Memorial Meeting, Elijah Smith Cemetery, Dingus, Kentucky, September 29, 2019

Yesterday, my wife Candice and I attended a memorial meeting on the Elijah Smith Cemetery in Dingus, Kentucky, in Morgan County.  The cemetery is located on Kentucky 437 on White Oak Branch in a very rural part of Morgan county near the Johnson county line and not far from Crockett.  The cemetery is a classic old Appalachian mountain cemetery on a high point of land with a pretty fair view and lots of large old trees.  It still has an area set aside for church services in the upper corner with about six rows of benches made of 2 x 12's set on concrete blocks.  The cemetery is fenced with a good chain link fence and has a gravel road up the hill from the highway. There is even a pulpit built out of a wooden post with a slanted board top on which a preacher can place a Bible or song book and there is a flat platform attached to a tree which fits one of those large orange water jugs.  But the road does tend to wash out and become rough at times.  It was in pretty good shape yesterday but several people still managed to become temporarily stuck due to driving too slow and having only rear wheel drive.  There is a one seat outdoor toilet about a hundred feet further up the ridge above the cemetery which does not have a hole dug but is simply set on the edge of a bank near the edge of the timber.  I realize that this is probably not acceptable to most health departments today but since the toilet is generally used only for the memorial meeting or an occasional burial, it gets the job done and a combination of weather and insects does the disposal work.  

This is the second time Candice and I have attended this memorial service  at the cemetery.  We were there two years ago and one was not held last year due to heavy rain.  There are 114 memorials documented for the cemetery on Find A Grave but there are also several with only sand stone markers which are not documented and so far as I know the identities of the people buried in them is no longer remembered by anyone. Several of the graves have tombstones dated in the late 19the century and it is likely that it may extend back somewhere close to 150 years.  There seems to be a large number of graves from the Great Depression era, especially graves of young children.  I wonder how many of those Great Depression deaths were attributable to poverty and starvation.  There is also one row of children's graves with ten graves which one of the attendees told me were all the children of one set of parents who lost all their children in early childhood or childbirth except one  son who lived to adulthood.  There are four or five families represented with several members in the cemetery  and it appears to have always been a genuine Appalachian cemetery where no one would have been denied burial.

We know two people who are buried there, Clint Howard and his wife Ella Howard, who were the parents of Shirley Howard Robbins who is a friend of Candice and cleans our house.  But, due to our 27 years in this county, we generally know quite a few people who attend this service.  There are numerous members of Shirley's extended family including her children, grandchildren, brothers, and cousins.  We also know one woman and her daughter from the time when Candice was using physical therapy at our local ARH hospital and that woman was a physical therapy assistant.  We have also come to know a couple of the preachers who usually come to this service. There was one babe in arms, several people in their twenties, and nearly every decade in age represented by at least one person including one man who is past 90. Due to the size of the attendance and the representation of a multitude of age groups, this memorial meeting gives me hope that such memorial services are not totally gone from the current Appalachian culture. The denomination in charge has always been Enterprise Baptist.  They are one of the offshoots of the Old Regular Baptists who split off nearly a hundred years ago and became more liberal with instrumental music in their churches although there are never any instruments at this service.

The service usually starts with a song or two which are started by one of the preachers but not sung in traditional Appalachian lined hymnody which is a shame.  Lined hymnody is the method which the traditional Old Regular Baptist churches still use and what I grew up around.  I rarely hear it anymore since I rarely attend an Old Regular Baptist service.  The Elijah Smith Cemetery service is usually begun, as I said, with a couple of songs and then a prayer and opening short sermon by one of the preachers.  At some point, one of the usual preachers will offer an opportunity for anyone in the congregation to either give a testimony, sing a song, or voice a prayer request.  Another of Clint and Ella Howard's children, son Jimmy Howard almost always sings a song or two and he is a wonderful singer in the manner most often seen in Enterprise Baptist congregations.  But this year, Jimmy sang with another of the preachers and it just did not stand up to his solo singing from the previous occasions I have seen him sing.  The preachers who preached were John Ed Howard, a descendant of some of the people buried there; Ben Smith, also a descendant of some of the people buried there; Lonnie B. Wright, also related to some of the people buried there; and a fairly young preacher whose name I do not remember who, I believe, is actually from Pike County. 

When the service ended, approximately forty or so people, many of whom are related to Shirley Howard Robbins and her husband Russell Robbins, went to their home just up the creek for a wonderful dinner and conversation for two or three hours. For me, one of the best parts of the dinner and conversation is that Lonnie B. Wright always attends the dinner, is a wonderfully funny man who can talk about anything and has a broad history of working as a heavy equipment operator, knows everybody in the area, and loves to talk, make jokes, and become the center of attention.  Also, he and I know each other pretty well and are passing friends without being bosom buddies and we love to play off each other's jokes.  It makes for a fun time and one or two others who attend can also hold their own in a room with Lonnie B. and me. Candice and I also went there as we have done on other occasions.  The food was awesome and we all enjoyed it a great deal since Shirley and several members of her extended family are wonderful cooks.  There was ham, turkey, fried chicken strips, and chicken and dumplings along with green beans, baked beans, rolls, cole slaw, corn, and quite a few desserts such as a great fruit salad, chocolate pie, and a few other temptations for the sweet tooth.  We stayed until about 4pm before we left for home and enjoyed the entire experience a great deal.  This really is a throwback to old cemetery memorial meetings extending all the way back to the time which James Still wrote about in "River of Earth".  This meeting is always held on the last Sunday in September and anyone is welcome whether or not you have ever been there, whether or not you are related to one of the dead, or whether or not you are even an Appalachian.  If you are a student of Appalachian Culture, religion, or genealogy and have not seen a cemetery memorial service or just haven't seen one in a long while, just show up next year at about 10am on the last Sunday of September and you will have time to make friends before the service starts.  I am also willing to bet that you will also be invited to the dinner afterward. 

Register And Vote Straight Democratic In Kentucky--Deadline Is October 7, 2019

The button above is one of my favorite campaign buttons I have ever seen and I use it frequently to make a point, especially on Facebook.  But in addition to this bit of wisdom that "bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote"  always remember this one also: Bad politicians are also elected by Vladimir Putin and Russia.  For the last 32 months, America has been suffering from the ramifications of these two truisms. 

The deadline to register to vote or to change any information on your Kentucky voter registration is October 7, 2019.  You can register to vote, change your information on your registration, or gain information about the upcoming November 5, 2019, general election in Kentucky by going to your local county clerk's office or going online at the website of the Secretary of State at the link above.  There has not been a more important election in Kentucky during my lifetime.  We are suffering from the horrible mistake of having allowed a criminal carpet bagger to weasel his way into the governor's office and he also has a band of Right Wing Radical co-conspirators in the Kentucky State Legislature.  Matt Bevin and all his Right Wing Radical co-conspirators need to be voted out of office and sent back to the same slimy rocks they all crawled out from under.  The past several elections in Kentucky and the nation have been very lowly attended and Kentucky is paying a horrible price for that low voter turnout.  On December 8, 2015, Matt Bevin was sworn in as Kentucky's governor primarily because enough good, decent people who understood political reality did not vote in Kentucky.  Immediately after being sworn in, Bevin declared war on healthcare, public education, the elderly, the ill, the infirm, the young, and minorities in Kentucky.  It is long past time for him to be voted out of office and the only way that can be done is if enough Democrats go to the polls and vote for Andy Beshear as Kentucky's next governor. 

If you are not registered to vote, be absolutely certain before your county clerk's office closes on October 7, 2019, that you go there or go online at the link above and register as a Democrat.  Then at the crack of daylight on November 5, 2019, be absolutely certain that you go to your local polling place and vote a Straight Democratic ticket.  The other candidates for lesser offices on the Republican ticket are just as dangerous and uncaring as Matt Bevin.  Do not allow your failure to vote be part of the reason this horrible time continues in Kentucky.  Here is also a link to the Kentucky Voter Information Center from the office of the Secretary of State where you can find out where to vote, how to register, how to change your registration information, and a multitude of other information.  Register and Vote STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC! 

"Twigs XI/I Kentucky Bicentennial Issue" Fall 1974--What An Issue!

I have mentioned in a few blog posts lately that I have recently bought a sizeable number of books from a friend in the antique business which had come from the estate of a local newspaper writer who knew many of the regional writers in Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia and literally kept everything that fell into her hands.  One of the books in that pile I bought is an issue of the magazine "Twigs" which was originally published by the University of Pikeville.  The magazine, at that time, benefited from the fact that Lillie D. Chaffin and Leonard Roberts both worked at the university and served as the editorial staff of "Twigs".  There is an Appalachian literary award named for Chaffin and her husband Thomas at Morehead State University.  

"Twigs" also deserves a great deal of credit in the history of Appalachian Literature for having been the first place in which Loyal Jones' seminal work, "Appalachian Values", was published.  But my first pleasant surprise in this issue of "Twigs" came when I saw that it contained a poem by Loyal Jones about the death of his brother as a child.  Loyal Jones is one of the most famous names in Appalachian Literature and the entire field of Appalachian Studies and I had never known that he ever wrote poetry.  And it is actually a pretty darn good poem.  The poem is called "To Elmer" and contains these powerful lines from an adult brother who never saw his sibling grow to adulthood:

"But how does one fashion a brother?

So I wonder still what you were, 

What you held in your heart

That quit so soon.

I can only wish for more

To go with the half-etched face

Which is all I have of you, my brother."  From "To Elmer" by Loyal Jones

That poem reminds me of one I also published more than forty years ago, at roughly the same period as Loyal Jones published his.  Mine was published in "What's A Nice Hillbilly Like You..." and was about the coal mining death of my brother Hewie Hicks which was called "Huey, My Brother" and is printed here in its entirety.  

"I don't remember much about him

Except the flowers he grew were beautiful.

(He talked to flowers you know.)

And how one side of his face in the casket

Was lower than the other

Because the rock fall that killed him

On his retirement day almost missed.

(He listened to the mine you know.)"  From "Huey, My Brother" by Roger D. Hicks

I find it fascinating that many miles apart, at nearly the same time without having ever met at that time, that Loyal Jones and I were both writing and publishing poetry about the deaths of our brothers and both of us were using references to the faces of the dead brothers to build our poems.  Robert "Bob" Snyder, the wonderful Appalachian poet and founder of the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, used my poem as an illustration of a quality he referred to as "enmaskedness".  He described "enmaskedness" as "...the ability to rest calmly in one's self, one's role, without anxiously reaching for irony or escape, within a larger situation that is stormily comical or tragic or otherwise energized"  (Robert F. Snyder, "Colonial Memesis and the Appalachian Renascence" in "Appalachian Journal, Vol. 3, No. 5, 1978).  Snyder also used a poem by Lillie D. Chaffin about the Buffalo Creek Flood to illustrate the same quality of enmaskedness: 

"Deadlines! Deadlines of the feeble, the small

and the laggards. Damnation to dams, and to, 

rubber dolls bobbing on indigo waves

with no one to press their "Mama" cry buttons

or scold at how soggy diapers can get."  From "After The Buffalo Creek Dam Break" by Lillie D. Chaffin.

I had never intended to use this blog post to discuss Bob Snyder's exposition of what he called "enmaskedness".  But, since I referred back to that article of his, I realized that the three of us, Jones, Chaffin, and me, had all provided evidence of what my mentor, Bob Snyder, was talking about, in our poems about death of various kinds.  And, of course, Chaffin and I were both discussing death due to the shortcomings of the Appalachian mining industry and Loyal Jones and I were both discussing the deaths of beloved brothers.  I seem to come up short in drawing a terminal conclusion about this whole quality of enmaskedness and the poetry of the three of us, but I am fascinated by how well it all seems to tie up in a neat little ball.  I am really glad I found this copy of "Twigs"; and, I will be forever grateful that I was blessed to know and be mentored by both Snyder and Jones.

To return to my discussion of the issue of "Twigs", it also contains work from several more significant writers including a short story, "Sail On And On", by Leonard Roberts who was just as generally unknown for his short stories as Jones was for his poetry.  The list of authors on the cover of the book mentions Joy Bale, a former Kentucky Poet Laureate; Wendell Berry, who generally needs no introduction; Jack Cady, a former Kentuckian who was successful as a mainstream fiction writer; Jim Wayne Miller, who is actually listed as "James Wayne Miller" a name which I had never seen used to refer to him before; James Still, who also needs no introduction; and my other friend and mentor, Albert Stewart.  Interestingly, the book also contains poetry from William Howard Cohen, another of my early mentors; and Jane Stuart, the daughter of Jesse Stuart.  The cover does not even list these two.  To say the least, this particular volume of "Twigs" contains a great deal of writing from nearly a dozen well known Appalachian writers.  Naturally, since it is 45 years old, it will be very difficult to find on Internet used book sites and likely impossible to locate except in estate sales such as where I found it.  But if you stray into a copy, buy it, read it, enjoy it.  It is well worth whatever it will cost if you are an actual aficionado of Appalachian Literature.   

A Very Dangerous But Very Necessary Time In America!

Yesterday, September 24, 2019, Speaker of The US House of Representative Nancy Pelosi announced that the House is finally going to begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump due to the attempt to cover up a whistle blower report concerning his efforts in a telephone call to coerce the President of Ukraine to institute an investigation against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The contents of that whistle blower's report clearly seem to show an attempt by Donald Trump to force the Ukrainian president to conduct a criminal investigation of Joe Biden which was presaged by a blockage of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine before the telephone call.  That blockage of military aid was clearly an axe hanging of the head of the Ukrainian president. The transcript of that telephone call, which might have been edited or pruned by White House staff to remove even more clearly damaging statements, was released to the press by the White House in an attempt to stay ahead of the rapidly moving chain of events since Speaker Pelosi's announcement. This attempt to coerce a foreign leader to criminally investigate a former Vice President of the United States during an election campaign in which Joe Biden is the leading opponent of the current illegal and treasonous occupant of the White House is the final straw which forced the House Speaker to take an action which should have begun on November 9, 2017. Sufficient evidence existed even then to warrant a criminal investigation of Trump and his connections to Russia.  The transcript of the call to the Ukrainian president, regardless of any White House editing which might have occurred, still revealed that Donald Trump actually offered to have the Attorney General and the Justice Department assist Ukrainian officials in such an investigation. That is clearly an abuse of power. There has always been sufficient evidence of multitudinous crimes by Donald Trump both before and after he was allowed to illegally and treasonously occupy the White House to convict him of a plethora of charges ranging from criminal business activities and federal tax evasion all the way to treason and acting as an unlicensed foreign agent.  This impeachment is long overdue.

Due to the deep and unrepentant criminal nature of Donald Trump and the entire coterie of people around him, this has now become the most dangerous time in American history since the Civil War.  There has never been a time in the life of Donald Trump when he was not willing to commit any crime which was remotely capable of getting him his way even briefly in any situation.  It is readily apparent that he will go to any lengths to save his treasonously gained hold on power and avoid the possibility of criminal conviction and a life sentence without parole which is the only just punishment for his crimes against America and American Democracy.  He is capable of starting an unjustified war with a country such as Iran if he believes it will help him avoid impeachment, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment for his crime spree against America and the world.   He is perfectly capable of giving US state secrets to any foreign power which would assist him in avoiding consequences for his actions. There is literally no crime which he is not willing to commit and the past fifty years have shown that he has already committed most of those crimes in cases which involved far less serious consequences to this traitor.  US military and intelligence officials must be unceasingly vigilant in the ensuing period until the impeachment process is complete and Trump is safely in custody in a federal prison in order that US intelligence secrets are kept safe and to protect the country from further treason by Donald Trump.  While this impeachment process grinds slowly to its inevitable conclusion that he is guilty, this traitor is capable of taking irreversible actions which could well lead to the destruction of the country, the irreparable destruction of its intelligence community abroad, the deaths of numerous covert US agents, and other permanent consequences which can only be imagined today.  Until he is impeached, indicted, convicted, and imprisoned for his crimes, the USA is in the greatest danger it has been in since the darkest days of the Civil War.  Donald Trump must be impeached.  He must be criminally indicted.  He must be criminally convicted.  He must be imprisoned and never leave the institution in which he is held until he has successfully completed a life sentence without parole.  The US congress,  the entire American intelligence community, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the questionable US Supreme Court must all  do their duty to protect the country and remove this traitor from any further opportunities to destroy American Democracy.

Favorite Stories From My Father, Ballard Hicks, 1887--1971

I tend to believe that I am a pretty good story teller and I know I came by it honestly.  My father, Ballard Hicks, was a wonderful story teller and could talk about any subject, any time, anywhere.  He had been born in the holler of Bruce at Mousie in Knott County Kentucky in 1887 and died in 1971 at the age of 84.  When he was born, Grover Cleveland was president and by the time he died the country was suffering through the Viet Nam War and the crimes of Richard Nixon.  When my father was born, Knott County Kentucky was a toddler of three years old.  Most of the prescription medicines we used even by the time I was born in 1951 were unknown in his time.  Anything as common as a broken bone or appendicitis could kill you.

Ballard Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

  My father helped hunt wild hogs for winter meat as a teenager with his father, Charlie Hicks, and his brothers, William, Isom, Fair, Elder, and Tim.  They kept mountain cur dogs which were trained to hunt any and all edible animals.  My grandfather kept more than fifty stands of bees most of his life and was said to talk about "his honey, his money, and his old woman".  I suspect he was a story teller too.  My father's family raised, made, hunted, fished, or bartered for 99% of everything they ate, wore, and used in daily life until well into their own adult lives.  Life in the late 19th century was not easy in Knott County Kentucky but I never heard my father or any of his siblings complain about how they grew up and I personally knew six of his nine siblings.  I sincerely wish that I had recorded every story I heard from them and many others I knew from their era instead of assuming I would remember those stories.  But I do remember many of my father's favorite stories and I heard most of them many times until his death when I was twenty.  

Sometime when I was about 8 or 9 years old, Daddy decided it was time for me to learn to swim and took me to Beaver Creek near our house to try to teach me even though he was past 70 at the time.  During this experience, he told me the story of how he learned to swim.  He said that his mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Carpenter Hicks, sent him somewhere on Ball Branch around Mousie where someone operated a grist mill to get a turn of corn ground into meal.  He said the miller had a few other turns of corn to grind before his and he went outside the mill to walk around the mill pond.  During this walk or play session, he said he fell off the mill dam into the pond which was well over his head and he could not swim.  He said he went under the first time and came to the surface without being able to swim.  He went down a second time and when he came up he still was not able to swim.  He said just as he was about to sink for the third time he managed to begin kicking and paddling in a successful manner and made it to the bank alive.  He always said that he could always swim after that incident. I am sure that near drowning incident played a role in his decision to teach me to swim. 

Charley and Betty Hicks and Their Children And Two Grandchildren, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

He also told a couple of other stories about his childhood including one about going fishing with one of his brothers, either Fair or Elder, and they weren't catching anything when the brother noticed some kind of unusual action coming from under the bank and said, "I think there's a big catfish or turtle under there." 

Ballard Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Daddy said the brother took off his clothes and dove into the water and a great thrashing and boiling ensued in the creek.  Eventually, his brother came up with his hand in the mouth of a large catfish which Daddy always described as having "made a dish pan full of meat".  He also always said that the catfish had "skunt up my brothers hand and arm way above his wrist". Another of his favorite stories was about a time his father took him and another of the brothers to Jackson with him which would have been a full day's trip through the woods from Bruce.  He said this brother was about 8 or 9 years old and had never been out of the Mousie area.  When they got to Jackson, it had a few blocks of concrete sidewalks and Daddy always said his brother walked along for a while looking at the sidewalks and finally said, "I sure wish I knowed where they got them big flat rocks.  Pa could use some of them to set his bee gums on."  Both my father and I always thought that was a hilarious story.

My Grandparents, Elizabeth "Betty" Carpenter Hicks and Charley Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

But my personal favorite of all his stories from his childhood was connected to his decision to quit school and go to work as a brakeman on a log wagon when he was only ten years old.  The drivers on log wagons had to give full attention to their team of horses or mules and employers often hired young boys to operate the wagon brake on downhills and to hook and unhook the teams from the wagons and other assorted chores.  His employer in this logging job also owned a country store and all his employees were required to take their pay in "a store order" which required them to accept merchandise instead of money and operated much the same as scrip in coal mining jobs.  When my father got his first "store order", he said he took it home and gave it to his mother to spend on the household.  To his surprise, Grandma Betty took the store order and bought one of his brothers a new mackinaw coat.  Daddy said he made up his mind that "if I'm old enough to work, I'm old enough to spend my own store order".  When he got the "store order" the next week, he took it on Saturday to the store and bought himself a brand new blue serge suit, the first store bought clothes of his life.  Then he went to a local square dance, barn dance, corn shucking or some such event.  As he told the story, he "set on a nail keg all night with a little girl on my lap".   On his way home after the event ended, he realized that he had caught crabs from the little girl.  He said he knew better than to carry crabs into his mother's house and stopped in the yard to holler when he got home, "Hey Ma!  Hey Ma!"  Grandma Betty stepped out on the porch to ask him what he wanted and he said he told her, "Ma, I've caught the body lice."  She told him to fill her wash kettle with water, build a fire under it, and call her again when it was boiling and to stay out of the house.  When the water boiled, Grandma Betty told him to go in the wash house or cellar, take all his clothes off, and throw them out the door to her.  She threw the new blue serge suit in the boiling water and boiled it about an hour to kill the crabs.  Daddy said when the suit got dry it had changed drastically and one leg was about a foot longer than the other and both arms of the suit coat were shrunk horribly.  He would tell that story and laugh and say, "I worked two weeks to wear a blue serge suit one night."  Both of us loved that story and so have most others who have heard it.

My Aunt & Uncle, Ida and Tim Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

As I said earlier in this post, Daddy and his father and brothers always killed hogs for winter meat at a time when there were no livestock laws and most people's hogs ran wild in the woods.  They would wait for good hog killing weather after a hard freeze came and the crops were in and take two or three of those mountain cur dogs and a rifle and hunt until they had killed enough meat to last through the winter.  He always talked about one of those dogs in particular which he said was the best dog they ever had.  During one of these hog hunts, the dogs cornered a large boar under a rock cliff before they got within shooting range of it.  Before they could kill the hog, it had managed to get a tusk into that good dog whose name I do not remember.  The dog was not killed instantly but was severely wounded in the abdomen.  Daddy said they killed the hog and carried the dog home where my grandmother, who worked as a midwife in the area, attempted to sew up the dog's belly.  But the dog died and was always remembered fondly by my father.

Daddy always said that during his childhood, his father owned a wonderful muzzle loading rifle which could not be beaten for accuracy.  At that time in the mountains, it was common on weekends to hold shooting matches and someone would put out word that there was a match at their farm and men from all over the area would walk in with their guns and compete.  Usually, there was a small entry fee, since money was scarce, and the person in charge would put up a hog, sheep, or cow, as prizes.  The animal would be parceled out over five matches in four quarters plus the hide and tallow.  If more than one person won a quarter, the animal had to be slaughtered on the spot and divided between the winning parties. Sometimes, one of the winners might be able to buy the lesser portions from the others and manage to just lead or drive the animal home. Daddy said he and his brothers could almost always win most matches with the muzzle loader and at one particular match several miles from their home they won all four quarters of a large beef animal but lost the match for the hide and tallow.  He said they tried to buy that portion from the winner who was angry at having lost the majority of the matches and refused to sell his portion.  According to Daddy, they had to slaughter the animal on the spot, give the man the hide and tallow and take turns carrying the four quarters of a large beef home for several miles.

Curtis Hicks, Ballard Hicks, & Hewie Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Eventually, he said other men in the area would not shoot against the muzzle loader and it was banned from some matches. So the brothers altered the rifle by sawing part of the stock off and even painting the stock and forearm blue for awhile.  He never said what eventually happened with that muzzle loader; but if I could find it I would give anything to own it.

He always told one story about hunting in the Mousie area with an unnamed friend as an illustration of how tough times were during his younger years.  He said he went rabbit hunting once when he was a young adult with some friend whom he knew had little on which to live.  He said it was a snowy morning and as they were cresting a small rise a red fox trotted over the rise into sight and his friend shot it.  The man immediately turned to my father and said, "Build us a fire, Ballard, while I skin this fox."  Daddy said he thought his friend just wanted to warm up while they were waiting to retrieve the fox hide which he could sell.  But after the man started skinning the fox, he cut out the hind quarters and asked, "Do you want to eat these front quarters, Ballard?  I'm going to brile these hind quarters."  Daddy said he declined to eat any of the fox and waited while his friend broiled and ate the majority of the animal.  He also always told one other story about people in poverty eating unusual animals.  He said he knew a woman in the area who had three or four children and no husband at home.  He said he went to visit there once and the woman had a large kettle of something boiling merrily on the stove.  Daddy asked, "What are you cooking?" and the woman just replied somewhat evasively, "I'm just cooking supper for me and the young'uns."  Eventually, he said he was able to get her to admit what she was cooking.  She had gotten out in the area around her house and caught and cleaned three or four terrapins or box turtles  and was cooking them to eat.  He never ate any of those either.

Another of his favorite stories was about two couples he claimed to have known in his childhood who lived on small, hillside farms not far apart.  Apparently, neither of these couples could get along.  So the story went, the two men eventually agreed to trade wives, farms, and families.  He always swore that the two men simply packed up their personal belongings and walked from house to house on the same day, probably passing in the road, and seemed to live quite amicably for the rest of their lives with the other woman and each other.  I realize that this story is somewhat unsavory in today's world and tends to seriously devalue both women and children.  But my father swore it was true although he never named the people involved if it was true.

My other absolute favorite story from my father was about an incident shortly after he bought a country store near Wayland, Kentucky, quit the coal mines, and became a storekeeper due to the failing health of his first wife, Ora Wicker Hicks,

Ora Wicker Hicks, Ballard Hicks, Earl Wicker, Pearl Wicker, & Orville James Hicks--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

who had been diagnosed with an untreatable neurological condition which her obituary described as "paralysis". Some time shortly after he bought the store and during the time before World War II rationing ended, he bought a truck load of black market lard from a fly by night person who had the fifty pound cans of lard hidden under a covering of square baled hay.  He said the lard sold like wildfire because nobody had ration stamps and the price was reasonable.  But about a week after the lard started selling, Daddy had to pay the devil his due.  When the local cooks got about three or four inches down in each bucket of lard, it turned out that the majority was only beef tallow covered up with nice, creamy pork lard.  He always said that load of lard nearly broke him in the store business but he could still laugh about it.  

My Parents, Ballard and Mellie Hicks, Photo by Roger D. Hicks 

New Book, "True Christmas Stories From The Heart Of Appalachia", From The Jesse Stuart Foundation

The Jesse Stuart Foundation has just released a new book entitled "True Christmas Stories From the Heart of Appalachia".  The book has 43 Christmas stories from 39 authors. It has stories from my friends, Edwina Pendarvis and Emily Steiner, as well as the well known authors Jesse Stuart, Thomas D. Clark, Cratis Williams, Bill Best, and Billy C. Clark. Including my story, "Christmas On Beaver Creek", there are three stories which are set in Knott County.  Two of those stories are set at Pippa Passes and the Caney Creek Community Center. This book is a wonderful addition to your collections of Christmas books or Appalachian books. It is also a wonderful Christmas gift for those who love to remember and work to preserve the Appalachia of their childhood.  It is well worth reading and will take nearly every reader back to some wonderful memory from your growing up years. I have a limited number of copies available with my autograph at the price of $25.00 plus $3.00 shipping (28.00 total) which is the price set by the publisher. The book will cost you the same amount of money without any autographs from the Jesse Stuart Foundation.   I will accept PayPal at rchicks@mrtc.com. I will also accept orders with a check or US Postal Money Order at:

Roger D. Hicks

65 Highway 1081

West Liberty, KY 41472

Send me an e-mail there with your name, address, and the name of the person to which you want each copy dedicated.

Here is an excerpt from my story: "Late in the evenings when the fire was warm and business slow, the older men would stop by the store to tell stories about old Christmas with the cattle kneeling in the fields...and how some old preacher talked about three men who rode on camels across a big desert following a star to take some fancy presents to a baby who was just like us, too poor to be born in a hospital." 

"Jack And The Wonder Beans" by James Still--Book Review

James Still--Photo by University Of Kentucky

Still, James & Illustrated by Margot Tomes. Jack and the Wonder Beans. (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1977)

This is James Still's Appalachian adaptation of the classic fairy tale "Jack and the Bean Stalk".  It is somewhat heavy on dialect and humor and yet it is probably better for your children than a simple fairy tale.  As for children and fairy tales, I would be a lot better satisfied if the majority of American and Appalachian children were being raised on fairy tales than computer based games of mass destruction.  We never seemed to have nearly as many problems with our children when their parents were sitting by their beds reading them stories about woodcutters chopping up criminal wolves in order to save little red haired girls than we are now when we hand each child some form of electronic device and leave them to their own devices with games in which weapons of mass destruction are used against the general public.  This book is one of at least three little books which G. P. Putnam's Sons published for James Still at the height of his national popularity which was rooted in the success of "River of Earth".  Two of the others are "Way Down Yonder On Troublesome Creek" and "The Wolf Pen Rusties Appalachian Riddles & Gee-Haw Whimmy Diddles".  For all three of these books, Putnam used New York illustrators which I suspect was a convenience to the publisher.  I also suspect the books might have been more authentically Appalachian if they had been illustrated by genuine Appalachian artists.  

"Jack and the Wonder Beans" makes a legitimate attempt to utilize Appalachian dialect, at which James Still was an acknowledged expert, while also attempting to not make the language unreadable for the general public.  I suspect that the original text, as Still would have sent it to the publisher, was considerably more rooted in dialect.   The dialect in the book seems "cleaned up" at times especially when you compare it to the dialect in "River of Earth" or his short stories.  The art work also seems at times to be much more generically "Southern" than truly Appalachian.  But the book is loaded with expressions I heard as a child in Knott County such as "a hog on ice" and "feet as big as corn sleds".  Any reference to a corn sled can generally be assumed to be Appalachian or Southern.  In all my travels over half of America and a bit of Mexico and Canada, I have never heard anyone outside Appalachia refer to the family corn sled and I have to admit that I have recently used a reference to "that fancy corn sled" which Old Saint Nick drove "behind them funny looking deer". Corn sleds have always been handy both on the farm and in a bit of writing intended to educate the outside world about Appalachia.  I commend James Still for having reverted to the use of a corn sled in this book. 

While this book is a bit dated, which is not unusual in the many books I have read and written about on this blog.  But it is well worth reading both for children and adults.  I often read children's literature when I want a break from more academic reading.  This book is also widely sold on used book websites and should be easy to locate.  If you want a reminder of the old Appalachian dialect of your ancestors, this is a good place to start.  

Elk Night And A Good Hike At Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge, September 14, 2019

This past Saturday night, my wife Candice and I went to Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge for Elk Night in the lodge dining room.  We got there about an hour or so early so I could take a hike on one of the trails I had never been on, the Moss Ridge Trail which starts up the hill above the lodge and just below one of the rental cottages.  It runs for about 1.3 miles total.  It begins in the general direction of the amphitheater and then doubles back along the ridge to the lodge.  It is labeled as "Strenuous" in their little flyer about the trails.  I agree that it is a bit tough and should not be attempted by anyone who is not used to hiking some in the mountains but I think it falls a bit short of "Strenuous".  The staff description states that it has steep uphills and steep down hills and that is accurate.  It begins with a short hundred yards of pretty level hiking and then has some treated wooden baffles across the trail to prevent erosion which are not remotely steps but purely water baffles which are too far apart to be considered steps on the first uphill.  It is in timber all the way and well shaded.  But for me the worst part of the entire deal is that it and the linked Steve Brackett Memorial Trail were both primarily bushwhacked out of the woods with a small bulldozer and it will show for many more years that it was accomplished in that way.  The trail itself is level in large sections but does have some steep uphills and, on the return loop, some steep downhills which are over some sections of exposed rock and gravel which tends to make it a bit risky about falls due to small, rolling rocks. The other drawback to the trail is that it has several large down trees which have not been dealt with and a few are in full blown widow maker mode.  But they are nice trails with the two or three objections stated above and they appear to be somewhat better maintained than the Jenny Wiley Trail which I hiked part of about a month ago and wrote about on this blog. The area of the Moss Ridge Trail that runs along the ridge is nice and flat and was not damaged so much with the bulldozer.  It apparently runs along the property line of the park on the ridge because there are several three foot tall steel markers in the ground which are painted bright red and labeled "Boundary Line".  The land on the opposite side of the markers is also timber land and brings up another idea I have about the need for the state park system to be funded to increase the acreage and uses of  nearly all the state parks.  I also realize that this idea is not one that would get very far at this point in Kentucky politics. I spent an hour on the trails which included probably a half mile of the Steve Brackett Memorial Trail until I reached a point where it starts to drop off rapidly toward the level of the lake.  Candice was waiting on me near the lodge reading a book in a shaded parking spot so I turned around and doubled back.   

We attended the Elk Night Dinner a the lodge after my hike and have also eaten there on other occasions.   I have never been shy to say that the kitchen staff and food are much better at Natural Bridge State Park Lodge where we also eat fairly frequently and usually attend their Elk or Wild Game Night Dinners.  The food at Natural Bridge is always better prepared and the staff do an overall better job of presenting and servicing the entire affair of a well-attended special dinner.  But on this occasion at Jenny Wiley they did have one food which I had never had and found somewhat pleasing.  They served smoked elk in reasonably sized slices which were well prepared and pleasing although, for my personal taste, the smoked elk was a bit too lightly smoked.  I love a good, somewhat strong smoky taste similar to what you find in good smoked pork chops.  The elk roast on this night was overcooked and served in a somewhat stingy manner by the person serving it on the buffet line.  The deserts which Jenny Wiley describes as "Appalachian deserts" are not remotely regional or Appalachian.  There was peach and blackberry cobbler.  The peach was somewhat odd tasting as if it had been too heavily laden with margarine but the blackberry was better and well received by our group.  The other deserts were nothing that could not have been expected on a normal menu in any sit down restaurant in the eastern half of the country.  Our waitress whose job only involved serving drinks and paying attention was hard working, funny, attentive, and a welcome sight in the place.  But we did notice that a waitress who had served us competently and well only a month ago was not present on a night when such a restaurant would have called all hands on deck which leads me to suspect high turnover in the kitchen staff. 

My primary reason for returning to the Jenny Wiley Lodge for an Elk Night Dinner was primarily to eat out with my cousins and their spouses because they live in the area and like the lodge.  But I much prefer Natural Bridge.  But you should try them both and make up your own mind. 

"River Of Earth" by James Still--Book Review

James Still--Photo by University Of Kentucky

This novel by James Still is frequently referred to as "the quintessential Appalachian novel" and at times even as "the best Appalachian novel ever written".  I agree that it is a wonderful novel with beautiful use of dialect which is very difficult to produce accurately without becoming maudlin.  Still did an excellent job of dealing with the classic Appalachian dialect of my native and his adopted Knott County Kentucky.  The novel is narrated by a young boy of about 8 or 10 whose family is overburdened with poverty, illness, death, and deprivation.  They move back and forth from the hillside farm on which the story begins and the coal camp nearby where the father works whenever he is able.  The mother is devoted to her family and the family farm where she eventually buries her most recent child who dies of poverty and malnutrition.  Another son loses some fingers from playing with a blasting camp during their stay in the coal camp.  Three worthless relatives of the weak father move in on the family anytime they begin to do well and have an extra meal or two available.  They contribute nothing to the family and generate strife between the father and mother.  In this book (The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories Of James Still), Still writes in (his version of) the dialect which my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the customers in our country store spoke during my childhood.  Other than Mildred Haun, Still may well be the best writer in Appalachian dialect.  But one word used by Still always sticks in my craw as a native Knott Countian.  That word is "chaps" to refer to children and I never heard any of the native speakers around whom I spent my childhood use that word to refer to children.  I suspect the word "chaps" was imported by James Still into his novel subconsciously from his native Eastern Alabama.

" When I wrote about "The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories Of James Still", I discussed his dialect writing in comparison to that of Mildred Haun and I append that discussion here: Still is also frequently referred to as one of the better, if not the best, writers in Appalachian dialect.  I do not dispute that he is a fine writer in Appalachian dialect.  But I will always believe that Mildred Haun is a far superior writer of Appalachian dialect.  Her classic work "The Hawk's Done Gone" is far and away the best dialect writing ever done in Appalachian Literature.  As I said earlier, I spent the first twenty years of my life in Knott County Kentucky, was educated there through high school and began my college education at Alice Lloyd College.  I was also reared by my parents, maternal grandparents, and an extended family of aunts and uncles who all grew up in Knott County early in, and in some cases before the turn of the twentieth century.  I know Knott County Appalachian dialect as well as any human on earth and I must insist that there are times when I see that  James Still wrote linguistic expressions which I never heard from my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, farmers at the livestock sales or jockey grounds, or the elderly customers at my parents' country store.  The one word which he used frequently, especially in "River Of Earth" and his short stories and which I never once heard in Knott County is "chaps" in reference to small children.  In my childhood, small children were "young'uns", "chillun", "yard apes", "curtain climbers", and several more conventional, less colloquial terms.  But they were never "chaps".  I suspect that is an expression from Still's youth in Alabama.  Getting back to the comparison between Still and Haun, I will defend Still to the degree that the two of them were writing dialect based on two different subregions of Central Appalachia.  I have also traveled extensively in the Cocke County, TN, area where Haun spent her life and did extensive research among Appalachian serpent handlers there.  The two subdialects have significant differences.  But Haun's consistency and accuracy in writing dialect is superior to James Still's.  It is also worth noting that it is only 63 miles from Harrogate, TN, where Still attended college to Newport, TN, where Haun lived her life.  I do not know that Still ever spent time in Newport but since he and Haun both attended Vanderbilt University it is possible that he did know her and might have even visited the area which would have also exposed him to the dialect which she wrote so admirably.  It is also possible that Still's travels from Chambers County Alabama to Claiborne County Tennessee to Davidson County Tennessee to Knott County Kentucky could have provided a plethora to opportunity for Still to blend the dialects of the four to a degree that not even he recognized."

I do not mean to disparage James Still as an Appalachian writer.  He is a wonderful writer and his work, especially "The River Of Earth", has been taught in classes in colleges and universities all across America and several foreign countries.  But after 68 years of life arising in and being deeply influenced by Knott County, I am firmly convinced that I understand the local dialect as well as anyone on earth.  And, if I am allowed to move on from the discussion of his dialect writing to a simple discussion of the novel as an example of outstanding literature, I firmly believe that it borders on being a masterpiece.  But there are other writers who have lived and written in, of, and about their native Appalachia whose work rivals Still's and I would never go so far as to say any of them have written "the best Appalachian novel".   I believe that appellation is still up for grabs.  I believe that supporters of Harriett Simpson Arnow, Denise Giardina, Gurney Norman, Wilma Dykeman, and Thomas Wolfe can all make rational arguments that each of these authors has written "the best Appalachian novel".   

But let me close by saying that James Still was a wonderful novelist.  In my opinion, he was a far better novelist than a poet for which he actually is often praised more highly.  This novel is arguably a masterpiece and will always be worth reading because of the strong characterizations, the building and resolution of conflicts throughout, and the stark, simple, powerful language which draws the reader into this book and leaves her wanting more and also wanting to help this family fight against their unending struggle to survive.  It is wonderful writing. 

"Jenny Wiley Pioneer Mother and Borderland Heroine" by Henry P. Scalf--Book Review

Scalf, Henry P. Jenny Wiley Pioneer Mother and Borderland Heroine (Prestonsburg, Kentucky. Prestonsburg Publishing Company Press, 1964)

The story of Jenny Wiley and her capture by and escape from Native Americans on about October 1, 1789, in what is now Johnson County Kentucky has been told, retold, exaggerated, blown all out of proportion, and moved from fact to legend to myth over the intervening 220 years.  It has resulted in at least one musical theater production which has been a regular and now intermittent production of the  summer musical theater named after her along with the state park in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, where this little 16 page pamphlet was produced by Henry P. Scalf in 1964.  Scalf was a newspaper writer, author of several such pamphlets and about a half dozen genealogical books during his lifetime.  Much of his writing, documents, and books are in the Special Collections Department at the University Of Pikeville Library which I have used more than once in my research. I own one of his dozen or so self-published genealogical books about the Stepp-Stapp Families of America.  His best work was done in the fields of newspaper writing and genealogy.  This Jenny Wiley pamphlet was produced about 10 years after the formation of the Jenny Wiley State Park The date of this pamphlet coincides with the formation of the Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater in 1964 and was likely an attempt by Scalf to capitalize on that event or, perhaps, to help support the push to form the theater.

Late in this work, Scalf states that "Ever with the Wiley story have been stories of the unusual, the strange and fanciful.  Some of these were added by descendants and other mountain folk for the tale of her captivity penetrated deeply into the consciousness of a people, becoming after the lapse of many decades an important element of their folklore."  Scalf was absolutely correct to make that statement and much of the general public opinion about the Jenny Wiley story today in Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, and Southern West Virginia is nothing more or less than folklore.  While it is a fact that Jenny Wiley was captured by and successfully escaped from her Native American captors after witnessing the deaths of her brother and children, much of what is frequently accepted as fact in the region today is nothing more than myth, legend, puffery, and prevarication.  It has long been impossible to differentiate the truth from the fiction.  But this woman has become a solid and permanent part of the historical beliefs in the region.  Harry Caudill wrote a terrible novel, "Dark Hills To Westward",  about the Jenny Wiley story and there have been nearly a half dozen other highly fictionalized books about her.   A highly fictionalized, but enjoyable musical play was written about her and performed to rave reviews hundreds of times in the theater at Jenny Wiley State Park.  Her grave on a ridge near River, Kentucky, is frequently visited by her descendants and total strangers who are enamored of the tales of her privation, grief at the deaths of her children, and her miraculous escape. I have to admit that I have visited her grave once myself.  This is an interesting little pamphlet to read if you can find a copy.  It will hold your interest.  But do not automatically assume that every word in it is a fact.  It contains no references to any historical documents and no professional method of crediting sources was used. At the time of the events not a great deal of documentation took place due to a variety of factors including the harsh conditions under which the people lived in the area, the high rate of illiteracy at the time, the persistent need for everyone to devote nearly all their time to survival and self-preservation, and the simple fact that paperwork was not a daily task of anyone.  The story was told by the people who were parties to it, passed down over more than 200 years through the oral story telling tradition, and has grown out of all proportion to the bare truth at the time the events happened.

Jenny Wiley lived until 1831 and died at the age of 71 more than 40 years after her capture.  The area at the time was genuinely on the edges of white civilization in America.  My own third-great-grandfather, Aulse Hicks traveled to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, sometime between 1790 and 1810 and we do not have a single historical document about his life.  I wonder if he might have known the Wiley family.  I have always admired the courage and fortitude of anyone who would pick up what little they could pack onto a horse or mule and a draft ox which might have also doubled as a milk cow, and stride off westward into Eastern Kentucky from the relative safety of much more heavily settled Western Virginia in the time of Daniel Boone and Jenny Wiley. 

I would also say that if you are doing genealogical research related to the Big Sandy and Tug River valleys the Scalf papers at the University of Pikeville Library are well worth a visit but you should contact the library archivist first to schedule a visit and access to those papers. 

Cemetery Traipsin' With Alexander Allen--September 5, 2019

Roger D. Hicks At Collins Cemetery--Photo by Alexander Allen

Yesterday, September 5, 2019, I spent a large part of the day doing what I like to call cemetery traipsin' with Alexander Allen in Floyd and Knott Counties in Eastern Kentucky.  Alex is a distant cousin on the Allen side of my family, only in his early twenties, and actually very interested in and actively involved in local history, family history, and genealogy.  It is highly encouraging and positive to see anyone Alex's age who is this interested in these issues of genealogy and historic preservation.  I think I know a lot about the cemeteries of Eastern Kentucky, some in Southern West Virginia, and a few others scattered over a few other states.  I have personally added more than 3,000 memorials to Find A Grave and photographed more than 650 graves for the website.  As my Find A Grave profile states, I have wandered through cemeteries in a great deal of the country and grew up within sight of three in Knott County. But I have to admit that Alex, especially for his age, has a large store of knowledge about cemeteries in Eastern Kentucky. Alex and I were going to some cemeteries each of us know well but neither of us knew all of them or all of the necessary information about them. We intended to take each other to a few which were important to both of us and share some information about them and the people buried there.  We started at the Manns-Allen Cemetery on Steele's Creek near Wayland in Floyd County.  This cemetery is located on a fairy high point on the left side of Steele's Creek about a mile and a half up the creek from Wayland and less than a half mile from the place where my parents operated a country store from 1945 to 1957 before moving to a new store at Dema on Beaver Creek in Knott County. It is at the mouth of a little hollow, which so far as I know has no name, and is the location where a couple named Bill and Goldie Stegall lived for many years.  I lived the first six years of my life on Steele's Creek and I had never been on that cemetery.  I do not remember ever being told that several members of our extended family were buried there.  What is a real shame about it is the fact that my maternal great-grandmother Hester Allen is buried there.  For the first time in my life, I visited the grave of my great-grandmother.  That cemetery is becoming badly overgrown and one section of it does not appear to have been mowed or cleaned up in many years.  At least one tree has fallen over a couple of graves. Another grave has a grape vine growing out of it and the base of the vine is nearly as big as my wrist.  Alex says he has dealt with the Floyd County Judge Executive recently about another cemetery and that official will sometimes send county inmates to clean up cemeteries.  Alex also states that each cemetery has to be placed on a list and they are done on a first come, first served basis which is the appropriate policy for such work.  Another friend has also told me recently that Floyd County inmates are also used sometimes to dig graves for families which cannot afford to pay for graves to be dug and I witnessed that practice not long ago when the nephew of some friends died whose parents were quite poor.  That issue of paying to dig graves irks me and always will.  I was an adult before I ever saw anybody paid to dig a grave in Eastern Kentucky.  When I was growing up, the family, friends, and neighbors always dug graves and nearly everyone would have considered it to be a travesty for anyone to accept money for such work. I would go so far as to say that most of the adults I knew in my childhood would have assisted in digging a grave for their avowed enemies if the need arose.  In that time and place, they would have done the work and never uttered one negative word about the person with whom they had disagreed in life.  

Ella Hicks Tombstone, Collins Cemetery--Photo by Alexander Allen

We traveled further up Beaver Creek beyond Wayland to the Collins Cemetery #1 which is located on the west side of Beaver Creek about a mile below the Knott County line.  I have known about this cemetery all my life and can remember a time when it was clearly visible from the highway nearly an eighth of a mile away on the other side of the creek.  But neither Alex or I had ever been on this cemetery despite the fact that both of us have family members and others we have known about buried in this spot.  It is a large cemetery with more than a hundred graves on it.  One hundred and thirty six graves on this cemetery have actually been documented on Find A Grave but I suspect that there are probably several more which were missed by the person who did most of those memorials.  This cemetery sits well up on the hillside and, if it were in good shape, commands an incredible view of a sizeable section of Right Beaver Creek with large mountains in every direction, no visible strip mine damage, obvious evidence of elk in the area which also means there has to be other wild game population, and the scene is generally quiet and peaceful without a great deal of noise from the visible highway.  When I say that the Manns-Allen Cemetery is "badly overgrown", that statement does not hold a light to the deplorable condition of the Collins Cemetery.  At one time, it was considered a major non-commercial public cemetery along the Beaver Creek, Floyd and Knott county border area and many outstanding members of the community have been buried there over the last one hundred years or more.  But today the cemetery is at best a briar patch with trees growing randomly all over the area and jungle might be a more apt descriptor.  The cemetery has a still functional chain link fence around it which is in good condition.  But elk are bedding down in the brush all over the cemetery. There are several monuments which have been turned over and one or two are broken.  I suspect that elk may have caused most of this damage since all livestock and wild animals will sometimes need to scratch themselves on the first available solid object.  A tall grave marker is no fitting scratching post for an elk weighing more than 500 pounds. It also appears that at one time someone had installed an electric fence charger in the vain hope that it would deter the elk from entering the cemetery.  But even if the electric was functional, the elk would simply raise their front ends and launch themselves over the fence. I actually stepped into a grave that was sunken to about knee depth because I was working my way around the cemetery and wending my way through briars, weeds, grapevines, and other brush which was over my head in many places.  I was pushing and weaving my way through a large mat of vegetation and literally pushed through and before I could see where I was I had stepped into the sunken grave up to my knees.  That one grave was the only one we found which was noticeably sunken although more could be hidden in the brush patches into which we never waded. 

Edgar Hicks Tombstone--Photo by Alexander Allen

Alex and I slowly worked our way through the majority of the cemetery and found probably most of the graves which are marked with formal granite or marble markers.  But we also frequently stumbled over semi-sunken sandstone markers for graves which might or might not be susceptible to rubbing in order to learn who is buried in them. Most of these sandstone markers have slowly sunk into the earth and little is visible of many of them. I have never done rubbing on grave markers and I realize that I should attempt to learn.  But, in spite of all these problems with brush, briars, and trees, both Alex and I were able to find some graves which were important to us.  I was able to locate the graves of my maternal aunt and uncle, Ella and Edgar Hicks, who had died tragically as children.  Just a few days before she would have turned three, my aunt Ella woke up one frosty October morning in 1922, just 11 days before what would have been her third birthday, and backed up against the hearth catching her nightgown on fire.  She died as a result of severe burns.  I had heard the story dozens of times as a child but I do not remember ever being told where she and my uncle Edgar were buried.   My uncle Edgar died at the age of ten in 1936 of what I always heard described as "a fever".  He had apparently been perfectly healthy until just a few days before his death.  My mother, the firstborn of my grandparents' children, was 22 years old when her brother Edgar died. She had been 8 when her little sister Ella died.  I am glad to say that I have finally been able to visit their graves.

Roger D. Hicks at the graves of Ella and Edgar Hicks--Photo by Alexander Allen

After we left the Collins Cemetery, Alex and I traveled further up Beaver Creek to Dema to visit the Turner Cemetery where both of us have several members of our extended family buried.  I grew up within sight of this cemetery, played on it with my friends as a child, attended traditional Old Regular Baptist Memorial Meetings there, and was first exposed there to the fine old Appalachian tradition of digging graves without pay for family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers.  I often refer to one old man, Alonzo "Lonzo" Bradley, I knew who lived his entire life on a hillside farm between the Turner Cemetery, the Pigman and Slone Cemetery, and the Collins Cemetery and always appeared in front of a deceased person's house the morning after they died with his tools in his hands ready to help dig the grave.  I often say that I have seen that old man insist that a grave be perfect, absolutely vertical and rectangular, without odd projections or holes in its walls, and dug with respect for the dead.  He firmly believed that the last decent and respectful thing we the living can do for the dead is to provide them with a perfectly dug grave which has been rendered with love and respect. I have seen that old man use his drinking water and dirt from the grave to make mud balls to fill holes in the sides of a grave where a rock had fallen out or been removed.  I will always remember him in his bib overalls with an old crumpled hat on his head climbing in and out of a grave until it perfectly suited his expectations. If good works and charity can get anyone into Heaven, you can rest assured that Lonzo Bradley is there resting from digging hundreds of graves for his neighbors and friends over his 76 years.

Alex had visited the Turner Cemetery but did not have much of the personal information I have about the individuals who are buried there.  I had personally known the majority of people who have been buried there over the last sixty years.  Alex and I started at the gate and walked the entire cemetery and I told him the stories I know about the people buried there.  The cemetery contains the graves of three very significant preachers in the Old Regular Baptist Church: E. Hawk Moore whom I have written about on this blog; Clabe Mosley, who lived to be 102 whom I have also written about, and who is perhaps the most famous Old Regular Baptist preacher in the history of the denomination; and, Hawley Warrens who lived within sight of the cemetery and was also a significant preacher in the denomination.  I suspect I will also eventually write a blog post about what I remember of Hawley Warrens. 

Turner Cemetery Sign--Photo by kestryll on Find A Grave 

As we were leaving the cemetery, we encountered Roy Huff and his wife, Priscilla Gail "Dockey" Huff, who do the lawn mowing and care of the cemetery and have done so for about twenty years.  Let me state for the record that this cemetery is always in excellent condition compared to most non-commercial cemeteries in Appalachia.  Roy does an excellent job despite the fact that he is nearly 80 and has had coronary bypass surgery.  Roy and Dockie do this work year in and year out, receiving only donations, and completing the work regardless of the income they may or may not receive for it. In many ways, Roy Huff has stepped into the empty shoes of Lonzo Bradley.  They say they mow the cemetery roughly a half dozen times a year.  And if you have read about the previous two cemeteries we visited on this day, you know that this is an exception.  If you know this cemetery, have loved ones buried there, or simply want to do a good deed, send them a check at the address on the sign in the photo below.  I can assure you the money will be used for the good of the cemetery and Roy and Dockie are completely honest.  I have known them since 1957.  We talked outside the cemetery near my truck for probably fifteen minutes before we left them to do their work.

One interesting portion of the talk which Alex and I had with Roy and Dockie was an almost verbatim repeat of a conversation which I had with Alex only minutes before.  I had been telling Alex about an incredible, perhaps two hundred year old oak tree which used to grow in the center of the cemetery and eventually died and was cut down.  It grew near four graves at the highest point of the cemetery which are only marked with rocks.  One of those graves is outlined with cut stones which are very similar in size, shape, and cut to the classic hand cut stone steps we often see at old mountain homes.  The other three have only large sandstone rocks on them.   When I was growing up, the prevalent tale in the area was that this grave with the cut rocks was "the grave of an old Indian".  Today I know better.  Native Americans did not bury their dead in that fashion.  What I had been telling Alex was that no one in my lifetime had ever been able to make a statement about who the four people buried in those graves might have been.  During our discussion with Roy and Dockie, Roy suddenly and spontaneously brought up that magnificent old oak tree and the four graves near it.  He went on to tell Alex virtually the same story I had only minutes earlier.  He also holds a view similar to mine that those people must actually be some of the first white settlers in the area of Dema and were probably the first people ever buried in the Turner Cemetery.

After we left the cemetery, we traveled to Garrett, Kentucky, and had lunch at the Garrett Fountain which serves mostly sandwiches, fries, and onion rings. The food is acceptable but not outstanding.  Then we went back to Glo and I visited with Alex's maternal grandfather Sam Bradley for awhile before heading back home.