"Welcome The Traveler Home" by Jim Garland, Edited by Julia S. Ardery

Jim Garland (1905-1978), the author of this book, was born in Bell County Kentucky and grew up, like several others of his family, to become an underground coal miner. He was also a well known labor leader, union organizer, and folk singer who also happened to be the brother of Aunt Molly Jackson and Sarah Ogan Gunning both of whom were also folk singers and active in support of trade unionism and worker's rights. He organized and was a member of both the United Mine Workers of America and the National Miners Union. His organizing work was primarily in Harlan and Bell counties in Kentucky where he had worked at various times in several mines. He wrote this book, or at least, wrote most of the manuscript well before his death in 1978 but never published the book himself. At some point, his wife Hazel seems to have passed the manuscript on to the Kentucky writer Julia S. Ardery (1889-1977) who edite the work but also failed to get it published in her lifetime. Ardery wrote one other major book, " The Temptation: Edgar Tolson and the Genesis of Twentieth-Century Folk Art", which is a masterful biography and work of art criticism which was also not published in her lifetme. I have written about the Tolson biography at this link.When we consider that "Welcome The Traveler Home" was not published in the lifetimes of either the author or editor, it is a miracle that the book was ever published at all. However, Ardery was from a prominent Bourbon County Kentucky political family and the mother of a US Army Major General; a second son who worked for a time in Washington, DC, as a journalist before joining the University of Kentucky which published this book; and a third son who was an accountant who died by suicide four years before his mother's death. It seems likely that one of her sons was instrumental in the effort to have this book by Jim Garland published as well as Julia Ardery's book about Edgar Tolson. Rarely in the world of book publishing do manuscripts survive long enough to published after the death of the author. Yes, I acknowledge that it does sometimes happen, but it is as rare as hen's teeth. Garland's style of writing was exemplary of his lack of education but still strong writing. Ardery said in her Introduction that she had done as little as possible to alter Garland's original work with only minor edits for clarity of meaning, some organizational work since his manuscripts appears to have been less than well organized. But the content of the book is what makes it more than well worth reading. While I do believe it has some significant historical inaccuracies in it, it is still a fine first person discussion of the effort to unionize the Kentucky coalfields in the 1920's and 1930's. It also provides some interesting glimpses into the lived of he two famous folk singing sisters of Garland. But, sadly, it is devoted almost entirely to the time he spent in Eastern Kentucky as a coal miner and union organizer with minimal discussion of his life as a folk singer afer he was forced to leave the coal fields because he believed he had been targeted for death by coal operators. Two absolutely minimal references are made to two other very important figures in the effort to unionize the coalfields, Don West and Sam Reece. in the case of Don West whom Garaland says replaced him in the organizing effort when he was forced to leave Eastern Kentucky, the reference is only one sentence long. In the case of Sam Reece who was the husband of Florence Reece who wrote the classic labor ballad "Which Side Are You On?", Garland uses about three sentences to say that at some point in the union effort, he had borrowed Sam Reece's car to make a trip out of town. Both Don West and Sam Reece were major figures in the effort to organize the coalfields. I knew Don West quite well from about 1974 until his death in 1992 but never heard him mention Jim Garland in any of the many discussions I heard him give of his life as an organizer, miner,labor activist, and educator. I was also able to spend two days in the company of Florence and Sam Reece at Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee, which Don West and Myles Horton founded. I spent roughly a year living at the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, which was founded by Don and Connie West. It would have been very educational if I had been able to hear and cross reference all those people's memories of the organizing efforts Harland and Bell counties including their discussions about each other. Such complete knowledge from all of them would have vastly improved my knowledge about Jim Garland and his work. The book is full of references to Appalachian social customs, mores, and history as Jim Garland chose to describe it all. It is a fairly well written book, extremely well edited by Julia S. Ardery, and well worth the time to read by any student of American Labor History, Appalachian Studies, or Kentucky History. It is very minimal in its discussion of folk songs despite the addition of the lyrics of several songs across the length of the text. My particular copy which I bought at a Goodwill Store for $1.59 plus tax is also inscribed by Suzy Roy and Betty Garland Roy, the daughter of Jim and Hazel Garland. A third signature is signed simply "Mrs. Jim Garland". It appears that all three signatures were made with the same red fine point marker. Due to the length of Betty's inscription which refers to Jim Garland as "Daddy" and to Sarah Ogan Gunning as "Aunt Sarah", I believe the signatures are authentic. I have added a scan of the inscription page below. I hope you can find and read your own copy of the book if you are a student of Appalachian Studies, Union Organizing and History, or Kentucky History. It is a fascinating read!

"Soupbean: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature" by Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, et. al.

After thirty or more years of periodic searches on used book websites, I finally located a copy of "Soupbean: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature" by Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, et. al, a group of Appalachian writers connected to The Soupbean Poets Collective of Antioch College/Appalachia. The book was published by Mountain Union Books of Beckley, WV, in 1977. Mountain Union Books was an imprint which was briefly operated by Antioch College Appalachia, which was a branch of Antioch College of Yellow Springs, Ohio. This branch campus was created by Antioch College in the early 1970's, initially opening in Huntington, WV, and after a couple of years relocated to Beckley. The branch was operated for roughly 8 years before being shuttered by the mother institution which had created a group of such campuses in California, Alaska, West Virginia, and one or two other locations. The campus in Beckley was never large with an annual enrollment which was generally less than 100 students. But Antioch Appalachia, which also operated briefly as The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, was staffed by several of the best writers in all of Appalachian Studies including Robert "Bob" Snyder, P. J. Laska, Don West, Bill Blizzard, Rod Harless, and Yvonne Snyder Farley. The campus also produced several well known authors of Appalachian Literature most of whom are still writing and publishing today. During the brief life of the campus, four of its female students were featured in an issue of "MS Magazine" as "Women Writers of Appalachia". Those four women were Gail Amburgey; Pauletta Hansel who eventually became the first Poet Laureate of Cincinatti, Ohio; Peggy Dotson Hall, now deceased; and Sylvia Evans. I ahve to admit that I have never met either Evans or Hall and know little about any subsequent work they did. But I have known both Gail Amburgey and Pauletta Hansel for years and read a great deal of both women's work. Other published student writers who attended or graduated from Antioch included the late Joseph Barrett who has two published books as the product of his brief life; Bob Henry Baber, the eventual mayor of Richwood, West Virginia, and the author or editor of several books. I am proud to say that I was briefly a student at Antioch Appalachia but didn't complete a degree there. I have published fiction and nonfiction in a dozen states and one foreign country. My first collection of short stories is pending publication at this time in late June 2026. I always have and always will say that being exposed to the faculty and students at Antioch Appalachia and the high level of education they provided was the greatest influence on my writing. Antioch Appalachia was a wellspring of and for writers and writing in Central and Southern Appalachia. In addition to the Appaachian writers who were produced by the campus, two other students achieved success in divergent fields. Sam Farley, a Vietnam veteran and eventual social worker who in 2007 was in 2007 recognized by The National Association of Social Workers, West Virginia Chapter, with the Catalyst Award for Direct Social Work Practice. Barbara Placier Ervin, another graduate of Antioch Appalachia became a professor at Lander University in South Carolina and served as Director of Montessori Education at that institution where she earned the Mary Frances Poole Alston Award, which is presented to a faculty or staff member who has provided "visibility for Lander University throughout the state of South Carolina, the United States and the world" which was a recognition of her internationally recognized work in her field. By percentage of the student body, this group of highly successful individuals stand out very favorably in comparison to nearly any other college in the nation. The book being reviewed here contains writing from several members of that group including Pauletta Hansel, Gail Amburgey, Mary Joan Coleman, Bob Henry Baber, and Joseph Barrett. It also includes work by Bob Snyder, P.J. Laska, and Yvonne Snyder Farley who all served as faculty of Antioch Appalachia. This little book contains the powerful and sometimes biting poetry of Gail Amburgey who was a survivor of the Buffalo Creek Flood and one of two Antioch Appalachia products who went on to be among the early female coal miners in Appalachia. Gail's writing is frequently colored by her exposure to that flood which was a glaring example of everything that can go wrong when an American industry is underregulated and its actions go awry. It also contains contributions from Joseph Barrett who published poetry in numerous journals around the world before his untimely death at only 39. There is also some fine writing by former student David Chaffins who became a career Navy noncom. Jim Wayne Miller, who was a professor of German at Western Kentucky University and a well recognized writer of literature in Appalachia, also contributed to this book which must be considered a complement to the little college that could. This is a generally difficult little book to find for sale since it was issued in a small edition in 1977. But if you can locate a copy, buy it, read it, come to enjoy one of the most productive institutions to ever exist in Appalachia and Appalachian Literature. You won't be disappointed.!