Billy Edd Wheeler, Appalachian Polymath: Reflections On The Death Of A Great Appalachian

On September 16, 2024, Billy Edd Wheeler died at his home in North Carolina at the age of 91.  Depending on whom you ask, you could hear Wheeler described as a practitioner of various occupations and, before you ask, you should know that he was a master at several.  He was a song writer and performer, an author of nearly a dozen books, a college administrator, a humorist, and a playwright.  He was admired all across Appalachia as a shining example of what a great Appalachian should be and what all Appalachians should seek to become.  Several of his songs have embedded themselves deep in the psyche of the country.  His half dozen books of humor, co-authored with another great Appalachian, Loyal Jones, are found on the display shelves of book stores, variety stores, and general merchandise establishments.  Several of those humor books are likely to be reprinted for years to come.  He was also the author of several outdoor dramas in states as varied as his native West Virginia to Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.  Wheeler was a man of man talents and he worked daily to utilize them all to the best of his prodigious ability.  In addition to those occupations from which he received most of his support, he was also a painter, wood worker, and sculptor whose works were actually good enough to be displayed in several galleries over the years.  

 

 

He was the  son of a mother who raised to be man enough at 16 to climb on a bus in his native West Virginia and travel to Swannanoa, North Carolina, to a residential school with only a single dollar in his pocket.  Over the years after that fateful trip to North Carolina, he served his country as a student pilot, was hired as Alumni Director at his alma mater Berea College, and completed graduate school in play writing at  Yale University.  His was truly a varied and prodigiously productive life.  

 

I never knew Billy Edd Wheeler but we have had three mutual friends including his coauthor of six books Loyal Jones, and Betty Lynn whom he hired as a secretary at Berea College and who also worked with Wheeler and Jones on the publication of their books.  My friend Betty Lynn had this to say about Billy Edd Wheeler: "I read the obit, but it didn't list BEW's first job out of BC. He was associated with the outdoor drama, "Wilderness Road" at Berea, and was the Alumni Director for a few years before going to Yale. He hired me in Jan.'59 to be the secretary/office mgr. in Alumni Office; and we completed the Alumni Memorial Bldg. in 196l under his leadership. I started being Assoc. Ed. of THE BEREA ALUMNUS, a publication for alumni, staff and the campus, under his leadership. I worked with him and Loyal Jones on the Traditional Music events, held annually on the campus and in the publication of their humor books. BEW wrote several outdoor dramas, one in Indiana about Abe Lincoln; one in West, KY at Murray (I went to both of those) and one in WVA about Hatfields/McCoys; and, maybe others? He put out several albums himself, I have most of them. He was very talented!"  

Another friend who had worked with Billy Edd Wheeler on an outdoor drama in North Carolina said, "he authored our sesquicentennial play in MacDowell County some years ago. 1993. " Voices In The Wind". My oldest daughter and I were both in the show. He was quite taken with her performance, at 9 years old!"   Billy Edd Wheeler was obviously a man who enjoyed watching children develop their talents and was willing to reward them for their achievements.  

I have not even mentioned the things I appreciate most about Billy Edd Wheeler and his amazing life.  I love his obvious zest for life and his ability to achieve success in many fields, his lifelong striving to produce high quality work, his outstanding example for other ambitious Appalachians, and his incredible song writing ability.  I consider three of his songs about the coal mining life to be among the ten or so best songs ever written about coal mining.  "Coal Tattoo" is an incredibly masterful work about the difficulty of being a coal miner and facing periodic layoffs and injuries from the profession.  He addressed the frequent loss of a job in coal mining in that song with these words: 

Travelin' down that coal town road,
Listen to those rubber tires whine;
Goodbye to Buckeye and White Sycamore,
I'm leavin' you behind.
I been a coal man all my life
Layin' down track in the hole,
Got a back like an ironwood bent by the wind
Blood veins blue as the coal.

Then he went on to address the frequent injuries in coal mining with one of the great metaphors in all of song writing, comparing a near death experience in the mines with a tattoo,  And yet, that same stanza ends with another reference to the typical coal miner's love of the job which has nearly killed him: 

 Somebody said "That's a strange tattoo
You have on the side of your head."
I said "That's a blue print left by the coal.
Just a little more and I'd be dead"
But I love the rumble and I love the dark
I love the cool of the slate.

Billy Edd Wheeler addressed the deaths and injuries in the coal mines once again in another of the best coal mining songs ever written, "Red Winged Blackbird".  

Oh, can't you see that pretty little bird
Singing with all his heart and soul
He's got a blood red spot on his wing
And all the rest of him is black as coal

Of all the colors I ever did see
Red and black are the ones I dread
For when a man spills blood on the coal
They carry him down from the coal mines dead

Fly away you red winged bird
Leave behind the miner's wife
She'll dream about you when you're gone
She'll dream about you all her life

Oh, can't you see that pretty little bird
Singing with all his heart and soul
He's got a blood red spot on his wing
And all the rest of him is black as coal

 Using the coloration of a beautiful bird, the red winged blackbird as a metaphor for the wounding, disabling, murdering  accidents inside a coal mine was a brilliant piece of writing.  "For when a man spills blood on the coal  They carry him down from the coal mines dead."   It is my personal opinion that Billy Edd Wheeler was the greatest writer of coal mining music who ever lived.  And he proved it once again the beautifully poignant song "The Coming Of The Roads" about a broken love affair and the death of a coal mining town.

Once I thanked God for our treasure
Now like rust it corrodes
And I can't help but blamin' your goin'
On the coming, the coming of the roads
No, I can't help but blamin' your goin'
On the coming, coming of the roads 

While I value the song writing of Billy Edd Wheeler most for his incredible contributions to the genre of coal mine music, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that Wheeler also wrote a couple of other songs which were even more favorably regarded by the market place.  He was also the author of the songs "Coward Of The County" which was a Number 1 song for Kenny Rogers; "Jackson" which was often regarded as the signature song of Johnny Cash and June Carter; and the humorous "The Little Brown Shack Out Back" which Wheeler  himself took into the Top 10.  He is a member of the Nashville Song Writers Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame; and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.  That, my friends, is a career. 

 

Christmas In The Head Of The Holler

 

 

Christmas In The Head Of The Holler

We live here in the head of the holler.

Whole family’s down to one last dollar.

December is here. So is the cold.

We are lost without any gold.

 

You other folks wait on Old Saint Nick

But here in the holler we think it’s a trick.

He hasn’t been here in about ten years

Never brought us anything to dry our tears.

 

We keep eating leftover pinto beans

Wearing more holes in the holes in our jeans.

We just need flour, milk, and lard.

Life in the holler’s never been this hard.

 

The children are crying with little hard squalls

Sleeping four to a bed curled up in balls

We eat anything that crosses the yard

Life in the holler’s never been this hard.

 

Some people call this house a shack

No windows in front, no door in the back.

Children run out, chickens run in,

If we catch them they never run again.

 

We remember the year we all got gifts

New pants for Pappy and Granny got new shifts.

Daddy got a pocket knife. Mommy got a skillet.

Brother got a goat and we had to kill it. 

 

We remember that year we had plenty to eat

Shirts on our backs and shoes on our feet.

That year we had more than we needed.

The house got paint, the garden got seeded.

 

Since then it’s been all downhill

Nothing to eat, no hog to kill,

Nothing to spend on the food stamp card.

Life in the holler’s never been this hard.

 

You other folks wait on Old Saint Nick.

Here in the holler we know it’s a trick.

We just need flour, milk, and lard.

Life in the holler’s never been this hard.

Copyright by Roger D. Hicks, December 21, 2020

 

 

"Tales from Sacred Wind Coming of Age in Appalachia" by Cratis D. Williams--Book Review

Williams, Cratis D., and David Cratis Willams and Patricia D. Beaver, Editors. Tales From Sacred Wind Coming of Age in Appalachia (Jefferson, NC, McFarland & Co. 2003)

For my regular readers over the past month or so, it is no secret that I love this book.  Some of the most popular and easiest written blog posts I have ever done have been about particular segments of issues which Cratis D. Williams discusses in the book.  I have written about Death, Dying, and Burial Practices In Appalachia; Croton Oil And Cratis Williams; Traditional Appalachian Children's Games; and One More Short Lesson From Cratis Williams.  I had also written a much earlier post about some reading of his work which I had one under the title Responses To Some Reading Of Cratis Williams.  All of these posts were very easy to write and well received by my readers.  Cratis Williams was the Dean of the Appalachian State University Graduate School and taught there for several decades in addition to being one of the most influential scholars in all of the field of Appalachian Studies.  I have said repeatedly that I never met Dr. Williams and I regret that a great deal.  He was erudite, well read, incredibly funny, and one of the best experts on the culture of Appalachia, especially in the early twentieth century.  

This book was edited by his son, Dr. David Cratis Williams and Dr. Patricia D. Beaver who had been one of his professional colleagues at Appalachian State University.

Cratis D. Williams--Photo by the Williams Family

It was published eighteen years after his death.  It is basically a memoir of the first twenty or so years of his life.  It is assumed that he intended to complete a comprehensive memoir of his entire life and simply did not have the time during his academic career to complete and subsequently did not live long to complete the work after his retirement. That is a tragedy since this book is one of the finest books ever written about Appalachian Culture in the early twentieth century, especially the culture of the Big Sandy River Valley and Eastern Kentucky.  This book was published as the eighth produced in the Contributions To Southern Appalachian Studies Series from McFarland & Company in Jefferson, North Carolina.  The series is now comprised of roughly forty books and still being expanded regularly by the publisher.  They cover numerous areas of interest in the greater field of Appalachian Studies.  Although I have not read anywhere near the entire series, I am sure the majority of them are well worth reading.

Now, to get back to "Tales From Sacred Wind...", I am sure that most people tend to think that the name Sacred Wind for the post office in the community on Caines Creek in Lawrence County must have been rooted in religion.  According to Williams, it was not remotely rooted in religion.  He relates the story of how the first postmaster had been tasked with naming the post office and wanted to find a particularly meaningful name.  He had struggled with that effort and was sitting on his porch one day with a friend talking about the effort when the friend passed gas loudly and demonstratively and said, "Name it after that." which is exactly how the postmaster arrived at the name of Sacred Wind.  

The book covers numerous areas of Appalachian Culture including those I have written about and numerous others such as feuds, family strife up to and including patricide and pedicide, the United Baptist Church, one room schools, education in general, farming, child birth, midwifery, and many others.  The book is well written but, if there is one area in which to critique it, the quality of the writing is variable, at times well above average and, at other times, the quality drops a bit.  The book was apparently written over several years in small to medium segments or sections each on a particular topic.  After his death, Cratis Williams' son and Dr. Beavers edited the manuscript and McFarland published it.  I am sure that it does not have the same level of consistency and quality that it would have if Cratis Williams had lived to fully complete the work to cover his entire life.  But the work is well worth reading and I certain that many of my regular readers on this blog will attest to that fact also.  It is well worth the money, time, and effort to buy and read it.