to see things grow: gardens with their plenty, the forest producing new life, fields alive with grass and flowers. I enjoy the laughter that summer brings. The joyful sounds boys make as they play in a creek, or the serious sounds girls make as they play house and mother everything in sight. I could listen all day at a family reunion, when Aunt Mary tells all the family secrets, or Uncle George tells tall tales of how it used to be in the good old days. Picnics, ball games, hot dogs, and camping trips are the things that summer is made of. Yet, as I look back on the 33 years I have spent in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and consider the events of summer time, there is one event that has appeared with un failing regularity. I call it street preaching. I saw it for the first time in the summer of 1946. I was a seminarian preparing for the ministry when I was sent by my Bishop to the Ap palachian area of Kentucky for the summer. In the course of sum mer the priests I served hooked a loud speaker to the battery of their car and using microphones, stood beside the car and spoke to the crowds about the wonderful love of God. To me, at first, this was very strange. Why not stay in church with the preaching, why appear in public like a salesman at a carnival? But, as the weeks went on I saw the results that came from this unusual means of proclaiming the word of God. When I was ordained I would try it. This was a promise. In 1950 I returned to the moun tains of Eastern Kentucky and street preaching has been a part of sum mer time ever since. Some years as many as five weeks were given to this pursuit; never were less than two weeks given. This summer there will be three weeks. What do we do? The first thing is to gather four or five helpers. Some play guitars, some set up our July-August 1983
speakers, others pass out some small gift. Everyone sings, and I talk about God, pray, and ask blessing on the people. In the course of 33 summers, I have had all kinds of experiences. One evening near dusk, we pulled into Hyden, county seat of Leslie County. We could find no place to park the trailer we lived in, so I parked it along the road near an abandoned garage. Just as we were about to fix our evening meal a man came up in a red pickup truck. He had a rifle and wanted to know what in the hell did we think we were doing. I explained to him our mission and that we would be in the county for a week and hoped to preach the Word of God. He sat down on the ground with rifle on his knees and said, “ tell me what you say.” I gave him my first talk. “ That’s not all bad,” he said. “ You can stay here as long as you want. If anyone gives you trouble, I’ll take care of them,” and he gave a reassuring pat to his faithful rifle. There have been times when things didn’t turn out as pleasantly. I was in Sand Gap, Kentucky one night, when a dozen tough young mountain boys broke up our preaching. They had all been drinking and were looking for ex citement. They shot over our heads a couple of times. I got hit by a flying tomato and they threatened to beat all of us up if we didn’t get out of the county. We did leave soon after that. We didn’t have much of a choice, since we were preaching brotherly love and forgiving our enemies that evening. But at times we could be mighty effective. One evening we were preaching in Salyersville at the court house. The jail was located in the back of the courthouse and the prisoners in the jail couldn’t hear everything as clearly as they wanted. They pleaded with the jailer and within a few minutes, the jailer brought all the prisoners outside and arranged them under a tree for the rest of the evening’s programs. You talk about a captive audience. We sure had one that night.
Over the years, as we have return ed time after time to a county, deep friendships have developed between us and the mountain people. One day we stopped at the tiny town of Seco and I began to preach alongside the railroad tracks. A covey of children scurried into the house yelling, “ Mom, come on out. The preacher man is back, come out, quick!” At another place along highway 160 I stopped to visit a house after preaching, the family told me that their father had died since I was there last and he made all of them promise that they would welcome and help me in every way the next time I came back to preach. In the small community of Dwale, after preaching I visited an old couple in their 80’s. I left them a plain wooden cross and as I turned to leave the old man was in tears. “ I’m not afraid to die anymore,” he said, “ with your words in my heart and this cross in my hand, I know I shall be at peace with the Lord.” I had to cry a little myself. I can only pray that all the sum mers that are left to me will have a week or two set aside for me to be on the road again, talking about the goodness of God, surrounded by my mountain friends as together we rejoice in His Name. 3
The Lady and the Lake
Reflections on Summer Camp
Story and Photos by Margaret Gabriel
The Mountain Spirit
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T T ho of us would deny that one of our best childhood experiences was time at summer camp? The little things, like sitting around fires singing camp songs, listening to ghost stories, learning to swim, hiking through the woods, and just observing the world as God surely intended it to be are experiences that many people would not trade for anything. Years ago, before there was any organization known as the Christian Appalachian Project, Father Ralph Beiting perceived that time which children spent at camp in the summer could be valuable to them in a great number of ways. Time at summer camp could teach children intangible things; that it is important to get along with each other in the spirit of love and fair play; that they are valuable people in the eyes of God; that dreaming a dream is a worthwhile way to begin a life that they might not have conceived of other wise. In 1958 CAP’Sfirst summer camp was started at Cliffview Lodge in Garrard County. It started with six campers, two counselors, and a tarpaulin, and finished with dreams of expansion to include more children, more activities, and emphasis on the potential of each child involved—focusing on what they had, rather than didn’t have, what they could be, rather than what they could never be. In the 25 years since that small beginning, thousands of mountain children have been to summer camp, both at Cliffview Lodge, and then beginning in 1965 at Camp Andrew Jackson, near McKee in Jackson County. Cliffview Lodge is now a camp which serves deaf children from all over the state of Kentucky, the only camping program in the state to do so. Camp Andrew Jackson has an average of 68 campers a week from all over Eastern Kentucky.
July-August 1983
Along with the summer camping programs, CAP also operates Bible School during the sum mer months, Father Beiting’s annual street preaching trip through the small towns and hollers all through the mountains, and a home visiting program which attempts to make contact with as many families as possible, with information about CAP’S year round activities. Through these sum mer activities CAP has learned, over the years, of many of the needs of the people of the area, and in many cases, has taken steps to provide for those needs. But even without those objectives, it’s a spirit filled, exciting time of the year. A hundred or more temporary volunteers descend, beginning in early June, to staff the camps and the Bible Schools, to brave the sometimes tricky roads in volved in visiting the people in their homes, and to go out into the hollers with Father Beiting to sing, preach, and show God’s love for men and women. I n talking with some of the children who have participated in CAP’S Bible School and camp programs, our conversation kept drifting back to camp. They talked of some of the things they learn ed, enjoyed, and brought home with them. For many of the children who have been to camp, it is the first, and for some, the only time that they are ever away from home overnight. While Counselors and directors try to make camp as broadening as possible for the kids, the word that comes up most often when talking to campers is “ fun!” Leading the way for their favorite activity
Campers from all around the Appalachian area of Kentucky return from a hiking expedition around “ Lake Andrew Jackson.”
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is swimming, by quite a margin. Mona, age 12, told of the first time she went swimming. “At first, I was scared because I thought I wouldn’t come back up. Then, I saw everybody else jump, and they kept coming up, so I wanted to jump in, too, but I was still a little bit afraid. Then, this other girl showed me up a little, because she was afraid to jump off, too, but jumped off the diving board anyway. I didn’t want her to show me up, so I went to the diving board, bounced a little, then all of a sudden, I jumped. It made me feel proud.” Other camp activities include arts and crafts, Bible study, hiking, canoeing, but a perennial favorite is an event that occurs every year—the ceremonial tossing of the camp director, Ellen Burke, into the lake. “ Every Monday at camp there was a ‘Get the Camp Director’ play. Always I would have to be the monster, or get captured by pirates, or something like that. Of course, all the kids want to do is see me go in the lake,” Ellen laughed. “ As long as I go in the lake they don’t care what hap pens. Last year they killed me with poison Diet Pepsi, and I had to do this whole scene and fall out of the window. Then, my sister ‘Helen,’ who was me, dressed up and looking foolish, came for my funeral. After that whole charade, they found me again, and gave me this potion to try and bring me back to life. Well, of course, the potion was hateful! It had so much junk in it, I’d end up choking and bubbles would come out of my mouth. When the potion didn’t work, of course, I had to go in the lake. I do that all the time. I have to go in the lake. I guess if I didn’t it would ruin some kid’s whole summer!” After swimming, and throwing Ellen in the lake, it would have to be the counselors who make the biggest impression on the kids. “ I’d like to be like Mark some day,” said Renee, age 13. Mark is now a permanent volunteer in Martin. “ He was kind, and if you didn’t know how to do something he’d help you. I was trying to learn how to dive and he was really patient with me. “ I liked Peggy Abate,” Keith, age 9, added. “ She was nice, and she’d help you in arts and crafts, and she even got me a toothbrush once.” Mona said that the kids like for counselors to be patient with children, and help kids who are handicapped and can’t help themselves, “ and teach us things that we don’t know, but we should.” The children supposed that the counselors keep coming back to camp because they enjoy helping children to learn things like sewing, square dancing, arts and crafts, and perhaps, how to be fair with each other. “ We learned to talk about problems, if we wanted to fight with somebody, and not to take sides. Not to be arguing and fighting all the time, but just to 6
. . I had to do this whole scene and fall out o f the window. Then, my sister, ‘Helen, ’ who was me dressed up and looking foolish . . . ” talk it over,” said Renee. A veteran camper, Ken neth, age 16, said that during his years at camp, “ I learned to respect others, and to care for old people, and be nice to my friends. We learned to respect each other after we got home from camp, too.” B u t camp is not just for swimming, hiking, and throwing Ellen in the lake. Each day a certain amount of time is set aside for discussions about God, too. “ Sometimes we don’t even have to talk about God,” Renee observed. “ On a hike, we see the birds fly overhead, and see that God put things like that down on earth.” What if there wasn’t any camp? the kids were asked. How would that be? It wasn’t a very popular idea. Mona said, “ I would be sad. Some children, if they don’t go anywhere and don’t have any fun they’ll go get in trouble. They wouldn’t have any fun, and it would be a boring summer with no games and nothing to play.” Renee said, “ it would be kind of awful if we didn’t have camp. You don’t see people getting into that much trouble. If kids don’t have anything to do, a lot of times, that’s what gets them in trouble. They might go and knock over something.” Sandy, age 12, said, “ it gives kids who haven’t ever been anywhere a privilege, and if they don’t know how to swim or sew or make things, it teaches them. When you go to camp, you learn things. Then, when you go other places, and people ask you if you know how to swim or sew, you can say ‘yes.’ It makes you feel glad and important.” The Mountain Spirit
It’s difficult, if not impossible to measure exact ly what it is that camp does for kids. A counselor or a director never really knows what it is that will make the biggest impression on a child. Ellen commented, “ I don’t feel that our impact is going to be something so tangible, that I can say ‘hey, this kid’s totally changed.’ I’ve seen kids change a lot while they were at camp, but sometimes I’m not sure if it’s just for a week. We had this one kid who was a really tough cookie. He was from Jackson County. Well, one week, he won the Christian Witness Award. If anyone outside of camp ever heard he won the Christian Witness Award, they would die! This boy has probably never been recognized in that vein, ever in his whole life. The nice thing about camp is that they come, and they can be who they are, be accepted, but in a good way. I think camp brings out the best in kids.” Renee’s favorite memory from camp proves Ellen’s point. For all that the kids love swimming, arts and crafts, and hiking, Renee’s best experience at camp was something kind of intangible. “ One night we all got together and sang songs, and we made a camp fire, and we all just talked to each other and made friends with the people we didn’t know. We were just sharing with each other—all different things. We just shared what we knew with people we hadn’t known before.” That perhaps, may be the most important thing that a child can ever learn, and if it is one of the things that a child can learn at summer camp, then CAP can be proud that it may have played a small part in that learning experience. cap. Top of the page, campers try water tricks with a patient counselor. Above, the six through eight year old group attacks a pinata full of goodies. Below, a solitary but serene young man enjoys the beauty of Jackson County.
July-August 1983
Letters
Received the May-June issue of The Mountain Spirit yesterday. Just finished reading it cover to cover. Now I’ll share it with my pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. Enclosed are two requests for subscriptions. Could you please start them with the May-June issue as we are particularly interested in our nephew reading Before the Rivers Ran Black as he works in mining as did his father and grand father (both killed in coal mining accidents in Illinois)?
In your March-April 1983 edition of The Mountain Spirit, on the cover is a picture of my grandfather and me when I was small. He died July 3, 1980 of cancer. I truly miss him so I would like a copy of this edition. I live in Ohio so I couldn’t find your magazine. My sister-inlaw sent the cover picture but I would like a magazine. How much would your magazine cost? I would like to buy one. Shay la Brown Hamilton, OH
My husband and I are both retired and we look forward to each issue. God bless you all. Mrs. Allan W. Potepan Seal Beach, CA Our September-October issue, which will contain the concluding section o f Before the Rivers Ran Black, will focus on coal mining in Eastern Kentucky. We have also heard from Barbara Nauer, President o f the Catholic Writers and Artists Guild in New Orleans, who reports that our magazine evoked powerful memories o f her youth in the coal fields o f Illinois.
We have sent a number o f copies your way. The remarkable photo o f you and your grandfather surfaced from our archives, and was taken by Rev. Beiting, our President. We wondered who you were, and were delighted that you surfaced also! We are also happy when The Moun tain Spirit discovers ties all over the country!
It makes me very happy to read about the efforts of the Christian Appalachian Project and its support ers. I’m glad to be able to help in the small ways I can.
After arduous inquiry, our secretary Phyllis Underwood has learned that “Old Kentucky” overalls are no longer manufactured, alas! Round here, most folks wear “Key” overalls, which are made in Ft. Scott, Kansas.
Letters to the editor are welcome.
I feel the true test of literature is not the degree of entertainment it creates, but rather the amount and sincerity of empathy. You have aced the test!
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Second, on the cover of the MarchApril 1983 Mountain Spirit there is a picture of an Appalachian grand father and child. I am interested in finding out who I could write to find out where I could purchase some “ Old Kentucky” overalls such as the ones the gentleman is wearing. I want to buy some for my dad. I would really appreciate any infor mation you can provide.
Barbara J. Vance San Jose, CA
This has become, increasingly, an excellent publication, with real, un stilted literature worth preserving. There’s only one problem I have: reading it stirs longings for my own historical past in central Iowa and yearning for a simpler way of life I cannot return to. Or can I?
Barbara K. Macy Goleta, GA
First, I want to say how much I enjoy The Mountain Spirit. I am from Kentucky but have lived in California most of my life. I have heard all the stories over the years, though, from my parents about the rough living conditions of some of my relatives in Kentucky. They have also told me about the good things. Your magazine makes me feel closer to my “ roots.” I have ordered a gift subscription for my dad. I know he will be very happy to receive it.
Cover, March-April ’83 issue.
They should not exceed 250 words in length, and we reserve the right to edit them fo r space. Address letters to The Mountain Spirit, Christian Appalachian Project, 322 Crab Or chard Road, Lancaster, Kentucky 40446. The Mountain Spirit
He's N ot Different, He's My Brother
Appalachian people resist placing m em bers o f their fam ilies in institutions. Their view ap proxim ates that o f the Russian peasants a century ago who regarded the m entally retarded as “holy ones'' sent by G od. To refuse hospitality to such a person in Russia was regarded as a grave sin. The sam e reverence f o r life exists in Appalachia, as we believe is illustrated in the follow in g story by Beverly Carter Sexton about her brother, Herschel Carter (above, in a childhood p h o to and today on his m other's m ountain farm ).
Story and Photos by Beverly Carter Sexton.
July-August 1983
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A
i . A . few years ago, I was working as a waitress in a small restaurant here in Rockcastle County. An elderly couple came in with a retarded boy. The other waitress working with me ex claimed she wasn’t waiting on their table. It never dawned on me at the moment why she said that. I just figured she knew the people and had personal reasons for not wanting to serve them. So I took their order and served them their meal. When they left, they gave me a dollar tip. The other waitress looked after them in disgust as they drove away and said, “ they shouldn’t be allowed to bring ‘those’ kind of people into a public place!’’ Then it hit me full force that she was referring to the retarded boy. Through my anger I faced her and replied, “ I have a brother who is one of ‘those’ kind of people.” My brother, Herschel Fredrick Carter, looks like any 37 year old man. After talking with him, however, you would quickly realize that inside that man’s body is a very loving and trusting ten year old boy. He was already eight years old when I was born, but from my earliest childhood memories of him, he never seemed to be older than me. I don’t know when I realized Herschel was different from my other brother or sister. It may have been that I heard someone mention the word ‘retarded’ as they talked of him. However it came about, I know there came a time when I started asking Mom questions concerning Herschel. He was her fourth child. Her first baby died when he was only eight months old while Daddy was still in the navy. She felt her whole life had collapsed around her. She has always had an un wavering inner strength and her life went on as it had to. By the time she had her second child, a son, Daddy was home from the navy for good. Once more she looked toward a bright future.
In an old family photo, Herschel and his special pal, his older sister, Millicent. 10
Two years later she had a daughter and within eighteen months she had Herschel. It was a dif ficult birth and the doctor said he was a blue baby. Mom remembers the agonizing minutes as the doctor worked with Herschel trying to get him to breathe. After what seemed an eternity to her, she heard him let out a choked cry. He was breathing. Later, as she held him in her arms, he looked per fect. Not even the doctor knew there was anything wrong. During the following months he was sick a
I can remember thinking how much more fortunate Herschel was than these people trapped in their own ignorance. I have never pitied Herschel but I pitied those who made fun of him. They are the ones who are mentally deficient in their lack of compassion, love, and understanding.
lot and when he was two years old he got rickets. His doctor gave Mom little hope for his recovery, and told her that if he pulled through at all he would probably be crippled for the rest of his life. Mom didn’t accept what the doctor said. Her faith in God and her own determination willed him to live. She sat by his bed through the long nights in to the early morning hours, rubbing his bent legs and holding her hand under his rounded spine. For hours upon end she pressed and molded his little legs and backbone, praying and willing them into straight healthy bones. Thanks to God and Mother’s love, he recovered with no physical defects. As he grew older, she knew he was different but inside she couldn’t accept the truth: that he was mentally retarded. When he was old enough, she sent him to a regular school but he was sent home. The teacher advised Mom to take him to a doctor. That began the numerous trips to a series of doc tors. He was given hearing tests. He was fitted with special shoes because he fell a lot. He received prescription glasses. Finally he was referred to a psychiatrist who told Mom that Her schel was mentally retarded. The truth, at last, had to be faced. “ It was hard to accept,” she says. “ I cried and I hurt for a long time, but we had to go on and do what was best for Herschel.” She never once considered putting him into an in stitution. She knew he needed special training but it had to be a place where he could come home every evening. So she found a deaf school that took him in. There he learned to talk and was taught how to behave in a classroom. After the deaf school she placed him in a special class in the public school where Franklin and Millicent (his The Mountain Spirit
remarks begin. I can remember thinking how much more for tunate Herschel was than these people trapped in their own ignorance. I have never pitied Herschel but I pitied those who made fun of him. They are the ones who are mentally deficient in their lack of compassion, love, and understanding. We all made it through those difficult years, and Herschel passed through his phase of unrest. One thing that helped Herschel was the kindness and patience of our neighbors. Thankfully not all people are like Herschel and his niece, Jennifer Carter, in a game of pitch and catch. the ones I came across in high school. There are good people everywhere but I have never met any more so than older brother and sister) went. Although Millicent those who live right around me. was only a little over a year older than Herschel, she became his little guardian angel. He had nose Herschel is a strong, healthy man who needs to bleeds quite often during school and she was get out of the house like anyone else. He loves to always there to help him. If someone tried to pick work and take long walks. He wants and needs a on him, she was there to stick up for him and certain amount of independence. He gets out on protect him. Even now, there remains a special his own every day, walking the road, visiting with bond between Herschel and Millicent. all the neighbors, and doing odd jobs for those who have need of him. He enjoys working in When Herschel was fourteen he had gone as far tobacco and helps everyone with their crop but as he could in school. He had developed one person in particular he likes working for is remarkably through dedicated teachers and a Donald Bullock. Donald has always been fair with loving family. He could read primary books, write Herschel and at the end of the year, when he gets his name, count money, and do simple arithmetic. his tobacco check, he buys Herschel something he In 1963 Daddy died suddenly of a heart attack. needs. Last year he got him a new coat. The year Franklin was in the navy, Millicent was preparing before he got him a new coat and a pair of cowboy to graduate from high school, and I was nine boots. He does this in addition to paying Herschel years old. We have always been a very close family a little throughout the year for his work. This past and his death was very traumatic for all of us. I don’t really know how it affected Herschel. He He is a constant light of goodness in a was quiet through the funeral but in the months world full of envy, hatred, and strife. that followed he began to have violent outbursts. We were living in Newport, Kentucky, at the time and Mom, seeking emotional support for herself spring, Donald sowed his tobacco bed, placed the and her family, moved us all to Rockcastle County insecticide cans inside and covered it with canvas. where she was born and raised, to be close to her He told Herschel he was returning the next day to mother and father. Millicent married shortly puncture it—meaning he was going to release the afterward and that left only Mom, Herschel, and gas. Herschel misunderstood and early the next myself at home. Herschel became increasingly morning he arrived at the bed and punched holes more difficult to handle. Everyone thought Mom all over the canvas, completely destroying it. should institutionalize him but Mom wouldn’t Donald never told us about it, he never jumped on hear of it. During this time, I became a teenager Herschel, he just bought new canvas and covered and started high school. There I came to know it again. It got back to me in a round-about way, how cruel and thoughtless some people can be. but when I hear things like this, I realize how un Some of the students who knew Herschel would derstanding our neighbors can be and I’m thank make fun of him and mock him. These were not ful we live here. children, for all children loved Herschel, they were Herschel can do some pretty aggravating things. young adults as I was. The school bus would stop One year he carried three bushels of sweet and in front of my house and if Herschel was Irish potatoes out of Mom’s cellar and gave them anywhere in sight I would hear their mindless July-August 1983
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away. He is also terrified of doctors or dentists and hasn’t been to either since he was a child. A couple of years ago he developed a terrible toothache and no amount of persuasion on our part could convince him to let us take him to the doctor. He disappeared for a couple of hours and when he returned he was holding his tooth in the jaws of a pair of pliers. He had pulled it himself. Mom says Herschel is a blessing to all of us and I know that is so very true. He has brought an un derstanding and compassion to us for our fellow man that we may never have realized without him. I am glad he is here for my children to grow up with and love. I know they will be better people from having known him. I live next door to Mom and every evening when my ten year old daughter gets home from school, Herschel comes over. He will pat me on the head, ask how I am and then tell my daughter to get out the cards or some other game she has lying about.
Above, an early picture of the Carter family; left to right, Franklin, Herschel, Mrs. Carter holding Beverly, and Millicent. Below, Herschel and Beverly’s daughter, Chastity, playing an afterschool game of “ Sorry.”
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I can’t imagine life without Herschel. He is a constant light of goodness in a world full of envy, hatred, and strife. He goes about his way oblivious of the turmoil around him. The world as we see it is not the world Herschel lives in. The children can share it for awhile, but they too change and grow older and that world is left behind them forever. He, however, will always possess that inner peace and innocence that we must lose with the passing of our childhood. Herschel Fredrick Carter is a remarkable in dividual. He is compassionate and gentle, but more than all, he is my brother and I love him.
The Mountain Spirit
Editorial No Heroes, No Civilization Several years ago pollsters asked high school and college youths to name famous people they admired as great men or heroes. The results were appalling, but in view of the times, predictable. The over whelming majority could not name a single figure from past or present that commanded their attention or demanded their emulation. Twelve or more years in public or private schools had served neither head nor heart in this respect. Their homes, where television reigns, had failed them as well. As a young Catholic in West Virginia, I spent my early years hearing and reading stories of the Saints. Images, statues, paintings, and stories surrounded us in the school. Here and there a spark flew in the caverns of our imaginations, and we saw a flash of something beyond ourselves, the flint and steel of greatness in spirit. St. Isaac Jogues, St. Francis Xavier, St. Boniface, and St. Patrick marched through our hearts and left their deep impressions on the soul. They spoke of courage, devotion, chastity, fortitude, adventure. Through them we learned that moral greatness makes man man.
just yet, but through history we began to know Washington, Jeffer son, Lincoln, and Robert E. Lee. During high school and college, the pantheon enlarged to admit literary and scientific heroes, great monarchs and emperors, and artists of all kinds. And since I was born nine months before Germany invaded Poland, I was awed early on by Churchill and Roosevelt as well as by the heroes of the battlefield. Family tales enriched pioneer days with stories of our connection to Davy Crockett, and Simon Kenton, and soon a sense grew in me that there was indeed a past, a past that had something to do with me. In and beyond college, I became more conscious of how heroes feed and develop the heart of man. Through great teachers, the con duits of civilization, I came to love the great words and deeds of men like Augustine, Aquinas, Johnson, Dante, Lee, Benedict, Chesterton, and Belloc. Though for a while I lost my way and gave my heart to false gods, I learned in time that if life is a pilgrimage to eternity (and it is), it is wisdom to choose good companions for the way and to develop the soul, as Plato and the Bible teach, through “ praises of famous men.”
A portrait of Pope Pius XII hung on the wall, and the weekly reader revealed that he began each day at 5 AM with Mass followed by black coffee and black toast. Perhaps out of all proportion, this fact im pressed my seventh grade mind as evidence of superhuman greatness. But not all the figures were saintly, nor should they be, lest we lose hope. As in Dante’s Paradiso, there is a hierarchy of human virtue, ranked according to the greatness of the soul’s love. Lovers, poets, soldiers, politicians, teachers, mystics —all have their place.
Each of the men I have named (for boys and men choose men as heroes, and no feminist need be mif fed) distinguished themselves by profound moral and spiritual vision and great deeds that expressed it. They were, each, completely and authoritatively themselves, yet each honored the things that ought to be honored in this life, in piety and heroic presence of mind. They believed in Truth, and sought to teach it. Each was a faithful Christian who fought for the Faith. None would tolerate nonsense. Each would roar like a lion and frighten the foolishness out of the culture around them, and against today’s piddling rosters of small minds, they stand as giants.
The nuns at Sacred Heart School were not prepared to let us know too much about the lovers and poets
In our day the heroic vision of man has been denigrated almost to extinction, or parodied by cults of
July-August 1983
Dr. Ken Craven, Editor
instant stardom and cheap promi nence, or perverted by alien and false ideologies. It is not that we do not have heroes and saints (God in His Mercy continues to send them forth), but that as a culture we do not see them, and do not allow our children to see them. Our com parisons now are all “ downward,” as Robert Frost observed, to the apes and not to angels or God. We have handed over a generation to the sickness of punk rock and other unmentionables, and we continue to permit our institutions to glorify perverts and scoundrels, animality and mediocrity. Where there are no heroes, there will be no civilization. If we would do something about it, we could do no better than to imitate the pattern of Mr. Bob Lange of Casper, Wyoming, who for twenty years has made his tiny book shop a hearth for the firing of the imaginations of the young. Or Doctor John Senior at the University of Kansas, whose fine teaching has chiseled many a mind into an instrument for truth, with them, let us now sing the praises of famous men for this generation, that in the next there will be something to turn to.—RKC. 13
The CAP Closeup
In 1968 a young girl about to begin college arrived in McKee, Kentucky from West Nyack, New York to investigate a project she had heard about through Sodality at her high school. For a week she worked in Jackson County, hoeing strawberries and Christmas trees and observing the people around her. “ On my way back I was so tired I fell asleep on take-off. But right then, I decided that after I finished college, I wanted to do volunteer work.’’
Craven
Ellen Burke, CAP’s co-director of Human Development, returned to Kentucky in March of 1973, her degree in elementary education in tow, for a year of volunteer work at the CAP Child Development Center in Berea. That year stretched to two, then became another eight, as a CAP em ployee. “ I like the rural lifestyle. If I was really brave, I guess I would have gone to New York. But I have good friends here, and CAP has really allowed me to grow up. Not pushed, or anything, but allowed me to grow in the organization. “ Sometimes I feel that people look at me, or look at anybody who volunteers as somebody special. I don’t really, truly believe that. I feel it’s harder to be a good secretary, or a good mother, day after day after day after day, like my sister, than me coming down and being a volunteer. I think I’ve been given an opportunity other people wish they had. “ My family has always encouraged me, let me be who I am. My mother told me after I’d been here two years, then three years, that my father kept asking ‘when is she coming home?’ My mother finally told him ‘I don’t think she’s coming home to live.’ But without their support, I wouldn’t be here.”
Ellen Burke f(A Regular Person ’’
Despite her responsibilities in Human Development, which include managing all of the child development centers, adult handicapped programs, deaf services, emergency assistance, and elderly programs, Ellen has one of the wackiest senses of humor that you are likely to find in the whole organization. “ We have this song at school, ‘Old Dan Tucker.’ It goes, ‘Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man, washed his face in a frying pan, combed his hair with a wagon wheel, died with a toothache in his heel. ’
by the CAP News Service
14
The kids love that song, and it’s a mountain song, so we sing it a lot. One day I drew teeth on my heel, so there we are singing this song, and I’m pretending to be Old Dan, and all of a sudden I take my sock off, and there’re teeth on my heel, and the kids are screaming, ‘Ellen! Where’d you get those teeth on your heel?’ And I was holding my heel and yelling and hollering. I like to do The Mountain Spirit
things like that. I’ve driven around in the van, picking up the kids for school with a giant orange teddy bear in the front seat, talking to it, and all that. The people look at me like, ‘oh, my gosh!’ When I was younger I wouldn’t do those things. I was embarrassed. Now that I’m older, I think, ‘well, who cares?’ As long as the kids get a kick out of it, that’s why I do it.” In “ Ellen’s School,” which is the in-house name for the CAP Child Development Center in Berea, opportunity seems to be the name of the game. “ Different is a good word in our school. Each of those little people is treated with dignity and respect, and they respond well to that. They don’t all become genuises, but we try to teach them all to draw upon their strengths and minimize their developmental weaknesses. As we build up the self-concept in the children, we see a different attitude in the parents, as well. We had one child who was told by his family how bad he was all the time. In school he acted great, very kind and sensitive. I think we helped his parents see the good things about him. He’s no longer the bad boy. I feel his family sees him in a different light now, and this child has a better chance to succeed because he doesn’t have to live up to the label of being bad.” Ellen’s position as co-director of Human Development is a new change for her, having moved into the job in early January from her for mer responsibilities as director of the child development center in Berea. “ I really had to think about it. I wasn’t too thrilled about it to begin with, because I enjoyed teaching. I’m glad I left teaching while I enjoyed it, though, because now I can always go back to it. It was a really dif ficult decision for me to make. The kids are so im portant to me. I knew I was going to miss those hugs and them calling me various and sundry things. It’s still difficult. I feel I have a gift and it’s been developed a long time, so now I’ll do training and other things that will use those gifts. Being an ‘executive’ is hard, at times. Being in an office took me a while to get used to. In child develop ment, I was used to the day being broken up into 20 minute blocks of time. This new job is challenging, though. It’s difficult, with a lot more pressure, and meetings, and being more aware of people’s feelings. It’s different ball game. I’ll make a lot of mistakes, and I know there are a lot of things I have to learn, but I hope I never get really comfortable because that means I need to change. I don’t ever want to feel complacent in my job.” A big aspect of Ellen’s life right now is her par ticipation in the foster parents’ program in Madison County. Ellen has had two foster children in the past, and has just taken on her July-August 1983
Ellen works on an arts and crafts project with an Andrew Jackson camper.
third. “ I thought about it for two years before I became a foster parent. I went to the Department of Human Resources, and kept on going in, asking questions. Family’s always been important to me, because of my own family. Finally I decided that I was going to have a family whether I was married or not. I think I’d eventually like to adopt, but still, there’s a need for good foster parents. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but my family and friends have been great support. Some of the reasons I went into it were selfish—I wanted to be loved specially. That’s the truth. I wanted somebody in my life that I could love specially, and they could love me back specially. It’s dif ficult; parenting is probably the first thing I’ve ever done that made me feel inadequate. I was always good at things—in sports I was always pretty good, in school I got good grades. It’f tough when I feel like I’ve failed people. It’s get ting easier, because it forces me to admit I’m not perfect. We all know we’re not, but we try to be. When we’re not perfect, we sometimes persecute ourselves too much for that. I think it’s the hard est job anybody will ever have, being a good parent.” Describing the time in her life when she left the volunteer ranks, and became a CAP employee, Ellen likes to say that she became a “ regular per son.” But look at her overwhelming sense of care, compassion, sense of humor, and general love of life and people: one can see that, try though she may, she will never be a “ regular person.” cap. 75
Appalachian
Artsand_ Culture
by R. Kenton Craven Book Review: For the Beauty o f the Earth, by Kenneth Klassen, Anne Patrick, Diane Dickerson, and James Leek. St. Paul’s Publishing Co., Inc. P.O. Box 772, Fort Scott, Kansas 66071. Student Anthology and Teacher’s Manual. 1983. $5.95 and $18.95 plus shipping cost. Summer is the season of the child. It is the time when in hollows, on prairies, on creeks and streams and in forests, around barns and sheds and railroad tracks, children can move apart from the madding crowd and mull over the world in moments of wonder. In small towns and villages across America, on the flats of Kansas or in the hills of Ap palachia, that adventure of the soul is still possible, but it must be cultivated by the culture of the adults around them. In a traditional or sane society, that activity in the life of a child is viewed as an essen tial element in the tutoring of the spirit, as something that genuine education should feed, foster, and guide. For wonder is the opening of the soul to the real, both natural and supernatural; it is in wonder that the soul of man suspends its own in clinations and beholds the thisness of the things it sees. Wonder at the goodness and beauty and trueness of things points to praise, and praise can lead to God, the Author of Being. The child wondering at the flower may become a teacher or 16
farmer or pastor, but it is his fidelity to the avenue of wonder that will shape him as saint or rascal. In our society, utility has been pushed so far that wonder is choked off—utility in economics, in education, in family life, in politics, in morality, even in the churches. “ Getting and spending,” the poet Wordsworth wrote, “ we lay waste our powers.” Even the natural world is reduced to cash value, as if the planet were the province of realtors only. As a result, what may begin well in the child may be stifled before it can reach fulfillment—a fulfillment which leads the child to rational and spiritual grasp of the wonders glimpsed “ in the splendour of the grass.” So while it may seem odd for The Mountain Spirit to review a text book born in the flatlands of Kan sas, we have chosen to do so because we believe the truths it teaches are consonant with what The Mountain Spirit seeks to evoke—a return to the perennial allegiances of man: honor, duty, hard work, family tradition, love of land, love of coun try, and love of God—and, we might add, an attitude of meditative and philosophical reflection. Poetry, history, philosophy, theology—the great ways of knowing—are born in wonder. In the view of the authors of For the Beauty o f the Earth, which is of
fered as a supplement for science programs in the elementary schools, true science is also born in wonder. For them, the enemy of our children’s souls is not science but scientism, the materialistic attitude toward the natural world. If science is taught properly, they believe, it will not destroy but enhance won der, but it can be taught properly only by those who are themselves spiritually integrated “ to see the world in a grain of sand,” and “ eternity in an hour.” Such teaching must proceed from a vision of man which blends heart, imagination, reason, and will. Otherwise schools become the provinces of Charles Dickens’ Gradgrind, who thought a horse the sum of its parts. For the Beauty o f the Earth is, surprisingly, an anthology of traditional literature—from authors like Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Ten nyson, Aesop, and Hans Christian Andersen—designed to be used as a supplement for any major science text (grades one through six). The anthology is accompanied by a teacher’s manual that can be used by teachers, parents, pastors, or others interested in “ seeing the world steadily and seeing it whole.” The study questions, exer cises, projects, introductions, and illustrations will help children pur sue the matters of science in a way The Mountain Spirit
around the project
by the CAP News Service
Mountain Christian Academy Opens This Fall in Martin
MARTIN—The Mountain Christain Academy will open on schedule in Martin, Floyd County, on Sep tember 12, 1983. The Rev. Ralph Beiting, President of the Christian Appalachian Project, reports that the building of the school has com menced, and that official ground breaking ceremonies were held on June 5, at 1:00 P.M. in Martin. The first phase of the construc tion of the Academy will complete classrooms for Kindergarten and Day Care through the ninth grade. Grades 10, 11, and 12 will be added in the three succeeding years, as ad ditional units in the building program are completed. Com munity education programs such as GED, extension courses, and a job training and placement center should be in place by the fall of 1984. One hundred and fifty-six students have pre-registered for Kindergarten through ninth grade, and this num ber is expected to increase by the fall opening. Projected enrollment in all programs should exceed 400 by 1986. Students will be drawn from all income levels, with students from lower income groups receiving sub stantial scholarships and other aid. When the Academy is completed on the handsome 15 acre site, it will have been the result of a joint effort between the Christian Appalachian Project and local community leaders and parents in a five county area. CAP will make an initial outlay of building expenses and operating expenses through the generosity of its donors around the nation, while substantial matching funds are being raised by com munity leaders and parents. 18
Eight community committees ap pointed by the Board of Directors of the separately incorporated Aca demy are working closely with Father Beiting on every aspect of the school’s formation, which is direct ed toward grass roots cooperation between parents and faculty. Mr. David Neeley, an Attorney in Floyd County, heads the Board of Direc tors. The search continues for a qualified Headmaster, but Father Beiting expects Headmaster and staff to be hired very shortly. While the Christian Appalachian Project will continue to act as landlord and as support group to the Academy, the goal is to maximize local control of the Academy, which will em phasize religious values, quality education, strong discipline and family involvement, and community service. The Mountain Christian Academy will be an ecumenical Christian school in which students from all denominations will receive religious instruction in their own traditions, while the entire academic program will reflect traditional Christian values. The completed program for the Academy will provide quality education K through 12, with ac
cessory programs aimed at adults who desire to improve themselves through further learning. Nursery and Day Care facilities will free working parents, and attempt to in volve families as much as possible in the educational goals of the Academy. Inquiries concerning the Academy may be directed toward the Moun tain Christian Academy, P.O. Box 1120, Martin, Ky. 41649. Donations (sorely needed!) may be sent to CAP via the envelope in the fold of the magazine. Be sure to indicate that your contribution is earmarked for the Academy.
In Memoriam The “ News of Our Neighbors” department in the May-June issue of The Mountain Spirit featured a story about Tom Conlon, an 82 year old volunteer who lived and worked at St. Paul Church in Jackson County. On May 23, 1983 Tom died at Patty A. Clay Hospital in Richmond after a short illness. We pray that the Lord will welcome Tom to his new home with open arms, as Tom welcomed God’s children here on earth. The Mountain Spirit
Home Visiting Takes Volunteers On the Road LANCASTER—Volunteer coor dinator, Marie Vanasse, has the responsibility this year for the home visiting which goes on each summer in several of CAP’s counties. “ We’ll be home visiting this sum mer in Floyd, Rockcastle, Garrard, and Pulaski counties. Ideally, we’d like to have three teams of two in each county,” Marie said. “ If we have two teams of two, we’ll be doing very well, if we have one team of two we will be grateful! It depends a lot on the availability of cars, and that kind of thing.” CAP has been exploring the hollers of the counties in which it serves for many years, and in many years home visiting has brought new discoveries of the needs which are present in the counties. Marie went on to explain that “ there is a twofold purpose for home visiting. First, to become aware of our neighbors in each county and let them know about the services that CAP has to offer, also to hear from the needs that they have, that we might be able to address. Secondly, we use it as a vehicle to meet children who might be interested in attending summer camp and Bible School.”
Temporary volunteers always seem to love the assignment of home visiting. It’s an opportunity for them to get out, wander the back roads, and hollers, and to meet many, many people. And it’s not uncommon for a permanent volun teer, or staff person, to be asked at any time during the year, “ what happened to that nice gal who came to visit me in the summer?”
CAP Holds Spring Art Contest LANCASTER—In honor of a beautiful spring, CAP sponsored an art contest for employees’ children in April. Twenty-six children en tered the contest, submitting works in media including crayon, water color, felt markers, and pencil. The theme for the artwork was “ Spring.” The contest was the idea of Ed Wardle, CAP’s director of person nel, and was coordinated by his secretary, Kathy Jones. CAP was honored to have Diane Greer, art teacher at Garrard County High School, as judge for the event. First place winners were Lawania Eden daughter of Vickie Eden in the Pre school category; Lawavia Eden, daughter of Vickie Eden in the 1-3
The greatest majority of the traveling is done by temporary volunteers, people who come into the area for three weeks to three months. “ We’ll have permanent volunteers taking charge until the temporaries get their feet wet, but we’d like to get a good ‘temp’ in each county, who can be directed, until they can gradually take over.” It’s difficult to give a permanent volunteer to this assignment, because they’re all pretty busy, but when we spot a responsible tem porary coming down the pike, that would be fine.” Home visiting takes place from late in May until the middle to the end of July. July-August 1983
grade category; Derrick Ingram, son of Barbara Ingram in the 4-6 grade category; and Kate Begley, daughter of Bill Begley in the 7-9 grade category. Ed Wardle commented, “ we hope to make this an annual con test—everyone seemed to enjoy it. The judge said it was difficult to judge the winners, that all the en tries were very good.” The Moun tain Spirit congratulates the winners and wishes them well in future ar tistic endeavors.
Walking Straight Walking Tall CRAB ORCHARD—Clintie Lee Wilson is walking taller and straighter these days, thanks to teamwork from CAP employees and the continuing generosity of CAP donors. Marilyn Stefanski, Director of CAP’s “ Parents are Teachers” program, which assists parents with handicapped children (see The Mountain Spirit, July-August 1982), discovered Clintie Lee three years ago when a CAP volunteer was called on to rush him to the hospital. Born with an open spine, Clintie had had a “ shunt” surgically plant ed in his small body, but the shunt had ceased to function, causing him great pain. During and after the hospital experience, CAP workers came to take a special interest in Clintie Lee. Over the last few years, Marilyn has worked with Clintie’s family to coax Clintie into more and more physical and mental development. The challenge was to get him to walk.
Kathy Jones makes awards
When Marilyn described the problems to Bill Begley, Director of Development, he had an idea. The thought was to provide Clintie Lee with a set of parallel bars to help him develop muscles and coor dination. Hitherto Clintie has been 19
around the p r o je c t . . . continued
Marilyn Stefanski helps Clintie Lee “gets the feel”for his new parallel bars. In the background Donnie Underwood looks on, proudly. Lew as we wound our way past Wildie and up into the hills. The “ crew” for Rockcastle County presently consists of Fred Manzi, a native New Jerseyite who moved to the hills of Kentucky ten years ago and started farming and building a house from rough cut materials, and Dennis Gentry, a lifelong Rockcastle County resident.
limited to walking sideways, holding on to all available furniture. Direc tor of Maintenance and Economic Development Bill Watson provided the design, and Donnie Underwood, chief maintenance man, did the welding. Marilyn reports that Clintie Lee is doing well and improving rapidly with the delighted assistance of his grandfather, also named Clintie Lee, and originally a native of Harlan County.
According to Fred, the right way to do home repair or any apostolic work must include witnessing for Jesus Christ, knowing and loving the people one serves, and laughing and smiling through the troubles of each day. Stella Cope, whose house is one of two in the hollow CAP is serving with repairs this year, has lived in the hollow for 25 years, but was born in Climax, Ky., a few miles away. She has been to Ohio “ once,” but like many Appalachians, was drawn back home by the call of
simple ways. In the silence of the hollow, broken only by the sounds of children and roosters crowing, she agrees that Fred’s easy and win ning ways have made getting her home repaired a pleasant experience. Alone with her five children, she says that prayer and going to Baptist Churches “ is mostly what keeps me going.” Fred, who was a union electrician in his native New Jersey, came to the hills for a simpler life too. “ The other day, I was up under an old house working on some lady’s plumbing and doing things I would never have to do in the union. But I thought, I wouldn’t do this for anybody—unless Jesus was in the picture.” And that is what CAP’s Home Repair Program is all about—for Fred Manzi, and for Stella Cope of Cope Hollow on Davis Branch on the Wildie Road in Rockcastle County, Kentucky.
Coping in Cope Hollow COPE HOLLOW—The Moun tain Spirit spent part of a day during the Spring chasing down one of the CAP Home Repair Crews under the supervision of Lew Phillips, who directs the Home Repair Program in four counties. “ We do a lot of work in the win ter, naturally, but Spring is the time we really get rolling in home repair, trying to get as many homes as we can ready for the next winter,” said 20
Fred Manzi of the CAP Home Repair Program discusses plans for winterizing and repairing a mountain home with a resident of Rockcastle County.
The Mountain Spirit
Peacemakers” and “ Borned Again in Clay County,” which both ap peared in the November-December 1982 issue) made 1982, the first year of publication for The Mountain Spirit, a very successful start, in deed. Thanks to you, our readers, for your support and en couragement throughout 1982!
Sister Edna Marie Returns to Massachusetts MARTIN—In mid-March long time CAP volunteer, Sister Edna Marie, S.U.S.C., returned to her community of sisters at St. Mary Convent in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. During her three-year plus com mitment to the Appalachian people Sister Edna served the elderly in Garrard, Lincoln, and Madison counties, and worked in Martin as Father Beiting’s secretary. In May Sister Edna attended a chapter meeting to elect a new provincial for the community, and presently she is exploring areas and jobs where she may be of further service to God’s people
The Mountain Spirit The Magazine of the Christian Appalachian Project
The cover of the March-April 1982 issue, which was judged the best single color cover for 1982 by the Catholic Press Association (photo by Jordan).
The Mountain Spirit Wins CPA Awards PHILADELPHIA— The Moun tain Spirit was the recipient of four awards from the Catholic Press Association for 1982 at the CPA National Convention May 4-7. The awards included first place for the best single color cover (the March-April 1982 issue), third place for best single color cover (the January-February 1982 issue), second place for best single photo originating with the magazine (a photo of Mrs. Addie Ledford, which appeared in the May-June 1982 issue), and third place for July-August 1983
The Mountain Spirit thanks Sister Edna Marie for her service and Christian witness, and wishes her well in all future endeavors.
general excellence. The photos sub mitted in the cover and photo categories were taken by J. Ran dolph Jordan, former associate editor of The Mountain Spirit. The judges’ comments regarding the award for general excellence stated, “ Third place is awarded to The Mountain Spirit which captures ‘the spirit of mountain people, their lives, their character, culture, and history.’ A ‘splendid presentation, better than I have encountered anywhere else,’ said a judge. ‘Very well done, indeed,’ said another.” These honors, as well as the two reprints which appeared in the Catholic Digest (“ Blessed are the
Sister Edna Marie tends to her bookkeeping duties in Martin, Ky. 21
FICTION
Before the Rivers Ran Black The Journal o f Jeremiah Turlin: Part Two by R. Kenton Craven
In the second part o f Jeremiah’s Journal, Jeremiah Turlin reflects on the tremendous violence he had seen in his lifetime, and on the violence o f the mountains in general. A t the time o f his writing, the great mining wars o f Harlan County were about to climax. In Part I, Jeremiah recalled the Harlan County wilderness as it existed “before the rivers ran black. ” In 1910, young Jeremiah had heard the “tales o f the fathers” from grandfather Abraham. In that year, when Jeremiah was f i f teen, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad came to Harlan, and the world came to the mountains. In 1911 there were only 169 miners in Harlan County, and only 10,000 people. But by 1926 there were over 10,000 miners and over 80,000 people, most o f them jammed into newly con structed coal camps such as Lynch which alone held 10,000people. Harlan had been transformed almost overnight from a primitive economy based on furs, hides, ginseng, and timber to a mammoth industrial operation based on the black gold—coal. Moun tain families used to isolation and simplicity found themselves living in urban slum conditions, ex posed to as many o f the gewgaws and temptations o f modern culture as the railroad and the com pany store could bring them. Electricity came in the 20’s (my father helped wire many o f the coal camps). Roadhouses selling cheap moonshine sprang up everywhere. In 1916 the Harlan County Coal Operators Association was formed, with the single and singular intention o f keeping out the unions that were organizing throughout the coalfields. The 22
Coal Operators seized all extant government power, and then created some new powers the government hadn’t thought of. They controlled elections, stuffed ballot boxes, and hired killers and thugs to act as both police and mine guards— these were the infamous “gun thugs” o f the mine wars. They fixed scales to defraud men o f wages, cheated the miners again at the company stores, and ran a police state complete with censorship and spy systems that made sure neither news nor “outside agitators” could easily make it into Harlan County. After an initial boom, a depression set in. Hungry miners and their families drew closer together, sometimes forming their own towns, as at Evarts, and fought fo r unionization. Most o f them mountain men, they did not take kindly to the new world, either its cultural pressures or its imperious warlords. Even in the 'peaceful’ 20’s, the homicide rate fo r Harlan County was 77.6 in 100,000—five times that Capone’s Chicago. One in five men carried pistols on the streets (even today one still sees older men in Harlan, a .38 stuck in their breeches). Between 1931 and 1939 the war over unionization was fought in earnest, and the National Guard visited frequently. Peaceable assembly was outlawed in 1931. As the Spanish Civil War opened, the people o f the hollows along Black Mountain found themselves locked into a similar ideological struggle between “communist” unions and “capitalist” bosses. And as George Orwell observed o f the Spanish conflict, truth and language went their separate ways and played history the fool. The “old things” were dying in a paroxysm o f fury and despair. —RKC The Mountain Spirit
.pril 10, 1939. They are sayin’ that the whole country is lookin’ at Harlan and this here war ’twixt the operators and the unions, ’cause if the operators kin win here they can prob’ly win the whole turkey shoot. We done bin through this before, many times, as many times as the coal trains had rolled, and the grief has been in the homes hyar many a time. I wonder if they ever stop to think that the grief ain’t in the homes of the gun thugs and the soljers and the mine owners but in these clapboard shacks they guv people to live in where there has been wailin’ enough for many generations, and many a wife has throwed herself into the grave in these hills. When the whistle blows on the tipple, the women looks out to see if they’s a carryin’ her husband down the hollow. One of them union talkers has said that between 1906 and now there has been over 50,000 men kild in mine accidents in this country—and ever one of them accidents has been called an Act of God in the courts, as if God goes around smashing men with slate roofs and blowing them up with deenameet just for to make a show. But as if that ain’t enough, in some places they hires thugs to shoot us up some more for good measure. And Lord, why does it always have to be Harlan? There ain’t hardly a place left in this county where there ain’t been some kind of meaness or shootin’ or stabbin’ in the last fifteen years. On Sattidays the undertakers keep a wagon parked at the railroad station jes’ in case some of the passengers don’ need their return tickets. Oh yes, what ain’t done to us by the mines and the thugs and the guvamint in Frankfort, we step right out and do to ourselves, shootin’ men off the swinging bridges like they was possums. And add to that the
sickness from the years of bein’ starved out and locked out and pushed out, and you get the story. You ought to know it, boys, ‘cause Sarah Bliss, yer only sister, died a baby in my arms when they was no food and no doctor. Yes, I am a grim ol’ fellow and a cripple but I seen too much to be too rosy about things. Well, effen the whole country is a lookin’, let ’em look real close if they care to, let ’em see what there is to see. April 11, 1939. I hev had a lot of time to think about all this since the explosion in the Black Star mine where I left my leg as a memento of my ser vice, like. And back up hyar on the Turlin place, I kin watch the blue haze on the mountain top and talk to the Lord, even if Hosea don’ think I’m good enough to. Boys, hit runs deeper. Hit ain’t jes’ a war bet ween operators and unions. Yes, they is a war there, and you know I am a union man tried and true with John L. Lewis as my leader and Franklin Delano Roose-velt as my man. But they is a deeper war under the whole thing, like a rich seam in the mountain. You got to dig down deep to get it, and it takes sweat and time. And you, Jeremiah, Jr., keep these opinions of mine to you self. Ain’t no call spillin’ my mind all over the ridge. These boy’s don’ unnerstand me. With them hit is all on way or another, union or scab. But I hev come to see other things. Hit is like there was a big rattle tail snake all coiled up on the mountain of coal, lyin’ out in the open for ever man to see and ever man to shun. Now wunt you think, boys, that effen there was a snake like that,
. . we step right out,
Craven
and do it to ourselves, shootin ’ men o f f the swinging bridges like they was possum s. ”
m I
23
“ When the whistle blow s on the tipple, the women looks out to see if th e y ’s a carry in ’ her husband down the hollow. ”
ever body would be eyen it real sharp and stepin’ carefully to git around hit and watch out for enny friends it mought have in the vicinity. Now truth says thet is the way hit is in real life. Men knows what a pisunous snake is, and they do all they can to shun hit or kill it with a hoe.
Thousands of miners is bone determined that they’s goin to get that paper. The Union cain’t give in withouten losin’ ever where. And Smithfield, God bless him has his pride too. But the peoples cain’t eat his pride.
Now thet air snake is evil and hit has been since Eve cozied up to hit like hit was a play purty. But you watch the snake in the coal fields and see effen ever manjack with a foot won’t try to stick hit in that snake’s mouf. You watch, and see if ever one, union man and mine man, thug and sheriff, don’ try to lay down next to the snake and call it pretty names to hit’s face, an’ try to pick it up and carry it home with ‘em and say, “ nice snake, you and me can get along.’’ Yes, boys, hit is a war all right, but hit is a war ‘twixt Christ on high and Satan down in the earth movin’ to and fro’ and hit ain’t coal he wants, hit is fools. And we keep him well supplied. This here play was wrote in Eden gar den, and we keeps on a playin’ it like there ain’t no other play to play. I got to get my walkin’ crutch and milk the cow.
April 14, 1939. It is like there ain’t no reason to it all, hit is that play again, played over and over. When my brothers John and Jacob went to West Virginia in 19 and Ought Nine, they seen it all for the first time, up on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek. Lately I hev heerd of the doin’s in Bloody Mingo County and Sid Hatfield and the same ol’ gun thugs that shot my brother John down in 1920. But it sounds like the same show. First you hev men workin’ thirteen hours a day on their hands and knees in bad air askin’ for a better life for their families, and the next thing you know they air yellin’ Red at the union men. Then you get some real communists show up and live up to the tale. Then you get ol’ Mother Jones cornin’ in to whip up the troops with hate (John said he never heard a tongue more vile or words so hatin’ than came out of that woman’s mouth). Then you get all the local pufferbelly politicians standin’ up tellin’ folks that the Reds is in it and ever red blooded American ought to call the Governor and get the troops in to stop the Commies from destroyin’ the flag and the money supply. Then the Pinkerton thugs that is supposed to guard the women and the money comes in and thows miners and their families out on the tracks with no food or shelter, and shoots or pistol whips enny man that opens his mouth to say no. Then you get the young miners all lickered up and crazy for blood. And then you gets the snake again. And all the
April 12, 1939. Talk about the divil and fools, and here we go. Ever mine in Harlan County has bin dost since the strike all over the county on April 3. Ever one has been peaceful—well, mostly. All the mine owners in t ’other states has signed the papers with the UMW. But in Harlan, Bloody Harlan, the snake is about to hev a party. You wait. Today the Smithfields tried to open the Clover Fork mine, jes’ to test the waters. But a bunch of the boys showed up and re-advised on the matter, and they sluthered back a meet. But that’s jes’ the start. Hit means war again. 24
The Mountain Spirit
while, the poor man who jes’ wants pone on the table and shoes on the kids is left with his heart cryin’ for a better way. And all the while, some fat boys in New York is rakin’ in the coins. And the snake smiles, watchin’ the coffins pile up ever whar. This hyar beast has come to Harlan, but it wan’t made hyar. Hit was made somewheres else and fed a while afore it got big enough to eat Harlan. April 27, 1939. The Kentucky Cardinal Mine tried to open today. A thousand of the boys showed up and sealed hit off. It is gettin’ harder and harder to keep Jeremiah Jr. cooled off. He wants to blow somepn up. But the UMW boys is tryin’ to hunker down. They’s a little better at hit than that National Miners Union that was hyar in the ‘twenties. They was Reds for sure, and toP us there wasn’t no God after they had spilt our blood. That’s when we run them out too. Hit is hard enough in this life withouten believin’ in God. May 2, 1939. Smithfields tried it again at Clover Fork. They got themselves some more guards, and has talked many a miner into cornin’ back before it is too late. This time they mought get somewhere. People is gettin’ tired. My wife Lucy is a cryin’ all the time. May 3, 1939. The Clover Fork has been shet down again by the pickets, but Good Coal Mine opened up with a handful of miners and thugs. May 4, 1939. 1700 pickets has closed down the Good Coal Mine, but things are a gettin’ fiercer. If the union boys kin jes’ hold out and show ’em that this time Harlan County ain’t a goin’ to
break, there may be a contract. But today I heard a speaker on the streets of Harlan talkin’ against the Commies and the Unions and sayin’ we got to work hard and trust progress. I spit my chaw and stumped off. Now I know why they want to build gutters in the streets of Harlan, to carry off the trash that piles up down there. May 10, 1939. The big boys has got to Frank fort again with tales of the end of the world. And so the Governor Chandler is talking National Guard to break the strikers and “ restore order.” Whose order? May 13, 1939. Most of the holdouts all over the USA has now signed the UMW contract. Everywhere but Harlan. May 15, 1939. Miners has returned to the mines all over the mountains ’cept here in Harlan, and the boys is rovin’ restless round the hills jes’ like they did back in the Civil War days. And today, here they come, all bright and shiny, the Nashunul Guard, kindness of Governor Chandler and the boys in Frankfort and their friends. They done blocked off the borders to Virginia and Tennessee to keep union men from cornin’ in here to help. They has set up their machine guns and mortars all over, and nothin’ is moving on the roads withouten their say. The Governor says it is for order. But what it is, is politics again, to stop the strike and the keep the operators union-free. They air a tryin’ to break the back of the union oncet and fer all. But it all ain’t one way—yet. Some of the big places wants to sign the contract and get back to work. The holdouts are the local private mines, like Smithfield. Thet air LaFollete Com-
Berea College Archives
“A n d back up hyar on the Turlin place, I kin watch the blue haze on the mountain top and talk to the L o r d . . . "
July-August 1983
25
“ This hyar beast has com e to Harlan, but it wasn *t made hyar. H it was made somewheres else and fe d a while afore it go t big enough to eat Harlan. ”
mission has scared ‘em, they say, showing the truth about how the companies has used the mine guards and thug boys to keep men down and choke their rights. Leastways that is what I read in the Louisville papers I can get my hands on—the Harlan Daily Enterprise is owned by PV & K—one of the operators—and they prints jes’ what’s in their haids. But right now, it is hell and Harlan. Armed troops in the streets and on the roads, men afraid to talk, the bond of trust in the camps broken, and still no work. When the snake strikes, hit strikes, Jeremiah. Now is the time that will tell the dif ference—but will there ever be a difference in Harlan County? Lord, I pray for hope, I hope and pray. To be concluded.
The Mountain Spirit
No, Louis, everyone doesn't. But since its beginnings in January o f 1982, over 20,000 readers in fifty states have been reading it, and sharing it with friends, relations, ministers, priests, nuns, and Sunday School classes. Though most o f our readers are in small towns, Louis, even big city folks have been reading our magazine: Chicago (250), Cincinnati (222), New York (189), and Philadelphia (139). Lots o f them are people who used to live in the moun tains—and some o f them are just good friends o f CAP. And Christians o f nearly every denomination read us—Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Catholics, Pentecostals—you name it! But with costs rising fo r printing the magazine, we need more readers just to keep a balanced budget. Won’t you help spread The Mountain Spirit around the land by giving someone a gift subscription? Just fill out the form on the envelope in the fo ld o f the magazine, and we'll send the recipient a postcard indicating you as the donor! Oh, yes. Louis says, do you have any friends in Boston? His grandmother, Betty O'Donnell, lives there, but we have only twenty readers in Boston. Louis says—help us out!
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