"Preserving Our Roots: My Journey To Save Seeds And Stories" by John Coykendall with Christina Melton, Photographs By Sarand Hackenberg

"Preserving Our Roots: My Journey To Save Seeds And Stories" by John Coykendall with Christina Melton, Photographs By Sarah Hackenberg, (2019, Louisiana State UUniveristy Press) is an instantly eyecatching book. I had heard of the author and his book shortly after it was released during a conversation with my good friend Bill Best who is also an expert on the preservation and propagation of heritage crops. I finally saw and purchased John Coykendall's book directly from the author at the April 4, 2026, Pike County Seed Swap in Pikeville, Kentucky. My wife Candice and I have traveled to the seed swap primarily to visit with Bill Best. But the entire event and the people we met made the day much more than a meeting with an old friend. When I first saw the book, several copies were laid out on a folding table in front of John Coykendall whose table was set up just a few feet from that of Bill Best. Bill introduced me to John and we spoke for a few minutes early in the morning, but that conversation was quite brief. The crowd was in the process of growing as people streamed in the doors of the Pike Central High School gymnasium where it was held. I wandered around the tables, met a few people, bought some honey, a bag of stone ground meal, and talked to anyone who had a minute or two free for conversation. At the official start time of the event, a low key memorial was held for my recently deceased good friend Frank Barnett who had died on Narch 18, 2026, as the culmination of a series of cascading health problems which had begun with a cardiac valve replacement surgery. Like Bill Best and John Coykendall, Frank was a giant among the seed savers of Appalachia. As the day wore on and traffic slowed, I returned to John Coykendall's table, had a few enlightening minutes of conversation with him and bought the book. John Coykendall is still employed as a heritage gardener at Blackberry Farm resort in Tennessee near where he has spent most of his life. The vegetables he grows are an integral part of the menu at Blackberry Farm, a resort in Walland, Tennessee. But this book is focused almost entirely on another aspect of John's life, his annual trips and lifelong friendships in Washington Parish Louisiana where he travels and stays for lenghty periods in the off season at his job. The book is divided into sections based on the four seasons, and each section is composed of well written, highly informative stories of life in a very remote and somewhat traditional area of Louisiana. Each section describes the farming lifestyle of the parish during that season, provides several short stories of John's encounters with his many friends there, and is illustrated with stunning photographs of gardening, crops, prepared foods, and the people of the parish. It is also illustrated with closeup photographs of many of the pages of the lifelong journals which he has kept complete with his hand drawn illustrations of what he has seen and learned in the parish. Each October, he travels to the parish for at least a full week to volunteer in the Washington Parish Free Fair, one of the few free local or regional fairs in the entire country. During those visits, he serves as a cook in the fair kitchen each day, visits with his many friends, meets new ones, and feeds them all with foods produced from heritage food crops. John is professional trained artist and a former art instructor for quite a few years. Everywhere he goes, he takes his journal and takes notes, draws finely detailed illustrations of people and processes they have discussed during their encounters. The book is an amazing piece of work in todays world where publishing has generally taken the low road to avoid extra work and expense. It is an artistic masterpiece in every possible definition of the word. If you are a person who loves gardening, good food, traditional lifestyles, and stories of life in the southern USA, this is the book for you.

"An Appalachian Eulogy" by B. Camp

The author of this book is actually Dr. Dennis Campbell, M. D. who chose to publish under a pen name despite having also chosen, at some point, to make no secret of his real identity. Dr. Campbell and I worked together in both our previous careers. He is a retired psychiatrist and I am a retired mental health and addictions therapist. We worked together for about 3/12 years in a community mental health facility in a small county in Eastern Kentucky. We also grew up in the same equally small county about fifty miles from where we actually met at work. We have remained as friends ever since working together. Dr. Campbell has now written and published somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen fiction books in several different categories and all are available on Amazon under the pen name B. Camp. I have previously written on this blog about two of his other books, "Tales From The Red River Gorge" which he cowrote with his wife who writes under the pen name Maribeth Wagner, and "Aaron Subject Number Seven". "An Appalachian Eulogy" is the most purely Appalachian book of the three in my opinion, although both of the others have settings and some characters who are Appalachian. "An Appalachian Eulogy" begins about 1825 and ends about 1975. It tells a story of a blended family in which the parents Able and Elizabeth Horn who have one biological daughter, Emily. As the book begins, their nephew Zeke is in East Tennessee living with an unrelated family who have taken him in after his parents and only brother have died of a plague. This family has written a letter who the Horns who are the brother and sister-in-law of Zeke's father. Able travels to East Tennessee in the late winter to early spring and brings Zeke back to his home which is a hillside farm on Beaver Creek in Knott County Kentucky which happens to be the creek on which I grew up. While some of the place names in the book are fictitious, most of them are actual place names still in use today in the area of the novel. The place on Beaver Creek where the Horn farm is located is about 3 or 4 miles from where I grew up. On their way to Beaver Creek from East Tennessee, they stop in a town in Tennessee for more supplies for their horseback trip and Zeke is allowed to spend some time alone seeing the sights of the town. He strays into a scene in which a group of boys are harrassing a young homeless orphan girl and rescues her from their attack. Able agrees to take the girl, Emma, along with them to his home if the local authorities agree to it. He finds the Tennessee sheriff who allows him to do just that. The three then complete the trip to Beaver Creek where both Zeke and Emma become members of the Horn family. Emma who can't remember the last name of her parents assumes the Horn name which, as odd as it might sound in today's world, was not an uncommon event in the early 19th century in the Appalachian Mountains. It was fairly common at that time for kindly, or soemetimes unkindly, non-relatives to informally adopt orphans and raise them under the family name. The three children, one biological and two informally adopted, quickly become known simply as a family, the Horn family. They live a lifestyle which was common on hillside farms in Eastern Kentucky in that time frame and learn all the chores and requirements of living a self sufficient life in the mountains. Zeke grows up to be a bright, ambitious young man and attends Alice Lloyds, Caney Creek Community Center until he graduates from high school. He then matriculates to Caney Junior College on the same campus and now known as Alice Lloyd College. Eventually, the adopted daughter Emily leaves home to marry a coal miner and live an itinerant life with her growing family in a number of mountain coal camp towns. She dies young and leaves a letter in a family Bible directing her daughter to keep it unopened until she locates another member of the Horn family from whom she has become lost due to her multiple moves from coal camp to coal camp. I won't spoil the ending. You can find the book on Amazon. If you are a fan of Appalachian fiction, the book is worth reading.

Requiem For A Friend, Willie Elwood Isaac, 1928--2023

 

Willie Isaac and his new car--Photo by Cakes For You and Roger D. Hicks

My neighbor for the past 30 years was Willie Isaac who lived nearly his entire life on a small hillside farm about a mile and a quarter from my house.  He was born in 1928 and died in 1923 about one month before what would have been his 95th birthday.  Willie and I had known each other ever since I moved to this community in 1992 although we did not become close friends until  after his wife, Flora Cook Isaac, died in October of 2018 after 66 years of marriage.  Willie and I had frequently encountered each other in our home town of West Liberty, Kentucky, at local stores and other public places.  We had always been friendly but not close until a couple of weeks before Flora died and I saw Willie's truck parked in the local ARH Hospital parking lot and inquired if he or his wife were in the hospital.  I visited them there as he stayed by her side during her final hospitalization and transfer to a nursing home where she actually died a few days later.  But I had known for about three or four years that her health was failing and Willie was taking care of her diligently, cleaning the house, mowing the yard, and driving her to her appointments.  He had finally stopped driving a couple of years before his death and, although he had no children, his nephew Jimmie Wireman had selflessly driven him to all his medical appointments, bought his groceries, took him to his bank and to the local utility companies to pay his bills.  Willie had finally stopped mowing his own lawn at about the age of 90 and Jimmy had taken care of that also.  But Willie had continued to maintain contact with his widely diverse group of local friends and extended family until about three weeks before his death. He spent a large part of most days on the telephone talking to his relatives and friends. He had continued to live alone with support from Jimmy and his wife Brenda Smith, and I also assisted him at times with minor tasks once in a while, almost daily contact in person or by phone, and one occasion when I had assisted him in getting back up after a fall in his living room.  Amazingly, until just a few days before his death, Willie had maintained his cognitive capacities and still had conversations with Jimmie, Brenda, and I as we visited him in the hospital during his final three week stay due to kidney failure.  Sadly, Jimmie, who was 79 himself, only lived about 9 months after Willie's death.  But he had managed to complete the job of caring for his uncle's needs before his death. 

Willie Isaac, about 1951--Photo by Willie Isaac & Roger Hicks

Willie and Flora had no children other than a son whom Flora had before they married and adopted to a couple from the area who lived in Ohio and raised him.  After Flora died, Willie continued to live in the little three bedroom brick house he built many years ago and where they had operated a used shoe and clothing business for more than forty years.  As a trained and retired mental health professional, I was worried that Willie would suffer from the grief, loss of socialization, and loneliness which often afflicts the elderly following the death of a long term spouse.  So I had begun to visit him regularly.  It turned out he actually had a fairly large support system for a man his age with no children.  He had two nephews who lived in the area and they visited him regularly as did several members of the church  he attended weekly until he stopped driving.   A previous minister of that church also visited with him frequently until his own untimely death due to suicide.  He had a few friends and a sister who also called him nearly every day to check on him. But that sister also died in July 2021 at the age of 100 almost three years before Willie's death. We had developed a system quite informally where I either visited him or called him at least every day or two. At times, Willie would also call me to remind me of a UK basketball game or some other issue in which he knew I was interested.  Since I knew that he was having regular contact with several others, I didn't always visit or call every day but we stayed closely in touch and I made sure he knew that he was free to call me anytime he might be in need of assistance.  

Willie Isaac, Korea, photo by Willie Isaac & Roger Hicks

Not long ago he brought out a collection of photographs which he and others took during his time in the Korean War in 1950-1952.  He agreed to allow me to post them on this blog although he had never used the internet and didn't have a clear idea of exactly how a blog works.  But his mind was still sharp until shortly before his death.  He loved University of Kentucky basketball, watched every game which was available on his limited plan with Dish Network, and read every issue of "The Cats Pause".  He also maintained subscriptions to the local newspapers in both Morgan and Magoffin counties in Kentucky because he had friends in both counties and lived within sight of the county line.  His memory was well above average for a man his age and he loved to talk about his life, extended family, and his years spent "in the shoe business".  He and Flora had built a little building in the edge of their yard on US 460 and sold used clothing and shoes for over 40 years. Willie would drive as far as Columbus, Ohio, to buy a pickup load of shoes and clothing at a large Goodwill sorting center and also often bought large lots of new shoes from shoe stores which were either reducing unsold stock or going out of business. He also managed at some time during their selling days to buy a used shoe repair machine and also repaired shoes and other leather work both for his own sales and for customers in need of repairs.  He eventually sold the shoe shop equipment to one of his nephews after he and Flora had stopped their selling activity. I actually have met dozens of people in this community who talk about having gotten nearly all their shoes from Willie and Flora as they were growing up. And after I posted this blog post, one person commented on Facebook that he had bought all his shoes for many years from Willie.  And, interestingly, he also said that Willie had cut hair at times and only charged a quarter for a hair cut.  But, in all the time I knew him, Willie never mentioned cutting hair to me.  My first blog post about Willie was primarily about his service in the US Army during the Korean War and the stories Willie had told me about his time in the Army  during the Korean War.  First and foremost, Willie always made a point of saying that he was attached to an engineering unit which built bridges and roads during the war.  He always said "nobody ever fired a shot at me and I never fired a shot at anybody" since the engineering unit he was assigned to was always working behind the front building roads and bridges.  He also talked sometimes about one R & R episode he spent in Japan during his Korean duty but he apparently had no photographs from that trip.  Willie did have a few photographs of other soldiers some of whom he remembered their names and some he did not.  I have added the names he either remembered or wrote on the photos. Some will have to be nameless.  But maybe some of their relatives might recognize them and I will add their names if you recognize a member of your family in his photos and contact me on this blog.  Willie also never mentioned a unit name and number for his engineering unit but a retired Army person I know says that it might have been the 103rd Engineer Regiment.  If you have a definite answer other than this please tell me what it was and I will add that to this post also until we can come up with a more indisputable answer.   

Walter H. Handley, Alabama--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

 

 

 

One of the photographs is of a local man who also was assigned to the same unit and Willie now says that man is dead.  Here is his photograph as identified by Willie. 

Bill Ison, Crockett, KY--Photo by Willie Isaac & Roger Hicks

Willie also loved to tell a story of being classified as a truck driver during his time in Korea.  He said "They told us they were giving us driver education and we were in a classroom for about a half a day.  Then we went out in a parking lot and had to drive a truck around the parking lot one time and they let us go."  Later he says, "One day my sergeant came to me and told me to report to the motor pool.  I asked why do I have to go to the motor pool and the sergeant said 'They need a truck driver and you are a truck driver."   Willie says he told the sergeant, "I'm not a truck driver.  I never drove a truck in my life."  He says the sergeant said, "It says right here you are a truck driver.  It's in your record.  You're a truck driver."  Willie said he reported to the motor pool and they put him in a big truck and told him to drive twenty or thirty miles down a river to pick up supplies.  He said, "I tried to tear the transmission out of the truck on the way there but I couldn't."  He also saidnnb that on the way back to his unit he met two men in a jeep whom the motor pool had sent out looking for him afraid that he had driven the truck into the river.  But when the entire thing was over, Willie was a truck driver and was proud enough of it that he sent the photograph below to his parents with the caption, "This is my truck."  It seems most likely that the truck Willie drove was a 2 1/2 ton truck commonly known as a Deuce And A Half. 

The Truck Willie Drove--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

Being able to survive driving the truck apparently got Willie a promotion since he also sent home a photograph of another soldier driving a jeep and added the caption, "This is the jeep I used to drive."  

"Hauser from Alabama" driving the Jeep Willie used to drive--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

Willie also sent home a few photographs of himself with other soldiers whom he could not name or simply did not write their names on the shots including this one below.  It might be "Hauser from Alabama" since they are standing behind a large flat bed truck.  

Willie Isaac & Baker from Central or Western KY--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

Willie was assigned to a bridge building unit and also took a few photographs of a bridge they were building over an unnamed Korean river including the next two, one with an unnamed soldier in it.  Willie told a story that his unit was getting their water from the river a mile or so below this bridge and "one day after they pumped a truck load of water they found five dead Korean bodies in the water upstream above where they were pumping the water."  He said that he tried to not drink anymore water for several days after that.  He also always said that he hated rice and would never eat it after his time in Korea.  He said that the Korean civilians which worked for the US Army would "roll rice up in balls about the size of a softball and walk around eating that rice all day long.  I couldn't stand to eat rice after seeing that."  One of his favorite foods was boiled chicken feet and as long as he was able to do his own grocery shopping and cooking he would go to Wal Mart and buy multiple packages of fresh chicken feet and freeze them.  At his funeral visitation, several people and I wound up talking and laughing about Willie's love of chicken feet and I was the only one besides the deceased minister who ever admitted to having eaten chicken feet with Willie.  I had actually been present at Willie's one day when that minister was sitting at the kitchen table eating chicken feet.  Honestly, I never really cared for the feet but my mother had eaten them with gusto and I figured I owed her and Willie the one honest effort I made to eat them.  Willie also talked often about how in his young days his family frequently went opossum hunting and ate a lot of opossum which few people eat or hunt today.  Willie also loved turtle and in the first years of our acquaintance while he was still able to clean a turtle I would sometimes catch female common snapping turtles crossing the highway to lay their eggs and catch them and give them to Willie.  He never turned one down until he became too physically weak for the job.  I also love turtle but I hate to clean them so I quit eating them many years ago. 

Bridge Over An Unamed Korean River With An Unnamed Soldier--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger D. Hicks

The photo below, although unlabeled, is of Willie Isaac in front of what appears to be a mess tent.   Since it is a tent, I have to assume it is also from Korea.  

Willie Isaac In Front Of A Mess Tent--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

When Willie returned from Korea, he spent some time at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and eventually left the Army in 1952. He was discharged from Fort Knox at the end of his hitch. He still had his discharge in a frame hanging in one bedroom of his home until the day of his death.  He also had one photograph of himself in what appeared to be a barracks building at Fort Knox with a friend but did not remember that man's name.  

Willie Isaac and a fellow soldier at Fort Knox 1952--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger D. Hicks

 

Willie also sent home one photograph from Korea of what he described as "an 8" gun".  Maybe somebody with military experience can tell me exactly what this weapon was called.  

"8 inch gun"--Photo by Willie Isaac and Roger Hicks

 

Despite my fears about Willie after the death of his wife, he managed remarkably well for a nonagenarian widower living alone in Eastern Kentucky.  He did his own laundry until he was past 90 and his nephew Jimmy's wife, Brenda took over that job and also began bringing him home cooked meals regularly, At some time past 90, he got out a small steam cleaner he owned and steam cleaned his carpets.  He also adopted and took care of a stray dog who showed up at his house and ate the food he offered but wouldn't let him touch it.  The dog, a pit bull cross female, seemed to have a serious history of abuse but I have seen her follow Willie in his yard and dart from behind him just close enough to brush a hand in passing.  I also never saw anyone besides Willie ever get close to her before she died. One of Willie's favorite photographs was an old black and white shot of himself and a long dead brother in their yard as boys with a favorite dog from his childhood. He loved dogs but always said he didn't like cats and "never owned a cat in my life".  He drove to church every Sunday as long as he was able and did his regular trips to town for groceries, medical visits, and bill paying in his brand new car he bought a few weeks after his wife Flora was buried.  

 

He loved words and had a strong vocabulary for a relatively uneducated man in Eastern Kentucy and kept several dictionaries.  He had actually returned to high school in the 1940's to graduate as he had promised his mother when he dropped out for a year to follow an older brother to Ohio to work.  It was an incredibly rare event in 1940's Eastern Kentucky for a young male to return to school after having dropped out.  He kept a wooden chair on his back porch which he had built in a high school shop class and given to his father.  He pointed out to me a groove in the right arm of that chair which he said had been made by his father's habit of sitting in the chair smoking his pipe and lighting it with kitchen matches which he always struck on the chair arm in the same spot for many years. He was also proud of having used some of the first pay he ever earned in a regular job to buy his mother her first washing machine.  Shortly after his marriage to Flora, they had ordered on the same order from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue a sewing machine for Flora and a single shot, bolt action rifle for Willie.  He still had the rifle at his death and had killed thousands of squirrels with it on the farm which he inherited from his parents.  

 

To say the least, I think about Willie every day and will miss our friendship as long as I live.  This is a photo of the tombstone which Willie and Flora paid for along with their funerals several  years before Flora's death.  Willie's date of death has not been inscribed on the monument yet but you can bet that Brenda Smith and I will see to that it  gets done sometime soon.  They are buried in a little family cemetery which is located on Willie's family farm and holds the graves of Willie's parents, a few of his siblings, and a lot of his friends and neighbors including a few of my other neighbors in this community who have died since I moved here thirty years ago.  Willie, who owned the cemetery property never refused to allow anyone to be buried on the cemetery and had even allowed some people he knew in Magoffin County to have an unmarried friend of theirs buried on the cemetery.  Sadly, his grave is still only marked with the common metal temporary marker which funeral homes use at the time of a burial.  

 

 

Lazy Wife Greasy Beans, A Lesson In Appalachian Nomenclature

 I was just offered the opportunity to buy a freezing sized amount of what are called Lazy Wife Greasy Beans from my friend Bill Best, whom I have written about several times on this blog.  Bill is a nationally recognized expert on saving, propagating, and growing Appalachian Heritage food crops, a prolific author, retired Berea College professor, and farmer.  I have never had any personal experiences with Lazy Wife Greasy Beans but I just cannot resist the opportunity to learn about them, write about them, freeze them, and eat them when the snow is on the ground.  From Letcher County on the Virginia border to at least Rowan County on I-64 and west to about Adair County, Kentucky is famous for having a people who have, over the last 300 years, grown and managed to save hundreds of varieties of Appalachian Heritage food crops, especially beans and tomatoes. 

For instance, the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center website sells seed beans for about twenty separate varieties of greasy beans including a Lazy Wife Greasy Bean, a Small Lazy Wife Greasy Bean, and a Lazy Daisy Greasy Bean.  The website does not specify which was small, the bean or the lazy wife who originally grew it.  But the website of Sow True Seed gives the best description of the Lazy Wife Greasy Bean.  They say it is "One of the largest of all the greasy varieties, it's called Lazy Wife because the gardeners (who were traditionally the women of the family) could wait longer to harvest and get more food per harvest as these beans are just that big. Thick, fleshy, and stringless, pods remain tender until the beans are quite large. A great shelling bean as well. Originally from Madison County, NC"  They also give the scientific name, Phaseoulus vulgaris, which could mean that the person who produced the scientific name and catalogued it felt that it was vulgar to name a bean in a manner which could be considered demeaning to women. However, an internet friend of mine who goes by the moniker Greenbriar Jim and happens to be a doctoral level retired scientist for the federal government corrected about the meaning of the Latin word "vulgaris".  Jim says that the word simply means "Common" in Latin.  I'm willing to take his word for although the Lazy Wife Greasy Bean is anything but common.  But at the time in Appalachian Folk History when this bean got its colorful name, it was not a particularly offensive thing which also supports Jim's information.   By the way, Jim has a wonderful photography based blog with a little history thrown in for good measure. Although he hasn't produced much on the blog in recent years, it is still well worth visiting at this link.  The blog is named "The Wayfarin' Stranger" and is well worth an extended visit.  The website of the Burpee Seed Company, from which I would never buy an advertised heritage seed because of their long history of hybridization and crossbreeding of many crops, does make a statement about the somewhat inappropriate nomenclature of the Lazy Wife Bean:  "Were these pearls, what a necklace they would make. These are the true ‘Lazy Housewife’, originally introduced by W. Atlee Burpee Co. in 1885, which explains the antiquated moniker. Plants bear green, entirely stringless pods of exceedingly fine, buttery flavor when cooked. When dried, the beans are perfectly round and white, like little pearls, with a heavier, richer, creamy taste. For longer cropping periods, greater yields, and easier harvesting, use a pole or trellis system. Pick them young for snap beans (80 days), or let them dry for shelling beans."  But the Burpee Company also attempts to take credit for  having "originally introduced by W. Atlee Burpee Co. in 1885."  There is little doubt that the Lazy Wife Greasy Bean was a heritage bean which was simply appropriated by Burpee in their ongoing commercial zeal because they knew it was being widely grown in the Appalachian region.  Several other seed sales and preservation companies also sell the Lazy Wife Greasy Bean and some have decided it seems better to them to call it the Lazy Housewife Bean.  Use of the word "housewife"  instead of just "wife" is a relatively more modern term and was not used three hundred years ago when Appalachian subsistence gardners isolated the bean for its unique qualities and began spreading it across large portions of the Eastern United States.  

Shortly after I posted this blog post, I had a question from a reader in Pulaski County, Kentucky, who wanted to know if I had ever heard of White Snowball Greasy Beans.  I had not but I was able to find a small amount of information on the internet.  Without disclosing any personal information about the reader other than their general geographic area, I am posting here our exchange and my exchange with my two Appalachian Heritage Bean experts, Bill Best and Frank Barnett, who are always the first and generally the last people I go to with questions about Appalachian Heritage crops.  I sent them the following e-mail question: Hello,  Do you two know the White Snowball Greasy Bean?  It is possibly a Pulaski County KY bean.  Roger

Here is the message I got from Frank Barnett:

Sure do. I was given one such named variety by Bill years ago which I assume is from his home turf in NC.  And in 2019 when I went to Mitchell County, NC another 2 going by that name, and one of those was from Yancey County, NC.  One thing about bean variety names, before the internet and the big bean swaps, names were local, even to the holler level.  Good example varieties were from older folks called John or Maggie. You know like the Amish the same names were used over and over in each generation. Big John might mean the eldest John or the heaviest John and of course there was Little John, maybe Big John’s son.  So I have 5 bean varieties called Big John. And 3 or 4 Aunt Maggie bean varieties. I had an Aunt Maggie but she was not a seed saver. I had 4 Raleigh Barnett relatives, Big, Junior, Little, Little Junior. None them gardened.  I know of a relative in my Mom’s family , George, who always wanted a son but he had all daughters ( a bunch). When his daughters got married they each named their first born son, George. Now all the Georges were differentiated by nicknames, Big Nose George, Horny George (warts across his forehead), Big Foot George, Pleasant George, and I have forgotten the rest. Just a good thing they were Not bean seed savers. Nope, no regulatory organization to control name naming.  That is apparent with names like Dog Eye or Eagle With Wings ( Red eyed fall bean to non bean person) or Cousin Jed and Aunt Onie (Ona, I assume). (Personal E-mail from Frank Barnett)

This morning, September 29, 2020, I received a response to my e-mail question from Bill Best about the White Snowball Greasy Bean and here it is in its entirety: 

Like Frank, I have grown the Snowball greasy to see if it was the same as the Lazy Wife Greasy.  The jury is still out but my son’s colleague at Tennessee Tech is doing DNA analysis of several of our bean varieties.  I’ve heard of the Snowball Greasy being from Mitchell and Yancy Counties in NC but now from Pulaski County, KY.  I like Frank’s discussion of bean seed names and am still waiting for him to write a book about his knowledge of beans and their keepers that he has met over the years. I had Lazy Wife greasy beans for supper tonight and they are still as good as they used to be. Roger, I’m looking forward to seeing you and Candice this Thursday.  Weather permitting you can drive within two feet of my Lazy Wife greasy bean rows.  We picked some for you today and will pick again Wednesday if the weather allows so that you can have the freshest ones.  We are stringing and breaking many every day to make shuck beans, since I’m down to two packets and need more to replenish my supply.  I keep them all in a freezer where they will last indefinitely."

My response to Bill's message is fairly simple since I am not the Appalachian Heritage Bean expert.  I am simply an expert on Appalachian Culture and have an interest in all aspects of it including Appalachian Heritage crops which came about primarily because I met Bill Best because he and I both had stories in a book from the Jesse Stuart Foundation and Bill introduced me to Frank.  They are the two best experts in America on Appalachian Heritage crops, especially beans and tomatoes and whatever they say is gospel, has been traced and certified before they say it, and should always be considered to be the final answer.  

I also received a second response to my e-mail from Frank Barnett this morning, September 29, 2020, which has some more information about his wide ranging search for Appalachian Heritage Beans and also contains  some pretty good humor.   

"Oh sorry for the long winded discussion about bean names but I needed a break from shelling out beans. I hope all this rain does not damage the 5 varieties I have yet to pick for seed.   In April 2019 when I went to Mitchell, Yancey and Madison counties in NC I felt right at home. I had good visits with everyone and besides talking about beans also had   discussions about about chickens, tobacco, old Ford trucks, and oh the manager at the state liquor store in Burnsville. He sounded like a moonshiner, he said he really objected to buying his whiskey from the state, state has no business making whiskey.  The bulls*** got really deep, next trip I will have hip boots.  And I left for Tenn over one of the last two cow path dirt roads in western NC.  Oh but no coal trucks. Yep I know about those WVa roads marked as coal haulers."

I think Frank Barnett's  e-mail tells you a lot about how serious he is about Appalachian Heritage Beans, how far he is willing to travel to find a variety he does not know, and how hard he works on his farm, as does Bill Best, in order to preserve and pass on what they know about these hard to find crops. 

Let me go on to say that these posts about Appalachian Heritage beans have always generated a lot of readership and several such exchanges with my readers about the particular bean variety I might be writing about or others which I had not even expected such as the White Snowball Greasy Bean above.  That is a very good thing!  If one of my blog posts about such topics generates questions for you let me know.  If the post contains what you perceive to be an error, also let me know.  Or if it reminds you of information you have about some related topic, also let me know.  I love to see this happen and I love to learn as do most of the readers on this blog.  I have never intended this blog to be typical or to be only my opinions especially about topics rooted strongly in Appalachian culture, agriculture, history, literature, or any other topic within the greater field of Appalachian Studies.  Here is also a photo Frank sent me on October 8, 2020, of our mutual friend, national Appalachian Heritage crop expert Bill Best with his freshly made shucked beans.