The Big Sandy River Influence On American Culture

 

The Big Sandy River Influence on American Culture

The Big Sandy River has had an amazing amount of influence on American Culture over the last 100 years with a number of musicians, educators, writers, folklorists, and politicians coming out of the region which is in great contrast with the total population of the area drained by the river.  Formed by the Tug River and the Levisa Fork along the Kentucky, West Virginia border it drains Boyd, Lawrence, Johnson, Floyd, Pike, and part of Knott counties in Kentucky and Wayne, Mingo, and McDowell counties in West Virginia.  The region in both states contains only about 300,000 people and the population has been in flux at various times as outmigration has often taken place in conjunction with ebbs in the coal business which has been the primary economic driver in the region.

Yet, this region has produced an astounding number of important figures in American history including many of the country’s most popular musicians, a significant number of educators with national reputations, and several significant politicians.  The list from Boyd County includes The Judds including the actress and social activist Ashley Judd, Billy Ray Cyrus, and the Goins Brothers who were not natives but spent most of their lives in the region.

 Lawrence County has produced Ricky Skaggs and the multi-media artist Nyoka Baker Chapman who is also an official of the Huntington League of Women Voters.  The great Appalachian educator and writer Cratis Williams for whom the graduate school at Appalachian State University is named was also from Lawrence County. The former Chief Justice of the United States Fred Vinson was born in the Lawrence County Jail while his father was jailer there.  He also was a major economic officer in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the recovery from the Great Depression prior to his appointment to the court.  Former Kentucky Governor Paul Patton was also born in Lawrence County and was county judge executive in Pike County. He also served a term as lieutenant governor and was a major driver of the expansion of the University of Pikeville as both president and board member.

Johnson County has produced, and continues to produce an astounding number of important musicians including the Webb sisters, Loretta Lynn, Peggy Sue, and Crystal Gayle; Hylo Brown; Chris Stapleton;  and the minor Bluegrass band Five Miles From Nowhere.  Few Americans realize that the actor Richard Thomas of The Waltons is the son of a New York ballet dancer who grew up in Johnson County and Thomas often spent his summers with his grandparents in Paintsville.  The country singer Tyler Childers was born in Lawrence County and grew up in Johnson County.  Brett Ratliff, an old time musician and singer, also grew up in Johnson County. John Pelphrey who is a well known basketball coach and a member of the University of Kentucky team referred to as The Unforgetables also grew up in Paintsville, Kentucky, and has since been a head coach at the University of Arkansas, South Alabama University, and Tennessee Tech University where he still coaches today.  

Floyd County produced one of the greatest collectors and publishers of folk songs and folk tales, Leonard Roberts, who produced a half dozen books of his collected songs and stories from Appalachia and was a professor at Pikeville College until his death before it achieved university status.  Dwight Yoakam was born near his grandparents’ home in Betsy Layne in Floyd County and often refers to his Eastern Kentucky history despite having spent most of his childhood in Ohio.  Floyd County also produced the founder of the band Goose Creek Symphony, Charlie Gearheart.  The famous Bluegrass singer Tommy Webb is also a native and resident of Floyd County. McDowell in Floyd County produced the significant Appalachian painter and art professor Tim Sizemore who taught for many years at Prestonsburg Community College. The well known artist Russell May lived his entire life Floyd County.  In Wheelwright, Kentucky, Carol Stumbo and her English students produced the significant literary journal “Mantrip” for ten years along with the assistance of Albert Stewart, a highly admired poet and editor from Knott County. Floyd County also produced the man who is generally conceded to have been the best high school basketball player of all time, Kelly Coleman.   

Pike County is famous for having produced Patty Loveless but lesser known for having been the home of the early country singer Molly O’Day. The former Kentucky Poet Laureate Lillie D. Chaffin was also born in Pike County, spent most of her life there, and was a professor at Pikeville College.  The country musician, song writer, and night club owner Marlo Tackett grew up in Floyd County and ran a well known night club in Pike County for many years.

Although Knott County is not fully drained by the Big Sandy River, a significant portion of it is and the Floyd County Times in Prestonsburg was, for many years, the primary newspaper serving Knott County.  Due to the small size of Hindman, the county seat of Knott County, most people on the northern side of the county did their business for many years in Floyd County and students from that area were also bussed to Floyd County schools for many years due to the lack of paved roads in the county.  Knott County has produced Albert Stewart, the poet who founded “Appalachian Heritage” magazine and taught for many years at Alice Lloyd College.  Knott County also produced Verna Mae Slone who became a best selling author in her late 60’s. The most important writer of Wiccan books, Jessie Wicker Bell, was raised at Mousie in Knott County and produced her literature under the Wiccan name Lady Sheba.  Her ashes were scattered in the Wicker Family Cemetery at Mousie.  The county was also home for many years to James Still and Mae Stone, both connected to the Hindman Settlement School, both widely read authors, neither of whom grew up in the area.  Similarly, William Howard Cohen, a poet and professor at Alice Lloyd College came to the area and produced significant works while there. Cohen was also chosen as a Cultural Delegate to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics where he read his poetry and later produced a book of poems about the experience. 

I have not studied the important cultural figures from the West Virginia side of the Big Sandy River drainage as extensively as I have the Kentucky side but the Appalachian author Lee Maynard grew up in Crum, West Virginia in Wayne County and wrote extensively about the region.  In fact, his “Crum Trilogy” refers several times to the border conflicts which sometimes occurred between adolescent natives of the two states across the watery boundary.  Fannie Belle Fleming, known more widely as the burlesque star Blaze Star, was born in Wayne County. 

McDowell County West Virginia produced two very important Appalachian authors, Denise Giardina and Homer Hickam. Giardina is a liberal political activist in her spare time and made an unsuccessful run for governor. Hickam spent his career at NASA as a scientist after he and a group of other high school students won a national science competition.   

It is truly exceptional that such a small geographic area in what is sometimes disparaged as a struggling region could have produced so many influential and successful individuals.  There are also a large number of these people who grew up just outside the environs of the Big Sandy but were significantly influenced by the culture of the area.  Those include Keith Whitley, Don Rigsby, and his brother John Rigsby all of whom have been important musicians who grew up in Elliott County.  Don Rigsby also was Director of the Center for Traditional Music at Morehead State University for a time.  Tom T. Hall, one of the greatest song writers in the country as well as an important novelist and short story author, grew up in Carter County and worked for a time as disc jockey in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, on the Big Sandy.  Magoffin County also produced the Bluegrass singer and attorney Charlie Sizemore who played with Ralph Stanley for several years before quitting to go to college at Prestonsburg Community College and on to law school.  Magoffin County also produced Tom Whitaker who was a significant Appalachian artist and art professor at Prestonsburg Community College.  Magoffin County also produced the minor country singer Rebecca Lynn Howard and two Lexington, Kentucky, television weather forecasters, Chris Bailey and Jim Caldwell. The country singer Gary Stewart grew up in Letcher County and often played in Pike County in his early career.  All of these people, while not directly growing up in the Big Sandy River area, grew up within a few miles of the river and were influenced by the culture of the river basin. 

"Conquerors Of The Dark Hills" by Rufus Mitchell Reed--Book Review

Reed, Rufus Mitchell: Conquerors Of The Dark Hills (New York, Vantage Press, 1979)

Once in a while we stumble into a book which surprises us with its quality, applicability to our needs, and general utility.  For me this was such a book.  I bought my copy from a local speculator in antiques and collectibles who had bought most of the estate of a local newspaper writer and poet who had known many of the published authors in Eastern Kentucky in particular and the whole of Kentucky in general.  My copy was autographed by the author and inscribed to the aforementioned local newspaper writer.  The book was published by Vantage Press which, for several years, was the largest vanity press in America before losing $3.5million in damages in a civil suit due to having defrauded several hundred authors.  Vantage also lost all credibility and eventually went out of business in 2012.  But this book is a reasonably high quality hardcover and my copy was still in its paper dust cover which is also in good to very good condition.  But enough about the physical state of the book.  Let's talk about its writing, content, and applicability to my needs as a student, researcher, and writer in the areas of Appalachian Studies and Appalachian Literature.  

Rufus Mitchell Reed Photo by The Reed Family

Rufus Mitchell Reed was born in 1895 in Martin County Kentucky near Lovely, Kentucky, in the Tug River Valley.  He lived his entire life in Martin County and worked most of that time as a surveyor.  But he was also apparently a student of Appalachian Culture, the local genealogy and history, and the flora and fauna of the entire Tug River Region.  His writing is well above average and I am somewhat surprised by the fact that he had published the book with a vanity press.  The quality and accuracy of the work and comprehensive nature of his knowledge about Appalachia in his time were more than sufficient for a regional press to have published his work.  He also published several volumes of poetry  over the course of his lifetime, none of which I have ever read.  But as soon as I can lay hands of copies of his other books, I will gladly purchase, read, write about, and retain them in my ever growing collection of Appalachian books.  

Rufus Mitchell Reed Photo by The Reed Family

"Conquerors Of The Dark Hills" can best be described as memoir but it addresses a significant number of aspects of life in the Tug River Valley in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  The book was published in 1979 when the author was eighty-four years old and I am sure it was his last ditch effort to have his impressions of his life and those of his family and neighbors recorded for posterity.  He is an articulate, skillful writer whose grammar, syntax, and style are well within the good to better category.  His knowledge of Appalachian Culture, history, and the area in and around Lovely, Kentucky, and the Tug River Valley are comprehensive, accurate, and honest.  This is a book which deserved to have been printed by a legitimate academic press which could have successfully marketed it across the wider Appalachian area. 

The chapters discuss early Kentucky and Appalachian history and a variety of topics of everyday life in the period from about 1800 to 1980.  It is a book which draws the reader in, makes you eager to read every word of it, and leaves you wishing for more when you reach the end far too soon.  For the fledgling student of Appalachia, it is wonderful source of cultural information.  For the accomplished Appalachian scholar it is a useful source of first hand information about life in the Tug River Valley in the early twentieth century.  It left me wishing I could have known Rufus Mitchell Reed, Rufe as he was known by his family and friends.  Due to the vanity press publication, there are a limited number of copies to be found on the open market and some of them are a bit steeply priced by sellers of rare books.  But I will gladly recommend to the reader that you buy one when you can find it.  You will not be disappointed.  

The individual chapters address several of the same topics I have addressed in the life of this blog plus several others such as education, hog killing, family life in Appalachia, Appalachian religion, digging ginseng, and hoedowns.  If you can find your copy, read it, enjoy it, hang on it for dear life, and arrange to pass it on to another lover of Appalachia when you die. 

Appalachia--What's In A Name

Appalachia, More Than Just A Word

The general rule of thumb in pronouncing proper names is that the owner of the name sets the rule.  In the case of place names, the rule is to pronounce the place name as the majority of residents of a place pronounce it.  We Appalachians generally pronounce the word Ap Uh Latch Uh.  Appalachian writer and song writer Billy Ed Wheeler said that his mother always said, "Billy, if you don't quit, I'm going to throw this Apple AT Cha."  Those two ways are correct.  All The Others are Wrong.  Several non-Appalachian place names provide illustrations of names which are pronounced somewhat differently than they are spelled and would include Mackinac, Michigan, which is pronounced Mack-uh-naw, and Poughkeepsie, NY, which is pronounced Puh-kip-see. The area of New York state which includes Poughkeepsie has several local place names which are Native American in origin and not pronounced anywhere near how they appear based on spelling.  There is also Apalachicola, Florida, which is pronounced Ap Uh Latch Uh Co Luh which is an amazing coincidence. Or is it? It is also interesting that the very same people who mispronounce Appalachia generally do not mispronounce Apalachicola.

Map of the Allegheny and Cumberland Plateau--Central Appalachia

Living my life in Appalachia, I have seen hundreds of outsiders, including my own Wisconsin born wife, come to the region with the best of intentions.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But, let me state for the record that my wife has adapted well to the area and learned a great deal culturally.  She has, to a degree, been assimilated into the Appalachian culture. In my post on visiting the urban Appalachians, I also quoted from an obituary by an unknown author writing in the Minutes of The Northern New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists who had assimilated into the Appalachian culture in a very similar way.  However, this type of adaptation is rare.  Many, if not most, non-Appalachians make an ill founded attempt to change us. 

Appalachian Mountain Cabin

But back to the name Appalachia,  most times native Appalachians may not directly or immediately correct the mispronunciation of visitors or missionaries other than by pronouncing it correctly every time in the person's presence.  But they will place some degree of negative importance on a mispronunciation.  The point is that if the visitor or missionary does not care enough to learn how to pronounce the name of the region where we live correctly they generally do not care enough to matter much to us.  Visitors and missionaries will almost always put the Ap ah lay cha pronunciation on the word with a few adding an extra syllable to make it Ap ah lay che ah.  Both pronunciations are wrong, have always been wrong, and always will be wrong. The reasoning which goes into their persistent mispronunciation is identical to that espoused by the Europeans who settled America and believed they had a divine right to take the land which had been owned and occupied for thousands of years by Native Americans.  This concept is known as "manifest destiny" and is defined as:

"Manifest Destiny was a phrase which invoked the idea of divine sanction for the territorial expansion of the United States. It first appeared in print in 1845, in the July-August issue of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. The anonymous author, thought to be its editor John L. O'Sullivan, proclaimed "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions."  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h337.html

Manifest destiny has also been practiced in Appalachia by groups as diverse as the VISTA Program, church groups from the northeast and midwest, and outside land owners and/or mineral holding companies.  This total disregard for the free will of citizens is rarely seen elsewhere in the USA.  But it is common in Appalachia for a group of outsiders to show up driving either a U-Haul full of second hand clothes or piece of equipment for mineral extraction and to tell the locals that their actions are in our best interests.  They come mispronouncing the name of our homeland, misunderstanding or denying the authenticity of our culture, and simultaneously expecting us to believe every word they say and adapt our ways and beliefs to their expectations.  Is it any wonder that we take offense at strip mining, clear cut logging, and the way they mispronounce the name of our homeland?  Manifest destiny is also a topic I will approach in a complete blog posting at some time in the future. It has contributed greatly to the overall general negative attitude toward Appalachians and the justified anger of Appalachians toward strip mining, mineral extraction in general, clear cut logging, VISTA, and most other missionarys and missionary organizations.

It is interesting to note that when Alice Geddes Lloyd came to Knott County Kentucky shortly after the turn of the 20th century she made a  public commitment to never meddle in three issues: religion, politics, and moonshining.  Oh, how much better off Appalachia would be if all the others who followed Ms. Lloyd to the mountains had taken similar positions..

The name Appalachia is an old Native American word and has been pronounced in the region for hundreds of years in the way it was originally pronounced when the first Europeans stepped off the boat in the tidewater region.  It comes from the name of the Apalachicola tribe and actually has been translated to mean "the land of the ruling people."  My, how that interpretation has been changed over the history of Appalachia.  The mispronunciation began about the time the first missionary came to Appalachia to save us from ourselves.  It has persisted since that time.  Native Appalachians have tried to educate these people about their mistake for hundreds of years.  But it is nearly impossible to educate and correct anyone when they live under the mistaken belief that they are superior and are working to alter your life in a way to make it meet their expectations of normal.  This is what forced cultural assimilation is all about. I will, in the future, write at least one complete blog posting on the subject of cultural assimilation and ways to resist it.

Having grown up in Knott County, Kentucky, I honestly do not remember the first time I realized I was an Appalachian.  I do not recall having heard about it from my grade school teachers and I am doubtful if any of my high school teachers mentioned it either.  But I was in the first group of Upward Bound students during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.  I also clearly remember the famous visit by LBJ to Martin County Kentucky to kick off the War On Poverty.  But when I entered the Upward Bound Program, I was exposed to several people who made lasting impressions on me and who had varying degrees of knowledge about and commitment to Appalachia.  I met Albert Stewart who founded "Appalachian Heritage" magazine and was one of the greatest poets the region has ever produced.  He was arguably one of the best writers of the modified sonnet in this country.  He also made a lasting positive impression on hundreds of native Appalachians and students of Appalachian Literature.  His commitment to Appalachia was total and lifelong. I was lucky enough to know Al and stay in touch with him until his death.  Watch for a complete posting about Albert Stewart in the Appalachian Heroes section of this blog. 

Photo of Albert Stewart, Appalachian Hero

I also met William Howard Cohen who was not Appalachian but spent much of his life in Appalachia teaching and writing at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes in Knott County.  Bill Cohen was, to say the least, unique.  He was totally committed to abolishing strip mining in America and literally put his life, his job, and his reputation on the line dozens of times by opposing strip mining.  He was devoted to Appalachia and its preservation.  He was also generally misunderstood at best and not at all understood at worst.  He was brilliant, eccentric, and one of the finest humans I have ever known.  Watch for a complete posting about William Howard Cohen in the future.  Since he was not Appalachian, it will not be in the Appalachian Heroes section.  Bill Cohen was a non-native hero who lived and worked in Appalachia.  At this point, let me state for the record that spending some significant number of years in Appalachia does not make a non-Appalachian an Appalachian any more than my spending an equal number of years in Harlem or Los Angeles would make me African American or Hispanic.  Bill Cohen was many things.  But most of all, he knew he was not Appalachian and never tried to be.  Thereby, he avoided the most classic and egregious mistake made by the missionaries who still keep flooding our borders. Bill Cohen used that key piece of self awareness as the foundation of a long career working in Appalachia and actually being a positive influence while he was here.

During my Upward Bound days, in my first year on the Stuart Robinson Campus at Blackey, Kentucky, in Letcher County, I had the educational experience of meeting Harry M. Caudill.  I do not use the term educational in the same sense that many others refer to Harry M. Caudill.  He spoke to the Upward Bound group that summer and his best seller "Night Comes To The Cumberlands" had just come out not long before.  Each student in the program had been provided a copy of the book and it was the basic text in our summer history course that year.  Many of the students in that group, who were among the brightest in the area, showed up for Caudill's speech carrying their book and many well grounded criticisms of his low regard for his fellow Appalachians.  While he was a pretty good historian and writer, Harry M. Caudill did more to help perpetuate negative stereotypes of Appalachians than nearly any other native of the region.  His interpretation of historical and sociological data, when it referred to Appalachia and Appalachians, was nearly always wrong.  His conclusions were derogatory, defamatory, and debilitating. He was guilty of believing, expressing, and spreading most of the prejudices which continue to damage Appalachian people to this very day.   "Night Comes To The Cumberlands" is the last book anyone should ever read about Appalachia.  It should only be read after the student of Appalachia and Appalachian culture has read and learned enough to be able to see through the cultural fallacies in Caudill's work. 

Another work which is often well spoken of but has served as a millstone around the necks of Appalachians is "Deliverance" by James Dickey.  Far more people have seen the movie than have read the book.  Based on reviews by my friends in the Appalachian movement at the time, I have chosen to never bother to read the novel.  I have seen key scenes from the movie and based on their devastating portrayals of mountain people have chosen to never watch the entire film.  I am considering reversing myself and reading the book in the near future in order to write a blog posting about the damage Dickey did to the Appalachian image. 

But, to return to the stated subject of this posting, the name Appalachia is pronounced "Ap uh latch uh".  Any other pronounciation is a dead give away to natives that the speaker knows little or nothing about the  region and its people.  It is also a pretty good indicator they probably care less. If you are among the thousands of people who mispronounce the name, learn the difference and change.  Whether you are a native Appalachian or a non-native, show enough respect for the land, culture, and people of the region to learn about it, help educate others about it, and protect and defend the land, its culture, and its people.