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Kentucky’s moonlight schools
Some would consider her the founder of Adult Literacy Education in the United States. Cora Wilson Stewart (1875-1958) was an elementary school teacher and county school superintendent in eastern...
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The Legend of Ruling Days
Please welcome Timothy W. Hooker. The Cleveland, TN based author and teacher has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Memphis. He’s taught composition, creative writing, and literature at...
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The Animals from the Wild Visit, and Ms. Cat Stays
I think it was the ninth night, I was told, that the wild animals came in from the forest, fields and desert. Some had traveled a long way. They came in late at night when everybody was asleep. They...
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Chinese firecrackers provided plenty of Christmas joking
Clarence Nixon wrote of his father’s store in his book Possum Trot, “We stocked up with fruit in December, and I still think of Christmas when I smell oranges in the country.” The South was a land of...
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And the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strain
Merry Christmas everyone! I want to take a minute and thank all my readers for stopping by and having a look around here at the site throughout this past year. Your comments and appreciation really...
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Muralist Lola Poston and the Lincoln Theatre
Her paintings were shown at the 1939 World’s Fair, and she helped decorate the White House during the Roosevelt Administration. But the artistic highlight of Lola Poston’s painting career was surely...
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The Lincoln Memorial, the NY Stock Exchange, and Tate, GA
Small marble quarries had been active in north Georgia since the discovery in the 1830’s of the rare, bright pink marble that the area is famous for. But under the 3-generation dynasty of the Tate...
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The Greenbrier Ghost
On January 23, 1897, Elva Zona Heaster Shue of Lewisburg WV, a bride of three months, was found dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor of the log house where she lived with her...
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Duke Power floods the Uplands of SC
The Cherokee name Jocassee means “Place of the Lost One,” and what a fitting description that is for the South Carolina lake that bears its name, and for its sister lake, Lake Keowee. In 1974, Duke...
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Lots of people thought I was an idiot
“I never spoke a word until I was nine years old. I only clucked and motioned for what I wanted. Lots of people thought I was an idiot because I could not talk. I may have looked like one, for I was a...
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The Waldensians in North Carolina
The largest Waldensian colony in the world outside of Italy–Valdese, NC–was officially incorporated as a town on February 17, 1920. The Waldenses, or Waldensians, are a Christian sect founded in the...
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George W. Christians, American fascist
It is the privileged role of the Art Smiths, the William Pelleys, and the George Christians to lay only the cornerstone of fascism. It is in their rudimentary organizations that the petty bourgeoisie...
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The boldest indecent passages I have ever seen
Publishers’ Weekly 145 (March 25, 1944): “Strange Fruit banned by Boston booksellers” Says a Cambridge adage: “Banned in Boston is the trademark of a good book.” On March 25,1944 Cambridge Police Chief...
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Alarmed by the American Plutocracy
As we look over the country today we see two classes of people. The excessively rich and the abject poor, and between them is a gulf ever deepening, ever widening, and the ranks of the poor are...
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"Que te parece! Now I believe in the egg!"
“Benito Fernandez, known by all the Spaniards as Benito El Tuerto because he couldn’t see out of his left eye, lived just two houses away from our house on Ashton Lane. His wife, Cristina, was a short,...
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Sassafras tea – THE spring tonic
My mother was a great sassafras drinker. And every spring we had to have sassafras along with our poke salad (that was a wild green). The mountain people particularly gathered a lot of wild greens to...
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A mill built plenty sturdy
The western Algonquin called it the ‘Mooskingom,’ and to the Narragansett tribe it was the ‘Mooshingung’ —“water clear as an elk’s eye.” The Muskingum River, which empties into the mighty Ohio River...
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He deserted the Confederate AND the Union armies
John Denton fought for the Confederate Army, but deserted it. Then he joined the Union Army, but deserted it even faster. And that was just the beginning of his troubles. Denton volunteered for Company...
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Baseball’s First World Series Hero: Deacon Phillippi
Baseball pitcher Charles Louis (“Deacon”) Phillippi, of Rural Retreat VA, was drafted into the National League by Louisville in 1898, and began his baseball career with that team on April 21, 1899. On...
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The Scottsboro Boys
On March 25, 1931, local authorities in Paint Rock, AL arrested nine black youths on a freight train after receiving word about a fight between blacks and whites on the train. They discovered two white...
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