The Mountain Spirit - May/June 1984

Contents From Our President

Features: Appalachian Festivals Calendar......................................... 4 The Legacy of Jesse S tu a rt.................................................6 The Liberation of Elsie W atts........................................... 12 Love in Abundance.......................................................... 20 The Theatre for Eastern Kentucky................................... 30

Departments: Letters................................................................................11 The CAP Closeup .............................................................18 A Thought from the Editor...............................................23 News of Our Neighbors.....................................................24 Around the P ro je c t.......................................................... 26

The Mountain Spirit The Magazine of the Christian Appalachian Project May-June 1984 Volume III, No. 3 Editor-in-Chief.................................................. Rev. Ralph Beiting E d ito r ..................................................................... Margaret Gabriel Associate Editor................................................. Glen Edward Taul Advisory Board .Mike McLaughlin, Bill Begley, Doyle Fortney Circulation M anager............................................... Kathy Stathers Graphics C oordinator............................................. Kathy Stathers Typesetting...................................................................Teresa Richey

The Mountain Spirit is published six times a year. The annual subscription price is $5.00. Subscriptions and other cor­ respondence should be sent to The Mountain Spirit, Christian Appalachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Road, Lancaster, Kentucky 40446. Copyright 1984, 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. The Project operates on the philosophy that “ helping people help themselves” is the best approach to Appalachian poverty.

The May-June Theme A funny thing happened when we started preparing for this issue. We had deeided on a theme which centered around arts and culture, and we discovered that we simply couldn’t fit everything into twenty-eight pages. So, we increased to thirty-six in this issue! Inside you’ll find a tribute to the late Jesse Stuart, Eastern Kentucky’s best loved author, a look at the crafts of the Bowman family of Rockcastle County, and a short story by Kentucky author Garry Barker. On the COVER, a 1940s photo of Jesse Stuart (from the collection of Mrs. Jesse Stuart). On the BACK COVER, springtime comes to Garrard County (photo by Taul). BELOW, some of the Bowman children at a big birthday celebration (photo by Sexton).

From Our President There are times when even a busy and hectic schedule allows me the opportunity to quietly look out over our mountains and marvel at their beauty. You cannot fail to recognize the handicraft of a skilled artisan. Over a period of time, too long for me to even imagine, he has used the tools of volcanic erruption, torrents of water and changing winds to sculpt a landscape of surpassing beauty. He has decorated this crea­ tion with a hundred different species of trees and flowering shrubs. Their colors change from season to season, each rivaling the other in its beauty. Birds fill the skies with their daring exploits and the air with their happy song. It is in such an environment that one expects art and culture to thrive. You naturally suppose that you will find an artist’s handiwork at every turn. Frequently we experience these expectations when we receive visitors from beyond the hills. They have read the old stories, listened to the accomplishments of times gone by. They search for the art and the culture. Those of us who live in Ap­ palachia by choice and not by the accident of birth have a deep love for the mountains, the streams, and especially the people. It is our natural instinct to see the good, the fine, the noble. We want to claim that art and culture are the everyday companions of our land and our way of life. Risking the possibility of being misunderstood and being con­ sidered insensitive and unap­ preciative, I would like to reflect on the art and culture of our moun­ tains. Art is defined as something beautiful that is produced with skill and ability. The artisan sees an ap­ pealing characteristic of an ordinary thing, and then uses his skill to em­ phasize its beauty. Culture is defin­ ed as an interest in, and an acquain­ tance with excellence. May-June 1984

If these are accurate descriptions of art and culture, then I am led to believe that we in Appalachia still have a long way to go before we have a society where art and culture occupy a position of honor and esteem. While the beauty of God is everyw here expressed and demonstrated, man-made beauty is hard to come by. Travel our roads, go up our hollows, boat our lakes, look at our housing. You will see the garbage of civilization littering the landscape. Additionally, you will see where the desire for quick profit has often left our mountains scarred and the land eroded. Too seldom has man built on the beauty of God, too often has he subtracted from it. Before any progress can be made toward acquiring an appreciation of and skills in excellence, our school systems need to change, our families need stronger ties, and our people need more job opportunities. Our school systems, which are more in­ terested in just getting children through the system, need to start challenging the minds of our young, calling for them to dream of the things that generate noble causes. A better system of values needs to be presented, with beauty and ex­ cellence receiving a high priority. And a closer bond between parents, teachers, and students needs to be formed. The existence of beauty and ex­ cellence is also dependent on discipline. We have too little discipline in Appalachia. From their birth, children become the center of family life. Their every want is catered to. And the child can be from a wealthy or poor family. We need stronger families. Families where love and discipline rooted in love is present. Without a strong family, art and culture have no chance at all. We need more job opportunities,

Fr. Ralph Beiting, street preaching.

to give a greater sense of economic security. When you fight a battle of existence you don’t have the luxury of time for art and culture. I realize there are many in Ap­ palachia who have a deep apprecia­ tion of beauty and the skills to demonstrate it. I know that for many, excellence is like searching for the Holy Grail. They will pursue it with all their hearts, all their lives. But I am afraid they are the minori­ ty. They do not as yet set the stand­ ards. They are not the heroes. We need a deeper sense of God in our hearts. It is only when men and women are aware of His beauty and His good news that they rise to their full potential. The finest art in the world has a religious theme, and was used to enhance a religious cause. We need dedicated people to champion the cause of art and culture. We need to join together more often and more effectively in order to bring about a change for the better. Appalachia is home to me because I love it and choose it above all other places in which to live. Because of truth, I must see defi­ ciencies; because of hope, I know that improvement is possible; because of love, I know that dedicated people will participate in the restoration of God’s plan—a land of beauty, with enough for all to share; a land of freedom, where excellence is our goal.

A Calendar of Many events associated with the arts and culture of Appalachia will occur this summer and fall. We thought that many of our readers who will travel to Kentucky during this vacation season might want to enjoy some of these events. For your con­ venience, we have listed some (but certainly not all!) of them to give you the opportunity to plan a visit to this area soon. And, don’t forget to drop in on The Mountain Spirit if you’re around here! Dates for some of the events have not been definitely set at the time of this writing. If you want more information you can contact the per­ son or organization listed with the event. SPRING SQUARE DANCE FESTIVAL, Renfro Valley. An annual event featuring the “ Square Dance Hall of Fame.” Exit 62 from 1-75. Contact: Renfro Valley, Kentucky 40473. (606) 256-2664. May 4-5

May 17-19 OLD FASHION GATE CITY DA YS, Mt. Sterling. This will be the seventh an­ nual Gate City Days to be sponsored by the Mont­ gomery Historical Society and the Mt. Sterling Chamber of Commerce. During the three days, stores decorate their display windows in old fashioned styles. The stores have old fashioned prices, employees dress in old fashioned styles, which will be judged on the 18th for cash prizes. There is a parade of old vehicles of every descrip­ tion on Saturday. Other events will include gospel singing, square dancing, clogging, a brown beans and cornbread supper, contest for kids, and craft shows. Contact: Raymond Parker, c/o Mt. Sterling-Montgomery County Chamber of Com­ merce, PO Box 383, Mt Sterling, Ky. 40353. (606) 498-2862 or (606) 498-5343.

night, after the governor has crowned the Moun­ tain Laurel Queen that afternoon. Pine Mountain State Park. Contact: Mr. Jim Roan, 1984 Moun­ tain Laurel Festival, PO Box 151, Pineville, Ky. 40977. 8th ANNUAL APPALACH IAN CELEBRA TION, Morehead. Concerts will feature the McLain Family Band, J. D. Crowe and the New South, and Lily May Ledford. Country dancing and clogging, craft workshops and craft sales, and special sessions which focus on children, quilting, and banking will be featured. An Elderhostel, daily tours and hikes, the Jesse Stuart Symposium, and a colorful collection of ex­ hibits, displays, demonstrations add to this celebration of the past, present, and future of Ap­ palachian Kentucky. Contact: Dr. James M. Gif­ ford, A ppalachian Development Center, Morehead State University, Morehead, Ky. 40352. (606) 783-2077. June 24-30

June D AIR Y DAY, Stanford. A day to honor and acknowledge the contribution that dairy farmers make to Lincoln County’s economy. The event features the crowning of the dairy princess, milking contests, a street dance, and a barbeque. Contact: Gil Rosenberg, Christian Ap­ palachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Rd., Lan­ caster, Ky. 40446.

CRAB ORCHARD FOURTH OF JU LY CELEBRATION, Crab Orchard. Features a parade downtown, horse races around the William Whitley House (see The Mountain Spirit, March-April 1984), fire works. Crab Or­ chard, Ky. Contact: Gil Rosenberg, Christian Ap­ palachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Rd., Lan-

July 4

KENTUCKY GUILD OF A R ­ TISTS & SPRING FAIR, Berea. Nearly 100 ex­ hibiting members of the Guild juried for ex­ cellence and representing the entire state. Indian Fort Theater. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. Contact: Mag­ gie Rifai, Acting Director, Kentucky Guild of Ar­ tists & Craftsmen, Inc., PO Box 291, Berea, Ky. 40403. (606) 986-3192. May 18-20

K E N T U C K Y M O U N T A IN LAUREL FESTIVAL, Pineville. This is Ken­ tucky’s oldest festival, and is held in Kentucky’s oldest state park. Kentucky’s colleges send con­ testants to compete in the beauty contest for scholarships. The festival opens with a concert on Thursday night, and closes with a ball on Saturday May 24-27

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Garrard County Tobacco Festival in Lancaster, Kentucky, September 19-23.

The Mountain Spirit

A ppalach ian Festivals caster, Ky. 40446. (606) 792-3051. RENFRO V A L L E Y BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL, Renfro Valley. An annual festival featuring some of the “ greats” in Bluegrass music. Exit 62 from 1-75. Renfro Valley Festival Grounds. Contact: Renfro Valley Folks, Bluegrass Festival, Renfro Valley, Ky. 40473. (606) 256-2664. July 12-14

LINCOLN COUNTY YOUTH FAIR, Stanford. Features horse show, beautytalent contests. Contact: Gil Rosenberg, Christian Appalachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Rd., Lancaster, Ky. 40446. (606) 792-3051. July 16-21

Aug. M C K IN N E Y B L U E G R A S S FESTIVAL, McKinney. A local event to raise money for a community park. It is sponsored by the local Ruritan Club. On Friday and Saturday it features Bluegrass bands from the state and coun­ try. There is a community worship service on Sun­ day. Camping is available. On Ky. Highway 198 in Lincoln County. Contact: Gil Rosenberg, Chris­ tian Appalachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Rd., Lancaster, Ky. 40446. (606) 792-3051. Aug. L IN C O L N W ATE R M E LO N EA TIN' CONTEST, Crab Orchard. Sponsored by Brummett’s Apple House and the Lincoln County Farmer’s Market (CAP helped to start and continues to support the Farmer’s Market). Free watermelon for everyone on a Sunday after­ noon. Features a seed sittin’ contest, gospel and country music. Brummett’s Apple House in Crab Orchard. Contact: Gil Rosenberg, Christian Ap­ palachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Rd., Lan­ caster, Ky. 40446. (606) 792-3051. Sept. 7-9 GOURD FESTIVAL, Morehead. A flea market type festival based around the rais­ ing and use of gourds. Gourds made into in­ teresting craft items are exhibited. Hays Crossing, Rowan County, Ky. Contact: Lloyd Dean, Route 6, Box 498, Morehead, Ky. 40351. (606) 784-9145. Sept. 7-10 19th ANNU AL KENTUCKY HIGHLANDS FOLK FESTIVAL, Prestonsburg. Features traditional and folk music and dancing. Workshops on dulcimers, folklore, story telling, shaped note singing, and dance. Arts and crafts displays. Contact: Jenny Wiley State Resort Park, Prestonsburg, Ky. 41653. (606) 886-2711.

SIMON KENTON FESTIVAL, Washington. Muzzleloaders, entertainment, anti­

Sept. 15-16

May-June 1984

ques, crafts, street exhibitors, homemade ice cream, old fashion “ Pig Roast” and barbeque, booths of fresh vegetables, plants, herbs, and honey. Square dancing at 7 p.m., Saturday. 1812 Pillsbury House Tour, 2-4 p.m. both days. Con­ tact: Phyllis Helphenstine, Historic Washington Shop Keepers’ Association, PO Box 111, Washington, Ky. 41096. (606) 759-7423. 10th A N N U A L G ARRARD COUNTY TOBACCO FESTIVAL, Lancaster. Celebrating the contributions of tobacco to the local economy. Will start with a county-wide wor­ ship service on Wednesday night; will include a talent show, baby contest, beauty pageant, and various tobacco contests. There will be a parade on Saturday; entertainment by the Danny Water’s Dirty Water Band Saturday night. It will end with a gospel singing Sunday afternoon. Contact: Betty Arnold, Sew and Save, Lancaster, Ky. 40444. Sept. 19-23

Oct. 6 KENTUCKY'S APPLE FEST­ IVAL OF JOHNSON COUNTY, Paintsville. At different locations around town. Dawn to dusk. Antique cars, band festival, parade, arts and crafts, flea markets, many apple delicacies, and more. Contact: Janet H. Garland, Box 631, Paints­ ville, Ky. 41240. (606) 789-3178. Oct. 12-14 ‘LASSES M AK IN ’ COUNTRY MUSIC GATHERIN' Renfro Valley. Stage shows Friday, 7 p.m., Saturday, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Mid­ night special: Saturday midnight, Saturday matinee. Featuring on-grounds continuous enter­ tainment, molasses made the old way, crafts, turkey shoots, talent show, exhibits, military ex­ hibits, miniature animals, riders, concessions, special stage shows, and much more. Exit 62 from 1-75, Festival grounds and “ Old” Barn special shows. Contact: Ginalee King, Renfro Valley, Ky. 40473. (606) 256-2664 or (606) 256-2334. Oct. 14-15 OCTOBER COURT DA YS, Mt. Sterling. It’s the biggest flea market in the “ world.” Food stands, sorghum stands, antiques dishes, knives, ax handles, guns, brass beds, ap­ ples, oranges, and many more. About 50,00Q peo­ ple come to Mt. Sterling on Sunday. The event is held on the third Monday of every October, the day that the October term of the local court began years ago. It is an old custom that used to take place throughout Kentucky. Contact: Mt. Sterling-Montgomery County Chamber of Com­ merce, PO Box 393. Mt Sterling, Ky. 40353. (606) 498-5343 or (606) 498-3785.

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A f te r signing the guest register, I walked toward the front of the sanctuary. There, in front of the United Methodist Church in Greenup, Ken­ tucky, on a gray, cold day in February, lay the body of Jesse Hilton Stuart (1907-1984), Eastern Kentucky’s best known author, and one of America’s best-loved. As I walked I wondered how he would look. I had not seen him in more than three years, and then he was not well. I saw him for the last time in the spring of 1980 during the first Jesse Stuart Symposium. It had been two years since he had suffered a stroke which had paralyzed the left side of his body and left him virtually bedfast. A friend, Dr. J. R. LeMaster of Baylor University, and I visited him briefly in his home. Then on another day, those attending the symposium gathered in the Stuarts’ back yard. Mr. Stuart was brought out in a wheel chair. Although the stroke had affected his ability to speak in a quick, flow­ ing rhythm, he spoke clearly and displayed the same sense of humor and enthusiasm that is shown in his works. He enjoyed being around peo­ ple. He was interested in them. Two years after this symposium, Mr. Stuart suf­ fered another stroke and went into a coma. For twenty-one months he remained comatose, dying February 17, 1984.

heritage would interest him. That was one of the reasons I had chosen Jesse Stuart for my project. I have been interested in Eastern Kentucky since the time I was a youngster, visiting my grandfather near Williamsport in Johnson County, Kentucky. Mr. Stuart’s stories told about my mother’s people, and he portrayed them and their lives with humor, with sympathy, and with authenticity. When I told Mr. Stuart what I was doing and that my family heritage had deep roots in the Big Sandy Valley, a bond of friendship began to form. He wrote: “ What interested me in your letter [the most was] your ancestors had come from Paintsville, Ky. My grandfather, father of my mother, Nathan Hilton, was born in Paintsville on Oct. 29th 1851. My father’s mother, Cynthia Meade, was born there in 1841—The pioneer Preston cemetery is filled with my kindred dead. I’m descended from the Prestons.” Early in 1975, I asked him about visiting him later in the year. After working that summer, I had planned to make one of my periodic trips back to Kentucky to visit relatives and friends. August 22 was agreed on as a suitable day to visit. The sun was bright and hot when I arrived at the Stuarts’ home at 11 a.m. Their home immediately

Now he lay in front of the pulpit. His body was lifeless, but his spirit was present. I felt it, as did others, when I stood by the casket. And we all agreed with Dr. Robert Wood, superintendent of the United Methodist’s Ashland District, when he said, “ Somewhere in tomorrow, I believe we’ll meet again.’’ Mr. Stuart wanted his funeral to be a time of celebration, and as Dr. Julian Hammonds, minister of Mr. Stuart’s church, said, “ Today is a celebration of triumph. There is no gloom of hopelessness here.” Indeed there was no gloom among the more than 250 people who attended the services. For those who knew him personally or through his works or both, he will be remembered for his vitality, his zeal for life, his determination to make life count, his humor, and his ideals. As one who knew him during the last decade of his life, it will be like losing a mentor. While working on my master’s degree at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, I had the opportunity to visit him and his wife for a day in 1975. During my first year at Baylor, one of my professors suggested that I start corresponding with Mr. Stuart. I was taking his modern American novel course, and, as an assign­ ment, I was preparing a presentation on Jesse Stuart’s novels. This professor was a friend of Mr. Stuart and thought that my Eastern Kentucky May-June 1984

Opposite page, Jesse Stuart at work in the early 1950s. Above, Mr. Stuart in Scotland while on a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1937.

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gave me a sense of warmth and hospitality. When you enter the front door, you are entering the oldest part of the house. It is a log cabin built about 1820, and it is one of several cabins Mr. Stuart lived in as a child when his father was a ten­ ant farmer. Since moving there in 1939, when he married Naomi Deane Norris, they have made five additions to the house. The image of a house growing as they grew older appealed to me. It meant they had roots and a sense of place.

Above, Mr. Stuart greets friends in Greenup in 1956, after dedicating the monument below. It was his first public appearance after his first heart attack in 1955.

I was also awed by the number of books he had. Shelves from floor to ceiling in most rooms of their house, including their bedroom, were filled with books. I enjoy reading and have a sizable library of my own. Anytime I go into someone’s home and spot books, I have a tendency to browse through them. Mr. Stuart describes it best in his short story, “ Sparkie and Did—Still Young:” “ John Preston looked at books, talked, moved along slowly from room to room. He did not want to sit down and talk. In a separate chest in a new living room he took a look at my personal books, checked those he had read, found a few he had never heard of, which surprised him. In our bedroom, which has a high ceiling, he was amazed at the bookshelves on either side of our bed from floor to ceiling. All of these shelves were crowded with books—with books standing and laid flatwise 8

The Mountain Spirit

in stacks. Actually there wasn’t enough room for all the books we had in this room.” When we finally settled down to talk, the first question he asked was, “ How did you first become interested in my writing?” “ It was during my junior year of high school,” I answered. Until then all of my reading outside of school books had been exclusively in history and science. So I was stuck when my English teacher made the assign­ ment to read a novel and give an oral review of it. When she discovered my dilemma, she sug­ gested reading Mr. Stuart’s best selling Taps fo r Private Tussie (1943), and gave me her personal copy to use. I found it to be one of those rare books that held your attention. It was simultaneously funny and sad. I could not help but laugh and cry at the situations the poor moun­ tain family on welfare got into when they suddenly received a large sum of money. It tells of the fami­ ly’s spending spree, of the attempts by other members of the extended family to share in their fortune, and of their high living and revelry. But I told Mr. Stuart that of all his books, Hie to the Hunters was my favorite. It was an adven­ ture story about a city boy who leaves home to live with a hill family and learns about the values of in­ dependence and self-sufficiency. Tension is created when the city boy’s father tries numerous times to bring his boy home. But the hill people defend the city boy’s choice to stay. The action generated by this tension is often humorous. The story ends on Christmas day when Sparkie, the hill boy, receives a special present. Earlier in the novel, Thunderbolt, a prized hound dog, is poisoned by someone who had been poisoning other hounds in the area. Sparkie goes out to feed his hounds on that cold, winter day. “ When he reached the kennels, Shooting Star and Lightning and Fleet charged against the chains to greet him. Then while Sparkie was dividing the cold corn pone among them, a blue-speckled hound pup came out from Thunderbolt’s kennel. It struggled weakly against the chain and barked a high puppy-bark. Sparkie stood speechless staring at the pup at first. Then he threw the rest of the corn pone to the hounds, sat down in the snow, and wrapped his long arms around the little dog,” and cried.

urged me to stay in one spot for a moment and observe the people. He commented that people are in too much of a hurry today. “ They don’t take time to visit and absorb the life occurring around them,” he said. At the end of that special day, I sensed the same energy and vitality that I did while reading The Thread That Runs So True, God’s Oddling, Foretaste o f Glory or short stories. At the end of that day, too, I had gained a new friend, and a well-known one at that. As Dr. Wood said at the funeral, “ he never knew a stranger. He was always available and ap­ proachable.” We continued to correspond, and while I was writing my master’s thesis, which was on his literature, he sent me material relating to my topic. Jesse Stuart to most people, in Dr. Hammonds’s words, “ was a man of common touch with a very uncommon talent.” He knew how to capture the seasons of life and nature in the elegant language of prose and poetry. Mr. Stuart had the common touch because he grew up in circumstances common to the hill peo­ ple of his time. He was born in 1907 in a log cabin, on land his father did not own, but rented (Mr. Stuart was twelve before his father owned land, and later in his life, he bought every acre his father

. . . people are in too much o f a hurry today. “ They don Y take time to visit and absorb the life occurring around them, 99 he said. ever sharecropped). Throughout most of his younger years, Mr. Stuart and his brothers and sisters had to work on the farm or as itinerant laborers to supplement the family’s income. And whenever farming failed to buy the necessities of life, Mr. Stuart’s father worked as a section hand on the C & O Railroad or as a miner digging coal.

When the Stuarts took me to lunch, he pointed out the different places where action in the novel occurred. I looked around in wonderment saying, “ Well, it’s hard to believe I’m seeing the background of my favorite novel.”

Although these living conditions interfered with his education, there was a fire burning in Mr. Stuart for learning. He was able to finish seven years of school in twenty sporadic months, to barely pass entrance exams for Greenup High School, and to finish high school, where he gained a special interest in literature by reading the poetry of Robert Burns. He related to Burns, feeling that if a person, poor and relatively uneducated like Burns could become world reknowned for his poetry, then he had a chance, too.

After lunch, they took me to Greenup where he gave me a tour of Leslie’s Drug Store. Sensing that I might be in a bit of a rush, Mr. Stuart grabbed me as I started to walk around and browse. He

Mr. Stuart continued his education at Lincoln Memorial University (1926-1929) and Vanderbilt University (1931-1932). And during this time he simultaneously pursued careers in writing and

May-June 1984

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Since 1789, explains Dr. LeMaster, there has been a constant directional struggle in our coun­ try. The opposing views—one of which was espoused by Thomas Jefferson, the other by Alex­ ander Hamiliton—have come down to the present day. Mr. Stuart sided squarely with the agrarian, or Jeffersonian, side and never abandoned it. He saw, and his poems indicate that he saw, a kind of futility in ultra-industrial development. He believ­ ed in the kind of goodness that came from man’s relationship with the soil. Mr. Stuart believed in the values of the working man; the independent, self-sufficient, agrarian working man. These are the qualities that Mr. Stuart gives to many of his characters and is per­ sonified in his poetry. If you look through Man with a bull-tongue Plow long enough, Dr. LeMaster says, you will see his personification of the common man. He is the bronze-skinned man; a man with his back to the sun earning his way. This image is given in the first sonnet: Jesse Stuart at home in the 1970s.

education. He began teaching at age seventeen, and then in the 1930s, he was principal of three high schools and superintendent of Greenup County Schools. For more than fifty years, Mr. Stuart published poetry, autobiographies, short stories, novels, and a biography of his father. He was acclaimed “ the modern American Robert Burns’’ when his book of poems, Man with a bull-tongue Plow, was published in 1934. He won awards for Taps and for Men o f the Mountains (1941), a volume of short stories. In 1937 he was awarded a Gug­ genheim Fellowship. Mr. Stuart never ventured far from his W-Hollow, either physically or literarily. He was the first writer to portray the mountain people with sympathy, says Dr. Harold E. Richardson, Mr. Stuart’s biographer. He did not merely em­ pathize. He was one of them. He laughed with them, cried with them, fought with them, and understood their strengths and weaknesses. He gave his characters a sense of dignity, says Dr. Wade Hall, professor of English at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Stuart never makes fun of them. You laugh at them, of course. His characters are less than saints; they have their faults like the most sophisticated people, but they have their sense of dignity. He never condescends; he never talks down to his people, Dr. Hall says. The people Mr. Stuart wrote about “ are people of the soil,’’ says Dr. LeMaster. Through these people, Mr. Stuart affirmed life, and the values and the mind set prevalent in America during a past era. 10

I am a farmer singing at the plow And as I take my time to plow along A steep Kentucky hill, I sing my song A one horse farmer singing at the plow! I do not sing the songs you love to hear; My basket songs are woven from the words O f corn and crickets, trees and men and birds. I sing the strains I know and love to sing. And I can sing my lays like singing corn, And flute them like a fluting gray corn-bird; And I can pipe them like a hunter’s horn— All o f my life these are the songs I ’ve heard. And these crude strains no critic can call art, Yours very respectively, Jesse Stuart. Although Mr. Stuart recognized that America was no longer agrarian, he refused to accept the values of an industrial America. He did not ac­ cept, Dr. LeMaster says, the present world as be­ ing superior to the world he knew. While the pre­ sent America has improved the physical and material well being of its people, it has not im­ proved its spiritual health. The legacy of Jesse Stuart is giving the life of the common man, the man of the soil, in prose and poetry, as an alternative to the present. As the population continues to grow and continues to be beleaguered with emotional, social, environment­ al, and other problems that accompany civiliza­ tion; and as people, living in an ever-growing in­ dustrialized society, begin to feel that they are los­ ing their identity and losing control over their destiny, there will have to be, Dr. LeMaster says, a day when we ask: “ Maybe we missed something; have we taken a wrong turn?” Because of that fear, there must be a means of escape into a better world, the kind described in the life and literature of Jesse Hilton Stuart. cap. The Mountain Spirit

Letters I read with interest Garry Barker’s article entitled “ Nurses on Horseback: The Frontier Nursing Service” in The Mountain Spirit, January-February, 1984.1 was filled with great admiration for Mary B reck in rid g e, and her a c ­ complishments. Having worked in India for 6 years as a missionary nursemidwife, I could read between the lines, as I recalled many of my own experiences in the bush . . . . If I were ten years younger, I’d be tempted to go to Appalachia to join forces with the health teams of the FNS. Mary Breckinridge indeed was a great Kentuckian, and now lives on in her work, the FNS. She reminds me of another great Kentuckian who overcomes terrific odds to help fellow Kentuckians in need. Can you guess who? Sister Annette Vanasse, RJM No. Providence, RI I grew up in Cumberland, Ken­ tucky and graduated from high school in Benham High in 1938. I graduated from St. Elizabeth Hospital School of Nursing in 1941 and served in the Army Nurse Corps in 1942-1945. I have lived here in Victoria all the years since that time. I go back to my mountains as often as I can. However, none of my family live in Cumberland now . . . God bless you and all the other good spirits . . . . Winifred Schramm Victoria, TX

I have found your magazine to be informative and interesting. It was delightful to read about my friend, Father Louis Lipps, SJ, who was chaplain at our elementary school for two years. May The Mountain Spirit continue to grow and may God continue to bless your ministry. Sister Irene Herbst Bloomfield Hill, MI May-June 1984

I was born in Alabama in a town near the Tennessee-Alabama line, so many things in your magazine re­ mind me of things that happened when I was a young girl (I am in my 75th year) especially the last issue with the article on Home Remedies. I can still feel the fine tooth comb my mother used to help rid us of lice that we got at school and some of the smelly remedies she used. My mother used the same saying, “ It ain’t a shame to get lice, but a shame to keep them.” When I came to Pennsylvania to live, over 50 years ago I was always glad to help my church gather used clothing and to help pack the mis­ sion boxes we sent to the southern states each fall . . . . I still get more appeals than I am able to help with. Since there are so many steel workers with families out of work that, need help, I use what little money I have to spare to help them in my own community. Mrs. O. Fleming Pittsburgh, PA I have been working for the past three summers in both West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky and I’ve loved it. Hopefully, one day my community will allow me to make a permanent commitment. Last sum­ mer I worked in Lee, Estill, and Breathitt counties, and will return to Jackson in Breathitt County in June after school closes here. Please thank Kathy Kluesener [CAP’s Coordinator of Volunteer Admissions] for all the information that she has been sending me re­ garding CAP projects. I am grateful and always interested in whatever goes on in the mountain areas. God bless you and be assured of my prayers for your work. Sister Anne Regina Lannon Philadelphia, PA I have the January-February issue, and also the March-April one.

Liked the history about William Whitley very much. Guess I always have liked history. A few days back, while running through old letters, I found some that I had forgotten about having. The letters went into the waste basket, but not the historical papers. They covered a Wyoming area that I know and wandered over years ago. There was some Perry history in my 1983 Christmas letter. Can’t remember if we sent you one or not. It told about three school children fighting their way home in a Nebraska blizzard. Blizzards in Nebraska’s wide open spaces are really something. Dallas W. Perry Kimball, NE

For several years I have been aware of the wonderful work going on at the Christian Appalachian Project. As I read through the last issue of The Mountain Spirit I was disturbed when reading of “ the Indians who still fought for supremacy in this new land.” (From Our President, p. 3, March-April 1984) Wasn’t the land theirs to begin with? And William Whitley is to be praised for making a race track out of land he took from them? If the publications advertised on the inside of the back cover stimulate hatred of Indians I hope they will be removed from the market. Dorothea M. Reilly Dunkirk, NY

Letters to the editor are welcome.

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. 11

Elsie Anette was the oldest of Eva and Mack Ward’s fourteen offspring. At six Elsie was doing the family wash, beating the clothes clean on the rocks of Caney Creek, pressing out the wrinkles with irons heated over the big cookstove. At eleven she quit school to help at home, cooking and cleaning and caring for the new babies. Mack Ward held 400 acres of rugged Eastern Kentucky hillside farm land, and he bred new workers at the rate of one per summer. Eva, will­ ing but weary, was unable to do more than bear the babies, and young Elsie became the surrogate mother. She was caretaker for the busy household, cook and comforter to the other children, expert at quilting and sewing, soap­ making and canning and cooking. At thirteen Elsie was prime marriage material, strong and pretty and blossoming, skilled and pro­ ven reliable. The first suitors showed up as soon as Mack would permit their visits. They were rawboned young farmers, awkward in starched work clothes, hair slicked with possum fat, rough hands nervously busy rolling Bull Durham. The more wealthy rode up on prancing saddle mares with braided manes and jingling silver bridles, and others hitched their somber mules at the barn and walked the last half mile. Saturday night meant banjos and fiddles and guitars, and a crowd gathered around Mack’s big battery powered Philco radio. There was moon­ shine and bootleg whiskey, singing and fistfighting, preening for Elsie and serious respon­ sibility to impress Mack.

Elsie was curious, but disinterested, until Harper Watts made his first visit. Harper was 22, strutting, flashing a wide smile, blessed with curly black hair and dancing eyes. Two days before Elsie’s fifteenth birthday they were married, and a week later Elsie was expecting. The first daughter was born, then a son, and Elsie was pregnant again when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Harper enlisted, left for four years in the South Pacific, and Elsie endured. The second son was born while Harper was gone, and Elsie was expecting another a month after the soldier came home. Harper, after seeing New York and San Francisco, was unable to ad­ just again to Sparks Ridge. He took his growing family west, closer to the edge of the mountains, to a tenant farm near the Kentucky River. Harper farmed, labored on a bridge crew, tinkered with cars and worked as a carpenter, struggled to earn a meager existence for his brood. Elsie bore two more babies, then twins, and finally the last, a son born when she was 33. It was Elsie’s task to stretch the budget. She worked a two acre garden, tended a flock of leghorn chickens, raised hogs to butcher on Thanksgiving, canned beans and blackberries and tomatoes, dressed and cooked the game Harper brought in with his .22 rifle. She sewed the girls’ dresses and the boys’ shirts, doctored the cuts and bruises and fevers, soothed the adolescent frustra­ tions, and sent the little Watts off to school scrub­ bed and with full bellies. For four decades Elsie labored, guiding her flock through first loves and graduations and wed-

The Liberation o f Elsie Watts by Garry Barker

12

Art by Mitchell D. Tolle

The Mountain Spirit

dings, babies and brawls and heartbreaks, always available to provide comfort and strength. Harper’s hot supper was ready every day at fourthirty, his lunchbox was packed each morning before dawn, and she brought the pipe and coffee when he rested. Harper, as the children left home, was able to finally rest. He cut back to one full time job, bought a used color TV, and found time again to sip the good Sparks Ridge moonshine. His worn easy chair was a throne, from where Harper presided over the weekend gatherings of his clan. For Harper Watts the hard part was over. Elsie was less fortunate. She served as free babysitter to two dozen grandchildren, chef and dishwasher for the Sun­ day reunions, advisor and curtain maker to nine households, servant to Harper’s whims, and overseer of the small farm. When Bub, the youngest, enlisted in the Army, Elsie was also stranded, isolated and totally dependant on Harper for any transportation. May-June 1984

Alone—for the first time in her life—Elsie brooded. Uneducated, unsophisticated, unskilled at any profession, Elsie fretted and grieved. She was over fifty, taken for granted, restless now with her enforced housewifery. On her 54th birthday Elsie was up at five to bake her own cake and serve dinner to 37 children and grandchildren, and was elbow deep in soapy dishwater when she made her decision. Dripping, twisting her apron, redfaced and determined, Elsie descended upon the living room assembly. “ Harper Watts!’’ she screeched, “ I’ve had enough of this!” She wheeled and was gone. Harper, slackjawed and stunned, stared after Elsie until his cigarette burned down to his finger. He swore, jerked, and kicked over the table full of ashtrays and coffee cups. Plaintively, he turned to face his sons and daughters. “ What do you all reckon,” he asked feebly, “ has got into your mommy?” ****** 13

At first Harper was quietly proud of Elsie. “ For a woman she’s comin right along,” he told a friend. “ Bub, he’s teachin her how to drive, and she’s takin the test next week. It ain’t like Elsie needs a driving license, you know. I take her anywhere’s she needs to go, and now we got one of them telephones.” Bub, home on a 30 day leave, tried to prepare Harper. “ She’s looking for a job, daddy,” he said warily. Harper chuckled. “ Who’d hire her? Your mam­ ma ain’t ever done nothin but clean house and change diapers.” “ I’m just telling you,” persisted Bub. “ Mam­ ma is serious. She’ll find work, somewhere.” Harper grinned. “ That’ll be the day, Bub.” Elsie passed the driving test, and Harper selected and paid for the old Vega station wagon. “ Keeps her happy,” he told the children. “ Gotta humor mountain women.” Elsie’s first solo trip, to town on Saturday for groceries, went well until she started home. She reached to steady a sack of corn meal, and looked up just as the Vega left the pavement and flew across a deep ditch. Elsie flattened four fence posts, clipped the legs out from under a water tank, hit a corncrib and rolled, landing upside down in a muddy pen of squalling piglets. She crawled out the window, slipped and fell in the muck, crawled to the fence to escape the angry sow, and wailed as she watched her shattered car sink deeper. After ten minutes Elsie wiped her nose, shooed away the confused brood sow, salvaged her groceries, and walked stiffly home. Harper, an hour later, found the wreckage. He searched frantically, swearing, and drove home in a panic. He found Elsie, calmly dishing out sup­ per, expressionless. “ You’re late,” she snapped. “ And go wipe the mud off your feet.” “ But . . . I . . . you . . . ” Harper’s temper flared and he sputtered; he reconsidered after a look at Elsie’s face and washed up for the meal. Elsie broke the silence. “ I reckon you seen it?” “ Your car?” Harper’s lip twitched. “ Is it the one layin up yonder in Willie’s hog lot?” “ You and the boys’ll have to git it out, and fix Willie’s fence and stuff.” Elsie chewed solemnly. “ I reckon we will,” grunted Harper. He grinned. “ Kill any pigs?” “ No!” snapped Elsie. After supper they sat beside the fireplace. “ Harper,” Elsie finally said, “ I ain’t gonna quit drivin.” “ I don’t know about that,” scowled Harper. “ ‘Pears to me you orta give it up, Elsie. Besides, you ain’t got nothin to drive.” “ I do too,” said Elsie. “ Albert already found 14

me a Buick.” “ You bought a car?” “ Yes.” “ But . . . you never asked me.” “ No.” Elsie smiled. “ 1 never, did I?” She left him staring and went off to bed. ijc sjc 5|e sje $ $

The hospital administrator chuckled as Elsie left, and called for his assistant. “ Do you know that woman who was just here?” he asked. “ No.” “ She’s 54 years old, went to school for less than five years, has never had a job, and I just hired her.” “ As a maid?” “ Nope.” He laughed. “ Elsie Watts is our new recreation director for the extended care wing.” “ Have you lost your mind?” “ Maybe. But, Maggie, that woman has raised nine children, and run a household since she was six. Can you think of any better preparation for taking care of twenty old people?” “ Can Mrs. Watts read and write?” “ Not like you and me, but she can sure get a message across.” ****** “ You done what?” Harper’s fork stopped in mid air. “ I told you,” said Elsie. “ I got a job. At the hospital.” Harper puzzled. “ Cookin?” Elsie glared. “ No, I’ll be takin care of the older people. Gittin ’em haircuts, and games, and preachers for Sunday, and stuff like that.” Harper grunted. “ I’ll be danged.” “ Is that all you got to say?” asked Elsie. “ I reckon so.” Harper finished eating and sat quietly. Elsie spent her first day on the job watching, meeting the other workers and the patients, and did not get home until after six. Harper met her at the door. “ Where in the Hell is supper?” he growled. “ You can just wait ’till I git it cooked,” Elsie said calmly, “ or fix it yourself, or do without.” She marched past him to change clothes, then warmed up Sunday’s chicken and dumplings. “ This ain’t gonna work,” grumbled Harper. “ I durn near starved to death.” Elsie studied the hospital manuals until eleven, then slept in the spare bedroom. $ $ sjc sjc ijc 5|c

Elsie’s first challenge came during her third week on the job. Sadie Weaver, 86 years old and a terminal cancer patient, disrupted the floor by angrily ac­ cusing the head nurse of stealing her baby. Persis­ tent, tearful, heartbroken, the old woman strugThe Mountain Spirit

“ No.” “ Seems to me,” he said quietly, “ that Elsie did us all a big favor.” “ Well . . . in a way . . . I guess . . . ” The nurse reddened. “ Maybe she did, but she violated all routine and procedure and—” “ Miss Barton,” the administrator said, “ Elsie Watts gave a dying woman a day of happiness. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” After the angry nurse was gone the ad­ ministrator called down to the personnel office. “ Elsie Watts is now a permanent employee,” he ordered. He smiled. “ She just passed all the tests.” Harper Watts mourned. Elsie’s suppers were late, even cold, and she often went back to town for evening programs. Once, for an entire weekend, Elsie was in Louisville for a workshop—her first night ever away from home, Harper’s first night alone. Elsie spent her paycheck as she pleased, without con­ sulting Harper, and on Sunday afternoons she drove to visit her family on Sparks Ridge and to church services.

gled and wailed and was finally sedated. Elsie grieved. “ It ain’t right,” she told the nurse. “ We can’t jist let her lay there and cry like that.” “ What would you do?” snapped the nurse. “ Get her a baby?” “ Maybe,” said Elsie. “ Maybe I would, at that.” The next morning Elsie was early, and she car­ ried a small bundle to Sadie’s room. “ Praise God,” cried Sadie. “ My prayers is answered, Elsie.” She hugged the worn doll close to withered breasts. “ I knowed,” she said, “ that my baby was here somewheres. That woman stoled it, Elsie, and you brung it back.” Elsie blinked back her tears and left quickly. All day, Sadie proudly showed her baby to everyone in the hospital, and even Eb Weaver gently cuddled the doll when he came to visit. The indignant nurse went straight to the administrator. “ That woman,” she sputtered, “ Elsie Watts ac­ tually gave Sadie Weaver a doll! Mr. Smith, I’ve had it. I’ve never seen anything so outrageous. I insist that you fire Elsie Watts immediately.” The administrator rocked back in his chair, and smiled. “ How has Sadie Weaver been today?” “ She’s been too busy holding that doll,” snap­ ped the nurse, “ to do anything else.” “ She didn’t cause any trouble?” May-June 1984

“ It ain’t natural,” Harper complained to Priscilla, the oldest daughter. “ Your mommy is out runnin all the time, and spendin money like she was rich. She told me she ain’t got time to cook our Sunday dinners nomore, either.” He shook his head. “ I don’t know what’s come over her, Prissy.” “ I work,” said Priscilla. “ Lots of women do, daddy. You’ll get used to it.” The tension built. Harper compounded the prob­ lem by bringing home a dog, a wolfish German shepherd considered hopeless by its previous owners. “ You’ll be sorry,” warned Elsie. “ That thing’ll kill one of the little ones, and then what’ll you do?” Harper stubbornly ignored her, kept the dog, and three weeks later Buck did nip a grandchild who ventured too near the food dish. “ That thing has got to go,” said Elsie. “ Take him to the woods and shoot him.” “ Buck, he’s my dog,” said Harper. “ Besides, he never hurt the boy none.” Elsie stormed off to the bedroom. Even Harper found it difficult to like the clumsy and surly animal, and made only half hearted at­ tempts to train him. Buck, a drooling 125 pound dullard, forced the issue. First he killed six of Elsie’s hens, then left a mauled kitten on the front steps. Elsie paled, slipped angrily back into the house, and came out lugging Harper’s old double barreled shotgun. “ Come here, Buck,” she chirped. 15

Buck thundered around the corner, skidded and backpedaled, and howled as Elsie’s first load of buckshot peppered his flanks. Her second charge spattered around him as he ran, whimpering, for the safety of the barn. Harper came home, found his subdued and trembling dog, packed his straight razor and shirts, loaded Buck into the pickup and drove to Priscilla’s to stay. “ I left her,” he explained angrily. “ A man can’t live with no woman what’d shoot his dog.” $ Jfc5jC$ $ $

After a week of Harper and Buck, Priscilla con­ vened a council of the Watts offspring. “ You’ve got to help me,” she pleaded. “ Daddy’s too stub­ born to go back, and mommy’s feelings are hurt so bad she won’t apologize. And I’m about ready to shoot that dog again.” It was Bub, preoccupied as he drove in from Ft. Knox, who unintentionally triggered the solution. He lost control on the wet highway, slid into a tree and flipped, rolled out of the car and lay un­ conscious. Elsie took the call from the state police, and ar­ rived at the hospital minutes behind the am­ bulance, just ahead of Harper and Priscilla. “ They don’t know yet,” choked Elsie. “ Bub’s in there with the doctors.” She spoke only to Priscilla. “ You tell your daddy.” “ For a second,” sobbed Elsie. “ He was all wet, and still.” She dissolved into tears and clung to Priscilla. Harper fidgeted, dark and gloomy, big hands flexing. They waited, awkward and anxious, for the half hour before the door opened. “ Bub’s fine,” the doctor said quickly. “ Cut and bruised, but more scared than anything. We’ll keep him overnight to be sure, but there’s nothing to worry about. I gave him a sedative, so he’s sleeping now. It’ll be a while before he can talk.” “ Thankee, doc,” Harper said gravely. “ That’s why I’m here,” said the doctor. “ That goes for all of us here at the hospital, including Elsie.” He smiled. “ I’ve been meaning to tell you, Harper, what a fine job Elsie does for us. You can be proud of her.” “ I am.” Harper studied his toes, and Elsie stared down the hallway. Priscilla found her raincoat. “ I’d better go,” she said. “ I’ll tell everybody Bub’s okay. Mam­ ma, you bring daddy home.” “ Jist a minute now,” blurted Harper. “ I’ll ride with you, Prissy.” “ No you won’t,” said Elsie. “ You’ll stay right here. That’s your baby layin in there. You can come back for him later, Priscilla.” 16

Priscilla folded. “ Okay,” she said wearily. “ Call me when you’re ready, daddy. I’ll send somebody for you.” Elsie and Harper waited at opposite ends of the room until a nurse called them. Bub grinned feebly as they entered. “ I guess I’ll have to quit making fun of your driving, mamma.” Elsie squeezed his hand and gently stroked his forehead. “ How’s my car?” asked Bub. “ Don’t you go worryin about no car,” said Elsie. “ Was you drinkin, boy?” asked Harper. His face was stern. “ Harper!” Elsie spun, spitting. “ You stop it!” Bub groaned. “ Tow stop it, mamma. I’m not up to any more of the two of you fighting.” “ Fightin?” Elsie stared. “ Why, we ain’t . . .” She blushed, and looked down at the floor. “ I guess we was,” she said quietly. Bub chuckled. “ You sure were. Like two old settin hens. That’s why I was on my way home. We were all going to talk it over and see what we could do.” “ We?” asked Harper. “ Is that why they was all out to Prissy’s?” “ Yeah,” said Bub. “ She called me, all worried about you two.” The Mountain Spirit

“ Dang it,” started Harper, “ You all ain’t got no business meddlin in—” “ Shut up, Harper,” Elsie said softly. “ We can talk somewheres else.” They stayed for a hour, and left Bub sleeping soundly. ****** Elsie buttoned her coat and waited at the lobby door. “ Harper,” she said. “ I’m sorry I shot old Buck. Did I hurt him bad?” Harper shuffled closer. “ Naw,” he muttered, “ to tell you the truth, he’s been doin lots better since you peppered him.” His brown eyes sparkled. “ Elsie, I been missin you.” “ Me too.” Elsie frowned. “ Harper, are you comin home?” He took a wary step backwards. “ I’m wantin to,” he said. “ Are you gonna keep on workin?” “ Yes.” Her answer was firm and quick. “ That’s the way it’s got to be, Harper.” He grinned, and shrugged. “ Can’t blame a man for tryin, can you?” He stepped closer and gently touched Elsie’s shoulder. “ I’ll come home if you’ll have me, Elsie.” “ I ain’t never wanted nobody else,” said Elsie. “ Not since the day I first seen you.” May-June 1984

Harper coughed and shuffled nervously. “ Let’s go home.” “ You drive,” said Elsie. “ Nope,” said Harper. “ It’s high time I seen for myself how you handle a car.” In the parking lot Elsie nervously started the old Buick, edged backwards, shifted gears and gunned the engine, and slammed hard into a light pole. She screamed. Harper pulled himself up from the floorboard, rubbed his chin, adjusted his cap, and finally grinned. “ Try her again, Elsie,” he grunted. “ I believe they’s a pole over yonder that you missed.”

“The Liberation o f Elsie Watts” is a selection from Fire on the Mountain, a collection o f short stories by Garry Barker. In a humorous, but lov­ ing way, Fire on the Mountain tells stories o f mountain people adapting to contemporary socie­ ty. To obtain a copy o f the book please contact Garry Barker, 110 Holly Street, Berea, Kentucky 40403. The cost is $5.98, and please include $1.00 fo r shipping and handling. We're sure Garry will autograph your copy if you ask him! 17

The CAP Closeup

A s his co-workers pass out valentines, Chuck Thompson sits on the floor in a circle with a group of restless pre-schoolers. He talks with them, cor­ rects them, and invites those sitting beside him to sit in his lap. Later he helps supervise some craft activities and gets another group ready to visit a woman who is in her 90’s. To watch Chuck work with kids, a person can sense that he likes being with them. Chuck is the only man among the five employees who work with pre-schoolers at CAP’S Children’s Discovery Center in Somerset. As a teacher’s aide, he is involved in everything from teaching to supervising play to cleaning. Working with pre-schoolers is new for Chuck. In the four years he has been with CAP, either as a volunteer or employee, two-and-a-half years have been devoted to the area of child development. “ I’ve always wanted . . . to work with kids,’’ Chuck says, but was unable to until recently. Before coming to Kentucky, he was a welder. Although he enjoyed welding those eight years after high school, he always had a nagging feeling that there was some other calling for him. But he never thought the call was to work with pre­ schoolers. Chuck says that he had himself convinced of the futility of pursuing such work; he believed “ it was woman’s work.” Because this image was embed­ ded in his brain, anytime he considered the possibility of working with kids on a professional basis, he thought: “ Wow! What’s the use of ever going on to school, because they’d never hire a man as a pre-school teacher anyway.” The image was formed while he was growing up in rural Minnesota. Chuck is one of five children, and most of his family are farmers. He had decid­ ed that he would be a farmer, too. He could not see someone leaving the family for something other than farming. The idea of working with children was relegated to the outer recesses of his mind because he knew it would never be possible. But CAP and Kathleen Ford helped to reverse that thinking. Chuck came to Lancaster in January 1980. Since finishing high school, “ I’ve always wanted to do some kind of Christian ser­ vice work. But there just seemed like there wasn’t any opportunities.” 18

Chuck Thompson and friends.

Chuck Thompson:

“This Really Seems to Be My Place in Life. ”

by the CAP News Service The Mountain Spirit

When he received some appeal material about CAP through the mail, he says that its volunteer program sounded interesting. He never came to CAP with the intention of working in child development, but doing whatever was needed at the time. Because he had some experience working on automobiles, he was given the job of main­ taining vehicles. During the year-and-a-half he kept CAP’S vehicles in working condition, Chuck would go to the Sunshine Center in his spare time just to be around the kids. Kathleen, the director of the center, encouraged him to gradually become more involved. Although his activities sometimes disrupted her, Kathleen did not mind, he says, because she saw him as a father figure for the kids. Despite his mistakes, she kept working with him. Chuck believes “ she recognized that it was something I liked to do.” Because she allowed him to work with the kids, it helped reveal a talent. “ I really appreciate her for that,” Chuck says.

Taul

Chuck also worked at the Somerset facility

whenever he had business there. This allowed Sr. Lorraine Sirois, his present supervisor, to become aquainted with him and his talent. When the Somerset center was started in 1980, a male volunteer worked there until his one-year assignment was completed. Recognizing the need for a father figure for many of the children in her school, Sr. Lorraine requested a male teachers’ aide from Fr. Ralph Beiting. When he heard about the position, Chuck expressed an interest in it. And then he discovered that they had had him in mind for the job all along! When he was offered the job, he was concerned about who would maintain the vehicles. But God was removing all obstacles, Chuck believes, because a volunteer who had interest and ex­ perience in vehicle maintenance arrived from Michigan. The first year in child development was the most difficult, yet most enjoyable, thing he has done in all of his life. It was extremely stressful. The image that what he was doing was woman’s work con­ tinued to cause conflict within. Chuck often said to himself, “ this is not for a man.” It took him about two months to rid himself of the stereotype. But “ through that experience, I came to realize how much I enjoyed working with children,” Chuck says. For Chuck, working with pre-school children is enjoyable and satisfying. He is fulfilled spiritually and emotionally when parents, whose son had formed a close relationship with him, are thankful for another man taking interest in their child; when a little girl, whose parents are getting a divorce, asks him if her daddy will love her after he leaves; and when a boy, whose father does not give him much attention, quits wetting his pants and bed because he had been given attention by another caring man. As a result of the past two-and-a-half years, Chuck is convinced that men do have a place working with pre-school children, especially when there are many broken homes and other family troubles, and children need a father figure. “ This really seems to be my place in life, work­ ing with kids in this way,” Chuck says. And if he can help someone else realize that stereotypes do not have to prevent them from doing something that is desired and is good, then he has ac­ complished something else. Because what seems impossible could be very possible.

Chuck helps kids with Valentines.

May-June 1984

For children who have not experienced the special blessings of a close, caring father, their relationship with Chuck becomes a crucial aspect of their development. cap. 19

Love in Abundance

by Beverly Carter Sexton

The Mountain Spirit

W h e n people hear the words “ poverty in Appalachia” they probably conjure up images of undernourished children in ragged clothes, and faces with expressions of helplessness and sadness. Granted, being poor certainly has its hardships, but I know a family who not only flourished in the midst of poverty, but were happy during those lean years of struggle as well. My uncle, Ames Bowman and his wife, Myrtle, have 12 children: Ada, Nannie Mae, Delbert, Ollie Marie, Katherine, Ames Jr., Jeweldean, Eva, Clintin, Bobbie, Glenn, and Cecil. All the children were born at home. For about 20 years they lived in a sprawling house nestled against a mountainside deep in a holler in Rockcastle County. Since there are about 17 years difference in the ages of the oldest and the youngest, the older girls took over much of the responsibility of caring for the younger children. The whole family worked together as a team. In the fields the older ones would plow and hoe while the younger ones dropped seed or pulled weeds. At home the girls worked side by side, cooking and cleaning. I loved visiting my cousins for there was always something exciting to do. Just below their house was a large sink hole. From the spring house a clear, cold branch of water danced its way over the moss-covered rocks to disappear suddenly over the edge of the sink hole. I was always fascinated by this gaping hole in the ground, but my cousins were always careful to warn me not to get too close to the edge. Clintin and Bobby, who were closest to my age, would take me exploring in the rocks and trees surrounding their home. There was a place called the rock barn where their horse and mule could go in the heat of the day, or for shelter out of the rain. It wasn’t a barn at all, but a rock wall, shielded above by an overhanging ledge. At both ends of the wall were dark openings and although I once ventured a few feet into one, I never ex­ plored the extent of the cave. Ames, Jr. once told me the cave was a semi-circle that came out on the opposite end of the wall. Another thing that fascinated me about my cousins was the fact that they never had a lot of store-bought toys to play with. Instead, they made their own. I had more fun playing with their vast array of handmade toys than I ever had with any bought from a store. Clintin always had a small wagon or go-cart he had made from scrap lumber. We would get way up on the hillside and race to the bottom on these sturdy contraptions, guiding them with rope steering. There was also an assort­ ment of animals, men, and other objects the boys May-June 1984

Ames and Myrtle Bowman.

had whittled. I was amazed at the wonderful things my cousins could produce out of a stick of wood. One of the favorite toys I remember play­ ing with was a horse made from corn-shucks. There were also homemade sling-shots, whistles, bows and arrows, and stilts. Stilts are a pair of poles for walking, each having a step for your foot. Clinton taught me how to master this odd sort of toy and soon we were clambering all over the countryside on our ten-foot stilts. He had one pair of stilts so high that he could walk up to Grandma’s house and dismount onto the roof of her porch! I don’t know if my cousins’ handiwork can be attributed to inborn talent or a learned skill, but I do know their creations originated from necessity. Without money to buy the things they needed or wanted, they did what they had to do to obtain them—they made them themselves.

The Bowman girls pop corn over an open fire. 21

“This time there were far too many to sit at the table, so we all piled our plates high, and went through the house searching fo r a place to sit down and enjoy our meal. ”

The girls are very skilled in sewing, and quilting was not a hobby but something they had to do because there was a need for warm bedclothes on cold winter nights. Ada, the oldest daughter, remembers that material was scarce and even mak­ ing a new dress was a rare occassion. She said she can remember her mother making undergarments out of flour sacks. Their quilts were pieced from an odd assortment of scrap material and their clothing was passed down to their siblings, being patched or reworked to extend the wearability of the garment for as long as possible. As the children grew up, married, and left home, they took their skills with them. Ames Jr., Clintin, and Cecil built their own homes and now live side by side in a row near their parents. Clintin is also a skilled automobile mechanic. Ames Jr. built most of the furniture in his home. Bobby works with a construction crew, building houses. All the girls are excellent seamstresses. Nannie Mae does sewing in her home for other people and also makes beautiful quilts. Ollie Marie makes huggable dolls that the child in all of us can’t help but fall in love with. Jeweldean makes dolls and sews clothing as well. Their dolls are in constant demand and they sell them faster than they can make them. I doubt there is anything the girls can­ not sew, from something fairly simple like a bon­ net to the elaborate, detailed handiwork of a pieced quilt. O n March 4, I went to Aunt Myrtle’s birthday party. Of her 12 children, 23 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren, almost all of them showed up for the celebration. As the women hurried around the kitchen placing large bowls of food on the table, my mind slipped back to a morning when they still lived in the holler and I was having breakfast with them. While a couple of the girls stood over an old wood cook stove stirring huge iron skillets of gravy, the others were setting the table with an odd assortment of chipped dishes. The aroma of cocoa and coffee brewing on the back of the stove filled the air. The whole kitchen was a hub-bub of activity, as hot, golden biscuits were taken from the oven, large pitchers of creamy milk were placed on the table, and fresh eggs sizzled on the stove. Someone hollered “ breakfast’s ready,” and the wood benches and chairs filled quickly as everyone settled around the long, food-laden table. 22

Suddenly I was brought back to the present when Ada announced, “ come and eat.” Her sonin-law asked the blessing, giving thanks to the Lord who had supplied them so abundantly with this feast, and had brought them each into full and happy lives. This time there were far too many to sit at the table, so we all piled our plates high, and went through the house searching for a place to sit down and enjoy our meal. L a te r in the week I visited Ada in her home and Ollie Marie at hers. Ada showed me a picture Ames Jr. had made her when he was a small boy. It was a picture of a horse painted on a square of glass, with a background of colored pieces of paper cut into the shapes of trees and a moon. The frame was made from brown paper. She held it gingerly as she reminisced about the old days when they were all just kids nfaking do with what they had. Ollie Marie showed me several of the dolls she had made for her daughter. They almost looked like real babies with their pink, dimpled cheeks and short, chubby legs. As I was leaving she sur­ prised me by giving me one of the dolls. I think that gesture is symbolic of the attitude of the whole family. It doesn’t make any difference how little or how much they have, the most important thing to them is loving and sharing. And that is done in abundance. The Mountain Spirit

A Thought From The Editor All through high school and college I was in­ volved in the theatre. In the full flush of youth, there was nothing 1 loved better than staying up half the night, setting lights, painting sets, or mak­ ing costumes. There’s an exciting electricity in any theatre, even an empty one. Theatres have a distinctive smell, too, and it’s always the same. If I live to be 117-years-old, I’ll always recognize the same smell in any theatre. After working in the theatre—whether it’s strictly amateur, academic, or professional—it’s not difficult to understand why it compels its par­ ticipants to go on, striving for success, for that one break that will make it possible to keep on working instead of getting a “ real job.’’ One common denominator of people who work in any creative field, be it theatre, music, dance, or literature, is a constant, nagging feeling, “ well, who really cares? I’m working so hard, for very little financial or even emotional reward, and what does it matter? Who does it help?” It was that feeling that led me to CAP as a volunteer in 1977. I had hoped to sort those feel­ ings out, and return to my work in the theatre, when I felt that the the Lord was calling me. By and by, I came to see that I was being asked to use my talents in another area. I’ve always felt very comfortable with the way the Lord led me to this realization. It’s almost as if He was saying, “ Right church, wrong pew.” Theatre is still magic to me. I know all of the ins and outs; how to do little tricks with light, paint, and costumes, creating illusions of reality in a totally artificial setting. But for all of that knowledge there is still the incomprehensible magic of the actual moment when theatre hap­ pens—in the communication between the actor and audience. Our high school theatre coach was a priest who had the gift of motivating students to perfor­ mances you wouldn’t have believed possible in high school kids. We worked like crazy for that man, and I really didn’t understand why until one Sunday night when we were running a production of “ The Sound of Music.” May-June 1984

There was strong feeling of community in the cast and crew of the show. After all, it was prac­ tically Thanksgiving, and we’d been rehearsing since September. Many of us were seniors, and we could see our college years stretching before us. We were nervous, not really knowing whether we’d ever again have the kind of friendship we’d developed over the months we’d been working together. A natural extension of this feeling of community was to gather to worship together on Sunday evening before our performance. That Sunday evening we’d gathered in the chapel in the school, with an anticipatory excite­ ment about the evening’s performance. We knew we had a full house. Father’s homily began, and we listened to him preach about the gift of creativity. We all realized that we were compelled to use the gifts we’d been given, and Father ex­ plained that the reason we did so was not that we were so wild about working for weeks, staying up late, and trying to squeeze our study time in bet­ ween scenes. He suggested that our work might have brought us a little closer to God—the Supreme Creator. That in some small way, we had experienced the joy of the process of creation. He pointed out the love and care we’d given “ The Sound of Music,” and made us see, in very con­ crete terms, the overwhelming tenderness and love of the creation of our Father in Heaven. We gave a great performance that night. Through my years in the theatre in college, and in the years since, as I’ve moved into other fields which have placed on me the demands of creativi­ ty, I think of that quiet Sunday evening when the special blessings of creative gifts were brought into focus so clearly for me and my friends. I find myself praying for other artists, that they, too, might realize the special link that they have with the Supreme Creator, and that they might be moved to utilize their talents to the fullest extent for His honor and glory. —MMG. 23

“ It’s taken me all the way to here—I’m thirty-two years old—to figure out to shut up, sit down, and listen to what God has to say. So finally, I just sat down, and I had me a little talk with the Lord, and I said, ‘Lord, you’ve gotten me here. I didn’t necessarily want to come to Tyner, but you’ve put me here . . And Bill and Kris Creech wondered why. In the fall of 1983 they were living on Bill’s grandfather’s farm in Tyner, Kentucky, having moved to the family homestead from Dayton, Ohio. They met through a mutual friend who had also introduced both of them to crafting stained glass. Both admitted that shortly after beginning their work in glass it became an obsession. “ I’ve worked with tools all my life,” Bill said. “ So this was right up my alley. It’s just another facet with a different

girl, wanted nothing more than to move back to Dayton, and try to stick it out there. Bill insisted that the Lord had a plan for them, and with the help of their church family at Tyner Baptist Church they managed to survive in Jackson Coun­ ty. “ In six or seven months we made $125,” Kris said. “ We were work­ ing on the farm for our keep, and the work there was never done,” Bill recalled. “ By the fall we were hitting the bottom of the barrel, but I told Kris, ‘I’m not going anywhere until God moves me.’” Through their brothers and sisters at church, they heard of CAP’S wreath factory, and that six weeks of work that might be available. “ We’d been beating the bushes to find w ork,” Kris said. “ We couldn’t even get work during the tobacco season, which is unusual. Gene [Hensley, manager of the fac-

A Very Special Ministry by the CAP News Service

medium. You’re using tools, and crafting with your hands and your eyes. So, I met Kris down there one day, and the first thing I said to her was, ‘you shouldn’t push so hard on that grinder.’ She didn’t say anything, just gave me a dirty look.’ Kris said that her first impression of Bill was less than romantic. “ I thought to myself, ‘who is this jerk?’” But from these beginnings their relationship grew, and only one month later they were married. Shortly after they married, the house that they were living in was sold, and they had 30 days to relocate. The economy in Dayton was very bad at the time, and they had no place else to go, except back to the small farm in Jackson County where, several years earlier, Bill had constructed a house. It was a rough road when they first started out. Kris, a devoted city 24

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tory] told me that he wouldn’t hire a husband and wife. Then he hired both of us.” They didn’t know where they would turn after the wreath season was over, but still felt that there was a plan for them in Jackson County. They both knew that the factory in Tyner was the main center for much of CAP’S craft production, and began to think of their skill with glass. Bill remembers, “ I was thinking that if we could just get hired in the wreaths, and given half a chance to display what we can do, I thought that maybe we could work into something full-time. “ We enjoyed working there. All the people we were working for were Christians. They all cared. You could see that they cared, and that whole operation really impressed us. You weren’t just a number. They cared, and that’s the reason we were working.”

At the time, Bill and Kris had never even heard of, much less met, CAP’S founder and president, Father Ralph Beiting. Shortly before the wreath production season was to end, they heard that he would be at the factory to speak to the workers before Christmas. It was only two days before the pro­ duction would be finished, and they would be unemployed again, but both were looking forward to meeting this man that everyone seemed to be buzzing about. “ When he opened his mouth my face started to glow,” Kris said. “ There was something there that was just phenominal,” Bill added. “ And throughout the course of his talk, the dynamics of the man started coming out. I was superimpressed with him. It came toward the end of his talk, and he said, ‘now if anyone’s got any new ideas for projects or crafts, let us know.’ There was silence.” Bill and Kris both thought of their skill in stained glass. “ But we didn’t want to say anything in front of everybody,” Kris said. As Father Beiting was going out to talk to Gene, “ the Spirit moved Kris to speak up,” Bill said, and The Mountain Spirit

they told Father that they worked in stained glass. ‘“ Isn’t that unusual,’ Father Beiting said. ‘I was talking to a lady yesterday about stained glass, but we can’t find anybody to do it.’ We told him that we thought that stain­ ed glass might be a nice item, maybe a new project. He took the ball and ran with it right away.” That very day Father made provisions for Bill and Kris to get their tools, and the materials that they would need to make up a few samples. “ All at once we were in the twilight zone. We had gotten up that morning, thinking that the day after tomor­ row we wouldn’t have any work.” The hand of the Lord was evident in the whole episode, as they had been bothered ever since moving to Tyner, because they had no oppor­ tunity to do any stained glass work. Bill and Kris concentrate on cutting and sautering glass pieces.

After making a few samples in th eir hom e, F ath er Beiting presented the idea of moving the whole operation to Martin, Ken­ tucky. There was studio space in a building CAP had recently purchas­ ed, and he envisioned training op­ portunities for Floyd countians.

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The front room of the stained glass studio is used to display crafts.

May-June 1984

They thought about it, prayed about it, and moved to Martin. “ Everybody that we talked to was wonderful to us. The love of God is here,” Bill stated. “ And it’s work­ ing, and people are working and in­ volved, and doing things. We were sitting on the farm, vegetating, and stagnating. We thought, ‘well, at least something is happening in Martin.’ For me that was the big punch, and I told Father that in one of our meetings. We needed that, to get back out in the stream of life.” And so, the Lord has moved Bill and Kris into the stream of life of CAP’s work in Martin. Both work in the stained glass studio, and Bill’s twelve years experience in auto body repair has given him the qualifica­ tions to supervise a boat repair

business that has been started to train young people in body repair work. They have recently started a stained glass class with seven students, which will allow them to increase production as demand grows. The studio is a pilot project now, and its future depends on the marketing success, but hope runs very high. “ If nothing else ever comes of it, CAP had already done us a world of good, just in giving us the work in Tyner, Father helping us get the tools to get started, and we want to give something back. So, here we are. I t’s going well—a little crazy—and we’re still scared to death . . . ” But what a lesson is here to be learned. “ Praise the Lord for being broke,” Bill exclaimed. Had it not been for their openness to the call of the Lord, their willingness to struggle with only their skill and brains, Bill and Kris might never have left Dayton or Tyner. And CAP might not have had the joy of experiencing their artistry, good will, and mostly, their trust in the Lord. cap.

by the CAP News Service

around the project CAP Makes New Strides In Emergency Assistance For the first time in CAP’s history, the emergency assistance program has been elevated to a pro­ gram area with a full-time director hired to coordinate activities in all the counties where help is provided to the needy. Hired for this task of integrating policies and procedures for all geographic areas involved is Deanna Webb, an Appalachian herself, a native of Pocahontas, Virginia. Deanna is an ordained Presbyterian minister with specialization in pastoral care and counseling. She has had experience at the Red Bird Mission in Kentucky and at the Methodist Children’s Home in eastern Tennessee. More recently, she was director of the Perry County Ministries Incor­ porated in Hazard, where she did outreach and coordinated human resources which include emergency food, clothing, day care, and recrea­ tional programs. She has also done church work in Ohio and was a Job Corps counselor in Simpsonville, Kentucky, prior to coming to CAP. Her main responsibility is pro­ viding assistance in Lincoln, Gar­ rard, Rockcastle, and Floyd coun­ ties, and investigating how CAP’s emergency activities can support already existing governmental and private programs in Pulaski and Madison counties. Emergency food, small loans, occasional transporta­ tion, and shelter for transients are among the services available, trying to meet the needs that others cannot address. “ I am looking forward to work­ ing with churches, local agencies, officials, and concerned residents,” Deanna stated. “ The Lord taught us that whatever we do for the least ones we do for Him. This is why I am involved in Christian emergency assistance.” 26

Volunteers from College of the Holy Cross work with seed potatoes.

Volunteers Help With A Busy Spring Temporary volunteers are an im­ portant part of CAP’s volunteer program. They provide additional assistance during some of our busiest times of the year. “ Temps,” as they are affec­ tionately called, assist the perma­ nent volunteers in their work, and generally stay with CAP from one week to three months. These folks may come individual­ ly or as groups. While individuals come whenever they choose, groups “ usually come in the spring,” says Marie Vanasse, coordinator of volunteers. Beginning in February, groups from high schools and col­ leges came to help in the elderly pro­ grams, the child development pro­ grams, and the small farming pro­ gram. “ Temporary volunteers are a great help during times when we need a lot of manpower for a short time,” says Keith Gilbertson, a per­ manent volunteer from Minnesota who works in the seed program. CAP’s seed program distributes garden seed, seed potatoes, and fer­ tilizer to low income families who wish to raise their own food. Keith says that about thirty students and

sponsors have come to help with the seed program. They began by dividing 44,000 pounds of seed potatoes into units of fifty and twenty-five pounds. Then they helped to pack small seeds into in­ dividual packages, to distribute the seed, to supervise the packaging of seed in the handicapped workshop, and to visit, telephone, and address envelopes, informing recipients that seeds were available. Of his experience, A1 Schott of Waterloo, Iowa, says, “ I enjoy it. I like the relaxed work atmosphere.” Al, an industrial arts teacher of eighteen years at Columbus High School, brought eight teenage girls with him. “ We will stay a week, and then return to Waterloo,” Al says. While Al and another girl worked with the seed program, the others were scattered in pairs in Stanford, Berea, Mount Vernon, and Lan­ caster, helping in the day care centers. “ People from our school have been coming to Kentucky for the past twenty years, at least,” Al said. “ Kids in our schools make two trips a year—in the fall and spring—to do volunteer work. Most of the kids who go are involved in service work, such as elderly programs, around Waterloo.” The Mountain Spirit

around the p ro je c t. . . continued

Up until May, groups came from as far away as W orcester, M assa ch u setts and T u lsa , Oklahoma, and from as close as Cincinnati, Ohio and Owensboro, Kentucky, and each group averaged about ten people.

Our Lady of the Way in 1947, the Sisters “ were loved and appreciated b ecau se o f th e ir C h ristia n philosophy and their dedication,” said Sister Jeanette Tenbarge, Director of Volunteer Services for the hospital.

Long-term temporary volunteers, those who stay three months, are working with emergency assistance, at the M o u n tain C h ristia n Academy, and at the Emmaus Christian Life Center in Berea.

Since 1982 the hospital has been in the care of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, but the original philosophy of the Sisters of Divine Providence has remained the same. “ No one has ever been turned away because of inability to pay,” states Waneta Newsome, who was the first registered nurse to be hired by the Sisters 37 years ago. This Christian philosophy of service, however, has led to problems for the small hospital. Sister Jeanette said that “ Due to government cutbacks and many new regulations, the situation looks grim. Many internal changes must be made to meet accreditation standards.”

Floyd County Hospital Opens Gift Shop For several years CAP has felt that an important aspect of its presence in Eastern Kentucky is to work closely with other groups whose goals and philosophies are similar to CAP’S. Towards this end, CAP awards a substantial amount of grant money to various programs in the Appalachian region of Ken­ tucky each year. Jack Morris, CAP’S Coordinator of Community Relations, says these grants are an integral part of CAP’s work. “ We see our mission as helping the peo­ ple of Appalachia, whether that work is done by us, or by other groups. The money we raise is not just to build up CAP, but to serve Appalachia in the best way possible. For that reason we feel that it’s im­ portant to distribute money in the most efficient and effective way possible. “ We see ourselves as working in cooperation with everyone else. We’re not the only ones working here, we’re just part of a total team.” One of the members of the large team of agencies and organizations working for the good of Eastern Kentucky is Our Lady of the Way Hospital, a Catholic institution in Martin, Kentucky. From the time that the Sisters of Divine Providence began operating May-June 1984

Even with a grant from CAP, and contributions from other sup­ porters, Our Lady of the Way faces the very real possibility of having to cut back on patient services. As a means of increasing necessary revenue, the Sisters have opened a gift and craft shop in the hospital. The project will not only raise extra money for the hospital, but will also provide another means for the craftspeople of the area to market their products. Currently the Sisters are still in need of funds which they need to give the shop a strong beginning. If you would like to help the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati con­ tinue to provide much-needed, quality health care to the people of Eastern Kentucky, won’t you con­ sider sending a small offering to help make their gift shop a reality? The address is Sister James Edward Roach, Box 910, Martin, Ky., 41649. “ Be assured of our gratitude and our prayers,” said Sister Jeanette.

What You Don’t Know About Wills Can Hurt Your Heirs . . . Find Out Why. Request Your Free Copy Of:

Much of what you know about wills may be misinformation that has been floating around for years. If you think, for example, that wills are primarily for rich people, or the elderly, you may be the victim of a common misconception. The helpful booklet offered below will ex­ plain how your will can save your heirs from costly delays and con­ fusion. Send for your copy today. ..........CLIP AND MAIL.......... Christian Appalachian Project 322 Crab Orchard Road Lancaster, Kentucky 40446 Please send without obligation, your booklet, “ 37 Things People ‘Know’ About Wills That Aren’t Really So.” Name ____________________ Address __________________ City ______________________ State ______________________ 27

around the p ro je c t. . . continued

“ Also know that you will have helped to keep Our Lady of the Way operating in the name of Christ—in the mountains. May God bless.”

New School Opens In Rockcastle County REN FRO V A L LEY —A fter many years of dreaming, and many months of planning, CAP held its first day of child development classes in Rockcastle County on February 15, 1984. The Family Life Child Develop­ ment Center is operating in the Family Life Retreat Center near Renfro Valley in the large dining facility. Because the room is used on weekends for retreats, meetings, and encounter groups, all of the equipment for the school is mounted on wheels, so the space can be converted back to a dining room in only five minutes. Don Hensley and CAP’S construction crew from Tyner, Kentucky custom built much of the furniture. On the evening before classes began the school held an orientation and open house for the parents of the school children. They had an op­ portunity at that time to meet the teachers, and to learn a little of the policies and procedures which will be used at school. The staff for the center includes June Widman, direc­ tor, Peggy Abate, assistant director, volunteer Katy Kerris, teacher, and Bea Reese, cook. Carolyn Scott, another volunteer, will be helping with the transportation two days a week. Transportation is one of the important features of the school, as CAP will be bringing children in from the remote areas of the coun­ ty, where many parents find it dif­ ficult to enroll their children in a pre-school program. Although there is another child development program in the Rockcastle County, the Family Life 28

Child Development Center is located at the other end of the coun­ ty, and is able to meet some needs that other schools have not been able to address. They will also be working closely with Peggy Cook, who has recently been hired by CAP to direct the Parents-Are-Teachers program. The program works with home-bound handicapped children and their parents. As Peggy’s children need socialization skills, and more interaction with other children, they will be enrolled in the school. Currently there are twelve children, ages three through five at­ tending, and enrollment can be in­ creased when the fire doors in the dining room are improved to meet the standard required for a day care center. As is the case with CAP’S child development center in Berea, the parents of each child in the school will work a certain number of hours

“ Large muscle activities” are part of the day at the new center.

June Widman supervises lunchtime at the new child development center.

per year in the school. This type of involvement takes the place of fees for some families, and for all families insures that there is a close bond between the parents, students, and teachers.

Five Year Plan In Preparation In an effort to bring a greater sense of structure and organization with regard to planning for the The Mountain Spirit

around the p ro je c t. . . continued

future, as mandated by the Board of Directors, CAP has embarked upon the development of a five-year plan. Starting in January and extending through June of 1984, the planning committee will formulate a vision of what the Christian Appalachian Project should be and do by 1989. Chaired by Doyle Fortney, Director of Personnel and Administration, the committee is composed of members of CAP’S management team. However, all personnel will have an opportunity to provide in­ put into the process and many, in their field of expertise, will be specifically consulted for the com­ mittee’s guidance. Already in place is a statement of mission. Other areas to be thought through and prayed about are the establishment of organization goals and the assessment of present and past programs. A study of the strengths of the thriving programs and an analysis of the reasons why other ventures are weak or have fail­ ed have provided the necessary in­ sights for evolvement of CAP pro­ gramming. Also to be evaluated are the timephased development of computer requirements and applications, fu n d ra isin g te ch n iq u es and methods, personnel and accounting procedures, construction and maintenance of facilities, and a review of present and future volunteer involvement.

The hillsides take the shape and form o f the trees which cover them. provide a logical approach to more Appalachian Spring effective utilization of human resources, to become better We’ll all admit that spring is in stewards of donors’ funds, and to the air everywhere, but you’ll excuse provide the maximum service possi­ those of us who live in Kentucky if ble in those areas where the project we tend to claim it for our very own. is involved. This countryside is beautiful every time of the year; in the deep green of summer, the brilliance of fall, and even the subtle shades of gray in the winter have a certain haunting beau­ Please notify us of change of ad­ ty. But spring! Spring is not just dress to make sure you receive beautiful—it’s breathtaking. every issue of The Mountain Spirit.

Moving?

OLD ADDRESS name

On April 25 and 26, at the mid­ point of the planning period, the committee met at the Family Life Retreat Center for a planning retreat, in order to review the pro­ gress that had been made, to seek continued guidance from God in prayer, and to fine-tune the various elements of the plan in order that all could be in place by June. The examination of where CAP has been, where it is now, and where it would like to be in the years ahead is an attempt by management to May-June 1984

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please prîit

address city

zip code

NEW ADDRESS name

please print

address city state

zip code

Mail to: The Mountain Spirit, 322 Crab Orchard Road, Lan­ caster, KY 40446

Day by day, as one travels familiar roads it seems that the fields are greening before your very eyes. The hillsides begin to take the shape and form of the trees which cover them, and the birds soar and sing with renewed life and vigor. Changes, too, are taking place in the people you meet. In the spring new plans are made, new dreams are dreamed. The Mountain Spirit takes this opportunity to invite you to come and experience the beauty of the Appalachian spring, to ex­ perience the joy of new life here, and to revel in the beauty, serenity, and peace of God’s creation. 29

The Theatre fo r Eastern Kentucky

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Opposite page, Rydell High School is the scene of “ Grease,” which was part of the 1983 season of Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theatre. Left, the au­ dience in the outdoor amphitheatre at Jenny Wiley State Park in Floyd County. Below, the musical comedy “Annie,” presented in 1983.

“W

e’re here for absolutely everybody,” ex­ plained Keith Stevens, managing director of Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theatre. The theatre, located in Jenny Wiley State Park near Prestonsburg, Kentucky, has emerged in the last four years as the fastest growing outdoor theatre in the country, and is becoming “ the theatre for Eastern Kentucky.” “ We’re not geared toward the magical 2% that you hear about,” Keith went on to say. “ When you look at a lot of metropolitan theatres, their marketing campaigns, and a lot of what they’re geared for, you boil it down, and they’re attract­ ing 2°7o of the population. They get by on that, but they don’t ever get the new patrons. We can’t do that.” Although the theatre is handily accessible by good roads to a large geographical area which in­ cludes Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, and Virginia, the sparse population would make it impossible to fill the house every night for the nine week season in the summer. To prove that point, one can look at the time in the past when Jenny Wiley’s audience consisted almost entirely May-June 1984

members has paid big dividends for the theatre. From its former status as primarily a tourist at­ traction, Keith estimates that 50% of the audience in 1983 was drawn from the local area. A larger audience, of course, means larger revenues, and this year the theatre is in the enviable position of being almost 50% self-supporting. In arts management circles this is considered excellent. The balance of the necessary operating expenses comes from grants from the Kentucky Depart­ ment of the Arts, the Kentucky Council for the Arts, the Department of Tourism, and local private and corporate contributions.

A student-teacher confrontation in the Jenny Wiley production of “ Grease” last summer.

of tourists, who came to spend time in the beautiful park, which surrounds the am­ phitheatre—and consistantly lost money every year. Keith said that even if they could fill the house with 2% of the population “ we wouldn’t want it. We’re the theatre for Eastern Kentucky, and that’s how we look at it.”

But, even with good advice from a respected university theatre, active local support, and a beautiful facility in which to work, there is only one magic ingredient which will guarantee an au­ dience to a theatre—good shows. And primarily, Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theatre does good shows. “ You can only sell garbage once,” Keith stated. “ If you get somebody in, and tell them they’re going to have a great time, and they come and it’s a bad show, it’s much worse than if they never came at all.

I n 1981 the board of trustees was asking just that, when the theatre was virtually at the stage of collapse. After operating for about 15 years as a partly professional, partly community venture, the board realized their need for assistance if the theatre was to continue in operation. That sum­ mer they sought advice from the Arts Manage­ ment Institute at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. “ AMI took the theatre as a consulting project,” Keith said, “ and in turn, training opportunities were afforded theatre management students, and other students in the theatre arts department.”

“ As the theatre has grown, we’ve been able to attract more professional people. They’re not necessarily all older, because the bulk of our peo­ ple are still college age, but they are a lot more mature, and they’re a lot more focused on what they want to do.” A misconception that an average person might fall into when they think of “ professional theatre” is that all professionals, or even professional-quality actors, come from New York or Los Angeles. In this area, too, Jenny Wiley has proven the “ experts” wrong. “ Last year, I think about 60% of the company came from within 200 miles of here. So we’re regional in that sense, very definitely. In terms of local talent, if someone has the time, dedication, and talent, we definitely want to use them, and we’re committed to that. If it comes down to somebody from New York and somebody from Pikeville, and they’re equal in every respect, then we’ll take the person from Pikeville.

At the time that Jenny Wiley and AMI began their association, the board of trustees had only eight members, all of whom lived in Prestonsburg. Today the board has grown to include 31 members from five counties. Keith believes that this broader base of support has brought an increased amount of interest in the work of the theatre by local citizens. “ All of our board members are active, all contribute, all of them raise money, and all of them are great advocates for the theatre, which is the primary need for a board member.” It’s hard to get a really accurate count, but all indications have it that the increased number of board

IVIaureen Shea, a professor of Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech, has been the artistic director at Jenny Wiley since 1981. She finds the mix of local and out of state talent very refreshing. “ The local auditions have gotten bigger every year,” Maureen said. “ Our first summer we had 25 peo­ ple at auditions. Last year we had 108.” A major reason for this increase can be traced to the fact that the 1983 season included the musical comedy, “ Annie.” The company calls for seven children, all of whom were solicited and cast from the Floyd County area. The children’s participation in the show has served to stir up even more interest in

It’s all well and good to make a statement like that, but just how does a group of people go about establishing such a strong program in an area which, by all rights and statistics, should not be able to support a theatre at all?

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The Mountain Spirit

and support of the theatre. The 1984 season includes a revival of “ Annie.” The board and the staff felt comfortable in reviv­ ing the production for a second season because of its popular acclaim in ’83. Of the fourteen perfor­ mances last summer, thirteen were sold out. By the end of the season, patrons had to be turned away. This season, they hope to be able to attract those people who were not able to see it last year. P a r t of what’s so interesting to me about Jenny Wiley,” Maureen said, “ is that it’s been totally created by the board. Usually it works the other way around. It’s pretty phenominal to me that in a town of 4,000 people, a group of about 25 can keep a theatre going. It shows me that their motives are in the right places.” In every artist there is personal motivation, and Maureen explained that she finds it very exciting to do theatre for an “ unsophisticated” audience, and she was quick to explain that she meant un­ sophisticated in a very good sense. “ It’s exciting to do a play for children who have never seen a play before, to be involved in their first exposure

to the theatre. Beyond that, the town and the board are terrific. It’s pretty rewarding, especially to see the growth we’ve had in the last three years.” I n addition to “ Annie,” the 1984 season will include productions of “ Fiddler on the Roof,” and “ Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” The decision about what plays to produce is made by the board of trustees, in con­ junction with the artistic staff. Maureen explained that every year she submits a list of about ten plays which she feels would be appropriate for the theatre, given its space, company size, and au­ dience appeal. “ I like to do a show that has great family appeal, like “ Annie,” one that uses the beautiful natural environment of the am­ phitheatre—this year “ Joseph” has been selected for that reason—and finally, I like to do what is called a ‘workhorse,’ that is, a play that’s wellknown and popular. This year we decided on ‘Fid­ dler.’ But, all I do is recommend. The final deci­ sion is made by the board.” Since the board is made up entirely of people from the local area, Maureen realizes that they will know best what shows will have the widest audience appeal.

The children from the cast of “ Annie.” All of the children are from the Floyd County area.

May-June 1984

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Above, a scene from the 1983 production of “The Robber Bridegroom.’’ Right, the actors’ view of the audience in the Jenny Wiley amphitheatre.

N either Keith nor Maureen could see any possibilities of expanding the length of the season at Jenny Wiley, and would also find it impossible to add a fourth show. They tried a four-show season in 1981, but the logistical and scheduling problems involved in trying to mount four fullscale musicals in the course of such a short rehears­ al period took away from the quality of all the shows. They’re on a roll, however, and they cer­ tainly have no intention of slowing their growth, due to logistical problems. Both see an education and outreach program as the next step in the growth process. Last summer the theatre received a grant to operate a theatre day camp for children. From 9:00 in the morning until 1:00 in the afternoon the children, whose ages ranged from eight to about twelve, helped make sets and costumes with the technical staff, and worked on creative dramatics and theatre games with members of the acting company. The camp finale was a production which the campers wrote and produced themselves. The play was about a brother and sister store, where a child could go to trade in brother or sister who was giv­ ing them trouble. In the end, each of the characters decided to keep their own sibling. Fif­ teen children participated in the camp last sum­ mer, and the theatre has received the funding to sponsor the program again in 1984. In the next few years the hope is to be able to hire a full-time education director, who will work 34

in creative dramatics in the local school system, and promote other types of theatre programs, through Jenny Wiley State Park. If you are looking for a great, restful way to spend a few days of your summer vacation, The Mountain Spirit highly recommends a weekend at Jenny Wiley State Park. The park itself is one of the most beautiful in the state, and offers a wide range of day-time activities. In the evenings, of course, you can enjoy a production of “ Annie,” “ Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” or “ Fiddler on the Roof.” We further recommend that you stay long enough to enjoy all three! For more information, or to make reserva­ tions call (606) 886-9274, or write PO Box 22, Prestonsburg, Kentucky 41653. The people involved with the Jenny Wiley Sum­ mer Music Theatre seem to have a very good grasp of what it is that they are doing in Floyd County. That is, providing good quality, family entertain­ ment that goes far to enrich and expand the ex­ perience and quality of life the citizens of the area. cap. The Mountain Spirit

A dd a touch o f charm and light to your home with this lovely stained glass sun-catcher!

Bill and Kris Creech, and their students in Floyd County would like to introduce you to the grace that stained glass can add to your home. As a special offer to readers o f The M ountain Spirit Bill and Kris have designed a delightful butterfly sun-catcher, which is only a sample o f their intricate patterns. The butterfly is ap­ proximately 6 ” X 7 ” (although sizes may vary slightly, as each butterfly is individually crafted) and is available in two color combina­ tions—blue, green, and yellow, or red, yellow, orange—to complement the colors in your den, kitchen, bathroom, or anywhere! This handcrafted stained glass butterfly can be yours for only $12.50, plus a $2.00 shipping and handling charge, and can be ordered through the insert envelope in the fold o f the magazine. And wouldn’t they make great gifts for your special friends? Because each butterfly is made to order, please allow four to six weeks for delivery, and please don’t forget to specify which color you would prefer! W e’re looking forward to your order! Thanks!