"Death and Dying in Central Appalachia: Changing Attitudes Practices" by James K. Crissman--Book Review

 

This book was published by The University of Illinois Press in 1994 which means that it is somewhat dated in terms of changing attitudes and practices in the Appalachian region.  But no one has published an adequate book since this one was released to account for any changes in the intervening 27 or so years.  The only book I know of which comes close is "Decoration Day In The Mountains" by Alan Jabbour and Karen Singer Jabbour and it is directed only toward the practices of decorating graves and cemeteries and not toward the entire broad spectrum of how death, dying, burials, grave digging, funerals, memorial services, and numerous other aspects of how we, as a people with one of the most unique cultures in the entire country, deal with our dead.  Until another author produces a book of this quality and depth of research which covers the entire width, depth, and breadth of the field, this is the book most likely to give the best answers to any interested person about death and dying in Central and Southern Appalachia.  I have mentioned this book at times in several other blog posts on this blog but I have never written an entire blog post about it and, in that respect, I have been remiss.  Due to the fact that it was published by a major academic press, there are usually a few good used copies available at one or more of the large used book websites on the internet and it is well worth buying for the serious student of Appalachian Studies or the avid reader who is simply interested in any aspect of the book.  

The author, James K. Crissman, did a well researched, scholarly job of discussing nearly every aspect of death and dying in the area of Central and Southern Appalachia in the slightly more than 200 pages of this book.  His bibliography and notes are exemplary in both their volume and precision and he supplemented his writing with numerous photographs throughout the book.  The one shortcoming of the photographs is that they are all in black and white.  The book is comprised of an Introduction, ten chapters and a Summary.  Chapter topics include Familism, Neighborliness, and the Death Watch; Preparation of the Body; Burial Receptacles and Grave Digging; The Wake; The Funeral Service; Burial Customs; Grave Markers and Other Forms of Memorialization; Funeralizing and Memorial Traditions; Dying, Death, and Central Appalachian Music; and Mining Disasters and Death.  All of these chapter topics are important and many aspects of all of them have changed in some ways over the course of the nearly thirty years since this book was published.  

If we look briefly at some few aspects of most of these chapters we can get some general idea of how these aspects of death and dying in Appalachia have changed.  Firstly, let's look at the top of Familism which is a word many readers may not fully understand.  Familism is a concept from sociology which amounts to somewhat of a double edged sword for the people who practice it in their lives.  But it is less widespread in Appalachia today than it might have been thirty to fifty to one hundred years ago.  Familism occurs when members of a family, especially an extended family, have deep ties to the family and to each other.  Familism is a bit of a double edged sword.  It means that a second cousin might take a day off work to drive his cousin to a doctor's appointment or to help her move.  It also means that family members and families can become negatively enmeshed to such a degree that fights can occur over very minor points and, yet, two family members who have been in disagreement for months will spring to the defense of each other if an outsider comes in conflict with one of them.  Neighborliness is now less likely to result in extensive assistance being provided by neighbors in the event of a death than happened in the past.  Today, death watches in Appalachia usually involve only family members or close friends with an occasional involvement by a church member or co-worker.  In the past, it would not have been uncommon for neighbors to visit at least once daily to offer sympathy and assistance as a person was approaching death.  Preparation of the body for burial in Appalachia in this day and age is almost always performed by undertakers, embalmers, and their assistants in a funeral home.  Even in my childhood, it was much more common for female family members, close neighbors, or "granny women" to come to the home of the deceased and wash and dress a dead person for burial.  I am nearly seventy years old and I can only remember one person in Appalachia who was buried unembalmed in a shroud. But I do know of several who have been buried, at their request, unembalmed and dressed in everyday clothes instead of the now common fancy burial dresses and suits. But I do remember the Old Regular Baptist preacher Clabe Mosley who was buried in a homemade casket which he bought, paid for, and tested for fit almost a quarter of a century before his death at 102.  Clabe was also buried under a concrete homemade tombstone which one of his sons constructed to Clabe's specifications.   I also remember seeing graves dug for the old, cheap, wooden caskets which were buried without a  vault.  In those situations, the grave was dug in two different widths, a close fit for the casket in the bottom two feet of the grave, then the top three or so feet was dug with a step outward on all four sides of about six inches so that boards of rough, hardwood lumber could be laid over the casket to help retard the eventual rotting of the casket and body along with subsequent sinking of the grave. Today, cremation is much more common in Central and Southern Appalachia than ever before.  At the time Crissman wrote this book, almost no one in Appalachia was being cremated. When I was young, almost no one was ever buried in a grave which anyone had been paid to dig and graves were always dug by hand.  Now, almost all graves in Appalachia are dug by a backhoe and it is truly rare to see neighbors, family, or friends perform the grave digging service as a sign of respect for the dead.  

Today, nearly all funerals in Appalachia are held in a funeral home and it is incredibly rare to see a home based funeral where the body is brought home and a visitation and church service is held nightly for up to three days which is how most of my family members were funeralized until about 1980.  Grave markers have changed drastically in my lifetime.  When I was young, it was possible to still see a few people who were buried with only a sandstone or rough lumber marker and that changed in my childhood to markers being primarily either professional granite or marble tombstones with carving on them.  Double tombstones for married couples and occasionally a parent and child were also the norm and that is still common.  In my early years, nearly everyone was buried in a small, privately owned family cemetery.  That is far less common today.  The majority of people are now buried in commercial cemeteries although family cemeteries have not disappeared completely.  Many, if not most, of the commercial cemeteries now require that markers be made of bronze and lie level with the surface of the ground so the entire cemetery can be mowed with a riding lawn mower or tractor without the operator or an additional laborer ever being required to move flowers and other decorations or stop and**** get off the mower.  Most also have strict rules about how decorations such as flowers may be used on graves.  Up until about twenty years ago, all tombstones were simply engraved with names and dates of birth and death along with one short phrase such as "Asleep In Jesus", "Gone Home", or the like.  Today, it is common to see laser decorated tombstones with very complicated scenes which may be purely artistic in nature or copied digitally from a photograph.  

Lastly, mine deaths and disasters are less common than they were in 1994 when Crissman wrote his chapter about them.  They are not totally non-existent today and I cannot remember the last occasion when coal miners were permanently entombed in a mine due to the extreme danger of further deaths of recovery workers if attempts were made to remove dead bodies after an explosion.  Crissman devoted an entire chapter in his excellent book to that subject and it deserved to be addressed at that time.  Now, most attempts to address that topic have become historical in nature due to the steady lessening of mine deaths both due to mechanization and decreased underground mining.  

James K. Crissman produced one of the best books in the entire field of Appalachian Studies with this book.  It should always be included in any attempt to create a broad personal library of Appalachian books.  The subject of death, dying, and burial practices in Appalachia should never be addressed without including a discussion of this book.  It is masterpiece.  If you haven't read it and consider yourself a student of life in Appalachia you should read it. 

Loyal Jones' Reflections On "Appalachian Values" Forty Years Later

 Roger D. Hicks and Loyal Jones September 7, 2017-- Photo by Candice Hicks

On September 7, 2017, in addition to touring an art exhibition by Connie West at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center in Berea, KY, my wife Candice and I had lunch with Loyal Jones at a local restaurant and talked about various aspects of life, Appalachian Studies, and the writings of Loyal Jones.  Loyal brought me a copy of a recent reflection he had written at the request of Berea College on his classic book "Appalachian Values" which I have written about at length and frequently recommend to others who wish to learn about Appalachia.  Over the last couple of years, Loyal Jones and I have become acquaintances, and I hope on some levels, colleagues in the field of Appalachian Studies.  I hope we still have time to become friends.  During our lunch, Loyal suggested that I might also reflect in writing on his recent reconsideration of his classic work.  Yes, I was flattered.  In an E-mail prior to our lunch, he had said the following: 

"I have just run across your review of it again, and I am much obliged, as my father would have said, for your kind words. That book is still being used in a course on cultural diversity here at Berea College, And last year, they asked me if I would like to reflect on the essay after 45 years from when it was first published as an article. I  agreed, and wrote a seven-page reflection, in which I had to admit that all of these values have diminished in the general culture and also in Appalachian culture. If you are interested In reading it, send me your address, and I’ll send you a copy. I want you to know that I greatly appreciate your kind words about Appalachian Values.  It is indeed the most-read thing that I have written."

First of all, let me say that, in my opinion, "Appalachian Values" should clearly be the most-read thing that Loyal Jones ever wrote.  It is a deceptively brilliant piece of work which is often mistaken for a coffee table book because of the beautiful photographs by his collaborator, Berea photographer Warren Bruner.  The ideas which Loyal Jones expressed in that book were precisely on point at the time and most of them still are today.   But, in his recent reflection, Loyal Jones also discussed some areas in which Appalachia has changed significantly from the period in which the book was written and published. In some of those areas, I agree completely with Loyal Jones. In a few, I take slightly different positions.  Let's reflect together on what I see in our culture today in light of Loyal Jones' writing from fort-five years ago.

Loyal Jones September 7, 2017 Photo by Candice Hicks

 Religion

First and foremost, Loyal Jones brings up the changing diversity of Appalachia since the original publication of "Appalachian Values".  He is absolutely correct in that statement.  Every state in the region has had an influx of foreign born persons over the last forty years along with significant interstate immigration of native born American citizens.  This changing demographic is also reflected in the religious distribution of both church members and particular types of religions and denominations.  Loyal Jones mentions that "we are far less religious than we were two generations ago,... and we are probably the most tolerant of religious differences." On some levels I agree with Loyal Jones in this area and on some others I must respectfully disagree.  We are seeing the construction, incorporation, and proliferation of mosques, temples, and synagogues all over Appalachia with the influx of Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists, Rastafarians, and Hindus.  However, I must insist that the recent swing in Appalachia toward the extremist politics of Donald Trump and the Right Wing Radical groups and their members who support his extremism is causing a proliferation of verbal, physical, and criminal assaults on these religions, their members, and their places of worship all across the region.  This incredibly dangerous radical shift of opinion in much of the region has been primarily a response to the extremism of Donald Trump.  He has allowed members of the Right Wing Radical coalition which supports him to believe they are free to say or do anything they wish to anyone with whom they disagree.  Hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Traditionalist Workers Party, Aryan Nations, and all stripes of white nationalism are all growing in numbers, openly challenging the civil and religious rights of immigrants, and staging rallies and membership drives in any community which is willing to tolerate them.  This shift in public opinion is, however, not universal and many, including myself, are standing up to and speaking out against their vitriolic, virulent, and violent ideas.  The regular occurrence of hate crimes such as the Mother Emmanuel mass murder just outside the boundaries of Central and Southern Appalachia and the vehicular attack against peaceful protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the heart of Appalachia, is becoming more commonplace.  This is a sad and terrifying aspect of a minority of the people living in Appalachia today which must be confronted, resisted, and stopped in its tracks if we are to remain the socially tolerant and ideologically progressive region we have generally always been.  

Independence, Self-Reliance, and Pride

In his discussion in the manuscript of Independence, Self-Reliance, and Pride, Loyal Jones discusses the recent shift in population dynamics from rural settings to cities and towns and states "Urban life perhaps requires more interaction and cooperation than individualism and self-reliance." On the face of it, this statement is correct.  But I would suggest that the computer age with the proliferation of wireless, hand held devices and social media as the primary focus of the lives of many of our citizens has caused widespread isolation even in congested cities and towns.  Today, we do not converse on street corners and park benches.  We might sit at the same bus stop without ever speaking, with all parties engrossed in their video screens and ear phones.  The rise in incidents of both distracted driving and distracted walking support this contention.  However, this type of self-centered activity does not make its practitioners self-reliant and independent.  It makes them socially isolated living with the illusion (I might say delusion.) that they are a member of a large social group.  But, in my case simply as an example, of my 204 Facebook Friends less than a handful would actually be likely to leave their homes to give me a ride if I called them to say I was stuck on the roadside with a flat tire or an empty gas tank.  I realize that my paltry number of Facebook Friends does not compare to the size of most people's lists on social media platforms but I have recently pruned my list down to eliminate most of those whom I do not actually know on a personal level.  But I insist that the same holds true for nearly every person in Appalachia and the world who uses social media.  If you don't believe me, send them all a message stating one of the above emergencies and see who offers to assist you in your hour of need.  We are a socially isolated population living under the lie that we are incredibly well connected.  In his discussion of Pride, Loyal Jones states his agreement with the writer David Brooks in his book "The Road To Character". In the book, Brooks "...has warned against the modern weakening of humility and modesty in today's society".  I agree with both David Brooks and Loyal Jones and I am, at this moment, awaiting the arrival of Mr. Brooks' book in my mail  box.  

Neighborliness and Hospitality

The Loyal Jones manuscript discusses Neighborliness And Hospitality by saying that "...we have become less trustful of strangers...our manners and customs have changed, so that we may only invite friends and neighbors we already know to meet for a meal."  He also mentions the increase of crime across the region as a factor in these changes.  Loyal Jones is absolutely correct in these statements.  The widespread drug epidemic and related crime wave across Appalachia has made us all afraid, to one degree or another, of anyone we don't know or who might appear to possibly be under the influence of any drug or alcohol.  Home invasions, robberies, burglaries, kidnappings, child murders, and all categories of violent crime are more common in the rural areas of Appalachia today than they were when "Appalachian Values" was first published.  It is far worse than it was even 25 years ago when I was working as a door to door salesman in Southern West Virginia and South Eastern Kentucky. In the late 1980's when I was a salesman, I was regularly invited to eat meals in the homes of total strangers in the region. Two of my most precious memories involve such meals. I cannot imagine what it would be like to spend a day knocking on doors in those regions today, meeting total strangers in their homes, and attempting to gain entrance to those homes to conduct a sales presentation.  That would be a tough proposition today even if one was working on what are known as qualified leads, calls to people who want to see your product and know you are coming or to whom you have been referred by family or friends.

Familism

In his modern discussion of Familism, Loyal Jones states simply that "...the modern family is different from the old, rural, close-knit family."  Once again, Loyal Jones is absolutely correct.  Familism still exists today in Appalachia.  To a degree, native Appalachians do maintain strong family ties and will assist family members more than some other cultures.  But the degree of contact is more limited.  The levels of support freely given are far more restricted.  The willingness to travel back up US23, US52, or US421 to grandma's house on a holiday weekend is weakened.  To put all these statements in older, more easily understood terms, I would surely hate to have to call any of my cousins to go my bail for a misdemeanor in today's world in Appalachia.  You can rest assured that none of them bring me or mail me fruit cakes and pies for Christmas anymore.  

Personalism

In his recent discussion of Personalism in the manuscript, Loyal Jones discusses at length the changes in attitudes of strangers on the streets of his wonderful, beautiful, and broadly diverse hometown of Berea, KY.  He bemoans the fact that Berea College students rarely speak to him on the streets and are absorbed in their hand held devices.  He writes about not knowing many of the people in his small town today, a town that is often spoken of as an exemplar of all of Appalachia.  To some degree, that same shift in attitudes has occurred in my own hometown of West Liberty, KY.  However, five years ago in West Liberty we had the good fortune, relatively speaking, to be struck by a devastating tornado which both destroyed much of our community and bound us more tightly together in our mutual effort to save our beloved community.  In that respect, we are much luckier and more Personalistic than Berea and the rest of Appalachia.  Just before finishing this paragraph, I walked through the 2017 Sorghum Festival in West Liberty to buy a funnel cake and an apple dumpling from two churches and was spoken to by name on two occasions.  The seller of the funnel cake and I had a personal, joking interchange.  But West Liberty is an exception in these times primarily due to the closeness the tornado forced on us.

Love Of Place

Loyal Jones concludes his discussion of Love Of Place in the manuscript with the following cogent sentence: "We may encounter the value of home and place only at bluegrass festivals where musicians express their desire to return to the old homestead."  As Jones notes, we are more mobile.  We move away more freely and do so without that lingering glance in the rear view mirror which almost leaves us driving into Old Homeplace Creek instead of off to the industrial north.   Holiday weekends no longer see the long streams of cars returning to Raleigh, Knott, Sullivan, Dickenson, or Yancey Counties.  Distant aunts, uncles, cousins, and even grandparents are often buried today without the attendance of a single representative of the displaced extended family who drove off northward to work years ago.  Nowadays, there are even occasions when those relatives who did die in the industrial north and wished for their remains to be brought "back home" have made advance arrangements for those remains to be cremated in the north and mailed to a local representative or undertaker who scatters them among the briers on the old family graveyard or in the yard of the now collapsed home place.  To misquote the classic song "South Of Cincinnati" by my friend Morgan County Kentucky Native and Bluegrass songwriter Clarence Kelly "now there is [no] slow train moving south through Cincinnati".  

Modesty

In his discussion of Modesty, Loyal Jones states that now the lesson "not to put ourselves above others...has been lost in much of our modern political and capitalistic culture".  The first related story that pops into my head about this loss of modesty in Appalachia involves an elected county official who had no police powers but recently followed an attractive young woman in his vehicle for several miles and approached her on foot when she finally stopped in a public institution's parking lot whereupon he attempted to use his influence as a county official in a crude attempt to intimidate her for gains which we can only imagine.  That official, without a shred of modesty, claimed innocence when she had him arrested and took the case to trial where he was convicted on only one of several charges.  I would offer that Modesty meant less not only to that official but also to the members of the jury, the judge, the prosecutor, and the entire community which has allowed him to remain in office to this very day.

Sense Of Humor
Loyal Jones, in the unpublished manuscript, discusses the success of four books of Appalachian Humor which he wrote with his friend and colleague Billy Ed Wheeler as an indicator that "Appalachian humor is still being enjoyed here and throughout the country."  On a superficial level I agree with this assessment but on deeper levels I tend to doubt it.  I regularly listen to WSGS Radio FM 101.1 in Hazard, KY, which is owned by the descendants of Ernest Sparkman and I have written about WSGS on this blog On WSGS for many years, Ernest Sparkman played an Appalachian character known as Greasy Creek Bill who regularly delivered 15 second to 1 minute one liners of Appalachian humor on the station.  Today, Faron Sparkman, Ernest Sparkman's son who runs the family group of radio stations, regularly plays the sound bites of his father's humor more than seven years after his death.  Faron Sparkman has also for many years done a morning radio show with several co-hosts over the years which plays classic country music four days a week and devotes Friday morning to "Crazy Friday".  "Crazy Friday" is comprised of random humorous sound bites and country music humor by artists such as Jerry Clower, Jerry Reed, The Moron Brothers, String Bean, and Wendy Bagwell.  I should note for the record that all these performers are not native Appalachians. But it is pertinent that WSGS is a 100,000 watt super station with a transmission tower situated on one of the highest mountains in Kentucky.  Its signal blasts out over a region which covers the eastern half of Kentucky, and chunks of East Tennessee, Southern West Virginia, Western Virginia, and Western North Carolina along with occasional reports from listeners in Southern Ohio.  There is no more Appalachian radio station in the country when examined by the demographics of its listeners.

Both Loyal Jones and I have always been followers of Appalachian Humor and I would contend that we both understand it better than the average person who is not performing as a humorist full time.  I should also note that for a long period Loyal Jones was regularly hired as a humorous after dinner speaker all across the southeastern United States and has co-authored four books of Appalachian Humor. In my work as an auctioneer, I use a lot of spontaneous one-liners to hold the attention of my crowds. I grew up listening to comedians like Grandpa Jones, Bashful Brother Oswald, Wendy Bagwell, Speck Rhodes, String Bean, and the Duke of Paducah.  I still listen to their work today and frequently watch reruns of "Hee Haw" and "The Porter Wagoner Show" on RFD-TV.  But I note for the record that most of the writers on "Hee Haw" were Canadians which probably comes as a surprise to many of my readers. While Appalachian Humor survives today in limited enclaves, I do not believe that it is as strong today as it was when "Appalachian Values" was first published.   I cannot name a single Appalachian comedian under the age of twenty-five or thirty who is making a regular living on a full time basis as a humorist.  Most country music television shows of recent production do not bother to use a comedian in a regular slot. The RFD-TV show "Larry's Country Diner"does have a regular cast member who is a female working as a comedian known as "Nadine Nadine, The Church Lady".  Her website does not give any accurate biographical information as to her birthplace or home.  Her comedy is stilted, shop worn, and generally of poor quality.   "The Moron Brothers, a Bluegrass comedy band from Kentucky, are the only regularly working full time comedy music act to my knowledge.  I would also state that most of the so-called Appalachian Humor I hear today is actually hillbilly jokes which are not humor to me anymore than Black Face Comedy is humor.  The word "hillbilly" is an ethnic and cultural epithet which is personally offensive to me and, in my opinion, should be offensive to any native of the Appalachians or Ozarks. I consider the word "hillbilly" to be just as offensive as the "n" word, the "q" word, the "k" word, or the "f" word.   I must say that, in my opinion, Appalachian Humor is fading unless Loyal Jones and I are having lunch together.

Patriotism
In his manuscript reflecting on "Appalachian Values", Loyal Jones reminds us of the incredibly high numbers of native Appalachians who have joined the military, fought in our wars, and continue to do so.  He states correctly that about 8% of American military personnel have consistently been Appalachian but they have received "18% of the Medals Of Honor in Korea, and 13% in Viet Nam".  He also reminds his readers of research which has shown that "...if you were an Appalachian soldier in Viet Nam, you were 50% more likely to be killed than your comrades from elsewhere."  In my blog post on Patriotism, I also published very similar statistics about volunteerism, casualty rates, and rates of combat awards involving native Appalachian personnel. These statistics have been amazingly similar in war after war and, in my opinion, there are several reasons for that in addition to a natural proclivity for patriotism in Appalachian people.  Most of the Appalachian states and counties have had exorbitantly high rates of unemployment, under employment, and poverty over the last 100 years which always results in higher volunteerism simply to seek a steady paycheck.  There is also a link between deeply held religious beliefs and patriotism.  Religious people are more likely to seek to defend their country.  People who have grown up on stories about David and Goliath or  Joshua and the Battle of Jericho are more likely to emulate those heroes. Appalachia has produced numerous heroes in our wars such as Sgt. York, Jessica Lynch, Chuck Yeager, John Bob Elwell, and William Barber from my hometown of West Liberty.  It is highly likely that whatever, wherever, and when ever America fights its next war Appalachians will be on the front lines whether those lines are in a armed combat setting or on computer screens in hidden bunkers.

Sense Of Beauty

In his reflections on "Appalachian Values", Loyal Jones speaks about his appreciation for Appalachian artists and performers such as Chet Adkins and Doc Watson while he has also benefited from performances from others who were recognized world wide as great performers or artists.  I can say the same thing.  I have admired multiple works by the Appalachian wood carver Edgar Tolson covering an entire wall in the Milwaukee Art Museum and I know that he has works in the Smithsonian even though I have never seen them.  Another famous Appalachian Folk Artist and acquaintance of mine, Minnie Adkins from Sandy Hook, KY, has received the Award of Distinction from the Folk Art Society of America in 1993.  Several of her works also adorn museums nation wide.  The Bristol Recording Sessions in Bristol, TN/VA, in 1927 laid the ground work for Country Music in America.  Nearly every time I am in the University of Kentucky Hospital or the Kentucky Clinic in Lexington, KY, I slow down to enjoy the dozens of works by native Appalachian Folk Artists hanging on their walls.  A sense of beauty rooted in the mountains, streams, and wild flowers of Appalachia permeates our people and they carry that sense of beauty all over the world.  I have written at length about the Big Sandy River Valley stretching from Ashland, KY, to Elkhorn City on the Virginia border and how it has produced an astounding number of famous musicians, actors, and public figures.  And now I must admit that the blog post to which I just provided you the link is already out of date.  Another famous musician has sprung up out of that valley to world wide fame.  In the time since I wrote that post, Chris Stapleton has burst out of Paintsville, KY, and won awards from the Grammy's, Country Music Association, and the Academy of Country Music.  In that same time frame, Pauletta Hansel, from Breathitt County Kentucky has been named the Poet Laureate of Cincinnati, Ohio.  My old friend and mentor, P. J. Laska, was a National Book Award Finalist in 1974. It is also pertinent to mention that both Pauletta Hansel and I attended Antioch Appalachia in Beckley, WV, where P. J. Laska, Robert "Bob" Snyder (Billy Greenhorn), Don West, Tom Woodruff, William "Bill" Blizzard, Jr., and Rod Harless were all faculty members.  The student body also included other published writers in addition to Pauletta Hansel and myself: Gail Amburgey, Joseph "Joe" Barrett, and Robert "Bob" Baber.  Shall I go on?  

 Conclusions
I do not believe based on our writings and our conversations that either Loyal Jones or I would make any blanket statements that Appalachian Culture is alive and well at the level it was in the early 1970's when he first wrote and published "Appalachian Values".  Acculturation and deterioration of native culture is occurring every day in the region.  The long term effects of interstate highways and outward migration are taking a toll on our language, our native arts, and our culture as a whole.  Yes, we are benefiting from the inward migrations of several thousand people of widely diverse backgrounds such as Mexicans, Indians, Syrians, Japanese, and Americans from the other forty or so states which lie outside Central and Southern Appalachia.  But that also comes with a cost.  Appalachian Culture is being diluted and not enough native Appalachians are working to keep it alive.  I spent this past Sunday, September 24, 2017, with my wife at a Memorial Meeting on the grounds of the Elijah Smith Cemetery at Dingus, KY, in Morgan County.  The service was conducted by ministers of the Enterprise Association Of Regular Baptists.  About forty people attended and several commented that the crowd was "smaller than it used to be".  Such services are becoming more and more rare today in Appalachia.  Our music, once rooted in the glens of Scotland and Ireland, is being diluted by an influx of reggae, rap, and opera. Our manners, hospitality, and openness are being destroyed by the digital equipment to which so many of our people are now addicted.  There are fewer and fewer young men and women in Appalachia who know how to make chicken and dumplings and include the egg bag of the hen they killed to make them, invite the neighbors and an occasional stranger to come in and help eat them, and then to carry the left overs down the hollow to the sick old woman who used to stand in her yard and wave at every passing car whether she knew you or not.     

Stereotyping Of Native Appalachians And How To Fight It

On several occasions in this blog, I have written about prejudice toward Appalachia and Appalachian Americans as well as ignorance by many people toward the entire history, geography, literature, music, overall culture, and sociology of Appalachia.  That mass ignorance often extends to even large portions of the native Appalachians.  At least since February 2018, I have been reading the work of native Appalachian author Pearl S. Buck, specifically the "Good Earth" trilogy.  I wrote my first post about Buck and her work in March of 2018 which was a review of her greatest novel, "The Good Earth".  It is an absolute masterpiece and, to a degree, overshadows the other two novels in the trilogy, "Sons" and "A House Divided", although either of them would have been considered a capstone to the careers of many lesser writers.  Although Buck was born in West Virginia and attended college in Virginia, she spent her childhood and much of her entire life in China.  Many students of literature do not even speak of her as having been Appalachian.  But if you read her work closely, you will find many aspects of life in Appalachia which seem to have been transplanted to her work about China such as family graveyards, familism, and paternal control of family units.  I have to admit that I do not know enough about Chinese Culture, which is incredibly diverse and complex, to speculate about it to any degree.  

But this blog post will focus on one aspect of the book, "A House Divided", which seems to have been taken directly out of Appalachian Culture.  The protagonist of the novel, Wang Yuan, the grandson of Wang Lung, the protagonist of the first novel, "The Good Earth" and the son of Wang The Tiger, the protagonist of the second novel, "Sons", has been living in a generally unnamed foreign country for six years in order to go to school, presumably college, and to escape possible execution by the authorities as a suspected revolutionary.  During this six year period, Wang Yuan's character gradually, via a series of four clearly delineated steps, develops a strong sense of national pride about China and a hatred toward foreigners.  To quote the book, "He walked and talked among these foreigners and saw himself no longer as one Wang Yuan, but he saw himself as his people, and as one who stood for his whole race in a foreign alien land."  When I read that sentence, I was instantly reminded of some of my own experiences in my teenage years when I graduated from high school and ventured out on my own into the greater United States outside my native Kentucky and Appalachia.  I will always remember an occasion when I was on a winter quarter exchange to Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, one of greatest, historically liberal northern colleges which was coeducational from its birth and racially integrated since 1835.  During that period at Oberlin, I met and was "befriended" by a student who had grown up in nearby Cleveland only thirty-five miles away.  This student invited me, one weekend during my stay at Oberlin, to attend a family dinner at his home.  We were required to ride mass transit together to his home and I was required to return to the campus alone via the same means after the meal.  To say the least, I was somewhat unprepared having spent my entire life in Floyd and Knott Counties in Kentucky where mass transit still does not exist even today.  I was also only seventeen years old and markedly untraveled.  But the part of the event which got the best of me was not the return on mass transit but the encounter with his parents themselves.  So help me God, they could not decipher my Knott County accent and, on several occasions during the meal, they would stop me and ask me to say again some word which I thought the entire world must know, and once or twice actually asked me to spell these words.  The home was not extravagant by today's standards but was clearly more fancy than most I had ever seen.  But the part that got to me the most and which I have still not forgotten fifty years later was that I instantly realized that I saw myself as my "people, and as one who stood for [my] whole race in a foreign land".  I was the poor Appalachian boy from Eastern Kentucky who had been brought home by their son for show and tell.  That experience had a formative effect on my subsequent development of my everlastingly strong and unyielding sense of pride, otherness, and identification as an outspoken Appalachian on a mission to protect, defend, perpetuate, and propagate my culture wherever I have gone for the intervening fifty years. It also helped me to reach the commitment to never deliberately lose my Appalachian accent.  But I have to admit that by virtue of travel and extensive education, I have inadvertently lost some of the accent and no think that I sound much like most of the native Knott countians who have lived their entire lives there.  I have never yielded or wavered in those effort to protect, propagate, and defend my culture during my travels from the Mid-Hudson of New York to the deserts of Southern Arizona or from Winnipeg, Ontario, Canada to Nogales, Mexico and South Florida.  I believe that Pearl S. Buck wrote that section of the novel describing Wang Yuan's commitment to his protection and propagation of the Chinese culture from the viewpoints of both a woman born and educated in Appalachia and as a woman who was reared in China and required to come to that "foreign land" of Virginia to be educated.  

Later in the book, Wang Yuan confronts two other young Chinese students whom he feels have belittled the Chinese people and their country in a stage performance before an audience of primarily American students.  During that confrontation, Wang Yuan says, "It is not true love of country to hold one's own up for cause of laughter to a people always too ready for such laughing at us."  Once again, Pearl S. Buck, through this character expressed exactly what I have felt on many occasions as I have seen native Appalachians belittle our people, our culture, and our history.  I have no tolerance for those who do this or for those who, in what they mistakenly describe as pride, call themselves and the rest of us "hillbillies" or "rednecks" with absolutely no knowledge of the true origins of the term "redneck" in that greatest battle of native Appalachians against outside interests at the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County West Virginia, or of the creation and propagation of the term "hillbilly" in prejudice, vilification, and belittlement .  Recently, a person I like a great deal and respect for his work in the health care professions brought up the television personality Ernie "The Turtle Man" Brown, Jr. as something or someone to be enjoyed and admired.  Instantly, I informed this man, a nearly lifelong resident of Breathitt County Kentucky, one of the most stringently Appalachian of Kentucky Counties even to this day, that I believe that "The Turtle Man" is just a con artist and idiot making money by making the rest of us Appalachians look like idiots.  I also asked the man I was talking to if he was aware of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky, one of the best documentary film companies in America.  This man, who has spent nearly his entire life in Appalachian Eastern Kentucky only sixty-five miles or so from Whitesburg, Kentucky, and had also never heard of one of their most important films, "Strangers And Kin: A History Of The Hillbilly Image". I told him and I firmly believe that every native of Appalachia should be required to see this film in school before they complete the third grade.  It would also be an excellent idea to require it again in high school.  It is an excellent educational tool about and an indictment of the stereotyping of Appalachian people which has taken place at least since West Virginian sought and achieved statehood in 1863.

Whatever effort and expense might be necessary to fight and end stereotyping of Appalachia and Appalachian people would be money and time well spent for the future of the region.  Appalachian children who were able to grow up without the prevalent sense of inferiority would be more likely to achieve better educations, better careers, and better lives.  Self esteem based on accurate knowledge of their powerful heritage would serve to enhance their sense of self-worth, pride, and self acceptance.  I urge all my readers to find a copy of "Strangers And Kin..." and watch it at least once with your entire family.  Internalize the information it contains and use that information to protect your culture for the rest of your life. 

Appalachian Values As Discussed By Loyal Jones

Appalachian Values And Loyal Jones

Retired Berea College Professor Loyal Jones has had a lasting impact on public perceptions of Appalachian people with his book "Appalachian Values".  It is the first book I recommend to people who know little or nothing about Appalachians and express a desire to learn about us.  I believe it is the first book anyone should read who wants to know the truth about Appalachia and Appalachians.  It has done more to dispell the negative stereotypes of Appalachians than any other piece of written material and has been the basis of some of my own academic writing as well as the writing of hundreds of other authors both unknown and well known.  The links at the bottom of this blog will take the reader to two articles which I published with co-author Dr. Heather Ambrose, Ph. D., during the time I was working on my masters degree at Lindsey Wilson College.  We delivered one of those articles, "Culturally Appropriate Supervision of Counselors In Appalachia" at the 2005 National Conferece of The American Counseling Association and it was included in the book, "Vistas 2005: Compelling Perspectives On Counseling".  I have only spoken to Loyal Jones on one or two occasions and cannot say that  we are friends.  But I owe a debt of gratitude to Loyal Jones and so does every other native Appalachian who fights to diminish and dispell the stereotypes which persist today. 

Loyal Jones Photo By Candice M. Hicks

Jones wrote the book, which was originally an article in a Texas magazine published by the Texas Tech Press,  in response to the debilitating portrayal of Appalachian people by Jack Weller in his best seller "Yesterday's People".  Weller's book is the last or next to last book you should ever read about Appalachia. (The last book you should read is "Night Comes To The Cumberlands" by Harry M. Caudill.)   Weller was an outsider, a Presbyterian minister, and had come to the Eastern Kentucky area to preach and do community organizing.  Like many, if not most, of the missionaries who came and still come to Appalachia, Weller knew little of the people he wrote so devastatingly about.  Weller also failed to learn much while he was here. Jones is a native Appalachian who has spent his life in Appalachia writing about his own kind and working to lift the Appalachian people up and to fight the stereotypes.  Some other Appalachian writers of note have taken issue with Jones' work including Bob Snyder, a close friend and mentor of mine.  However, I have been greatly influenced by both and believe both are correct in major areas of their work.  Their disagreement was between them and should not influence any reader to view either of them negatively. 

Roger D. Hicks & Loyal Jones Photo By Candice M. Hicks

"Appalachian Values" was co-authored with Berea photographer Warren Brunner who actually was not an Appalachian.  His photos illustrate the work and actually take up more pages than the text. But, to my knowledge, Brunner did none of the writing and his photography is stupendous. The book is often mistaken for a coffee table picture book which is a major disservice to both the book and the people it depicts.  It is a masterful work of major cultural and political importance and is so deceptive in its simplicity that it is frequently ignored or avoided by academics.  It falls into a group of great little books like "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch and "Night" by Elie Wiesel.  These books are so small that they tend to be misleading to the average reader.  All write about groups of people who are unique and prone to be ignored, misinterpreted, pilloried, and even massacred. All three contain truths which are far more important than  the miniscule package in which they are contained. 

Jones discussed ten core values of Appalachians: Love of Place; Independence, Self Reliance, and Pride; Neighborliness; Familism; Humility and Modesty; Sense of Beauty;  Patriotism; Religion; Personalism; and, Sense of Humor. Jones has discussed these values in more depth in his other work, especially the book, "Faith and Meaning In The Southern Uplands".  Although that work is primarily about religion, it also serves to expand some of Jones' thinking on the other values. Jones may be best known for his work on Appalachian Humor, including several joke books with Billy Ed Wheeler.  Jones has also been a well known dinner circuit speaker because of his humor.  But he is first and foremost an Appalachian academic and writer. 

Later, as time allows, I will expand or expound, in ten individual postings on this blog, on my own perception of these core cultural vaules.  But, at this point, the most important sentences any reader should remember from the book are these:

"All work in Appalachia must be based on the genuine needs as expressed by mountain people themselves.  Whatever work is done must be done with the recognition that Appalachian culture is real and functioning." Loyal Jones, "Appalachian Values" p. 10.

What this boils down to in layman's terms is that the missionaries have never saved us and they never will.  They will persist in coming.  We Appalachians must persist in being ourselves and resisting the efforts at forced assimilation, both blatant and subtle.  I will also, as time permits, write a major posting on cultural assimilation and ways Appalachian people can best resist it and work to preserve Appalachian Culture.

 Go to this link to read updated reflections from both Loyal Jones and I  about his book "Appalachian Values" forty years after it was published.  Reflections On Appalachian Values by Loyal Jones

Relocated Cemeteries In Appalachia

A recent posting by my blogging friend the Wayfarin' Stranger on his blog which was actually about an old one room school prompted this post. The post and his wonderful blog can be found at: http://cumberlandvistas.blogspot.com/2012/05/one-room-school.html  I responded to his discussion of the movement of the school for the creation of Cave Run Lake near his native Morehead, KY,  with an e-mail about the need for both of us to examine and blog about the movement of family cemeteries to facilitate the construction of these flood control projects all over Appalachia.  He responded with the idea that we both write about it and cross link our articles which was his way to get me reactivated in blogging since I had done nothing since the March 2, 2011, tornado devastated my home town of West Liberty, KY.  That is a topic which I will approach sometime soon.  It is still a bit too fresh in most of our minds.

But, to get back to the real topic of this article, there are several federally funded flood control lakes in every state in the Central Appalachian Region.  Within easy driving distance of me, there are Cave Run Lake, Paintsville Lake, Yatesville Lake, Dewey Lake, and Buckhorn Lake.  All were built after World War II, funded by federal dollars, and in whole or in part managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.  There are actually 18 such lakes in the entire state of Kentucky, 10 throughout West Virginia, 5 in Tennessee, 6 in Virginia, 4 in North Carolina, and 10 in Georgia.  Each of these states may also have one or more river drainages which are overseen by the Corps of Engineers.  There are also several other lakes in each of the states which is partially contained in the greater Appalachian area but outside Central or Southern Appalachia.  I am concerned only with the cemeteries which have been affected by the construction of lakes in the Central Appalachian Region.  But within the states named, there are more than 50 such lakes. I also note for the record that all of the above states territory does not lie in Central Appalachia and neither do all of the 53 lakes. 

The Corps of Engineers actually controls more than 400 lakes in 43 states.  Nearly every one of these man made lakes required the movement of grave sites and cemeteries.  A few may have also affected or destroyed Native American archaeological sites including grave sites. A fairly good, but relatively non-disclosive and primarily tourism oriented page about the lakes can be found at:  http://corpslakes.usace.army.mil/visitors/visitors.cfm

Each of these lakes is entirely man made and their construction mandated the removal and relocation of several and perhaps dozens of small, family cemeteries.  In each case, the government purchased title to the land involved whenever possible and paid contractors to excavate and relocate all known graves which would be in the flood plain of the lakes. Whenever opposition to the individual purchases was encountered, the government began adverse legal proceedings under the legal doctrine known as eminent domain and seized the land.  In either case, the government paid for the purchase of land near the lake for the construction of a merged cemetery which would contain most or all of the relocated graves.  So far as I know, in each case, the cemeteries were also built large enough to allow for the burial of future dead in the locale.  Whenever descendants objected to relocation of graves to the merged cemetery, they were generally given the option of moving them to a site of their own choosing although this relocation may not have been at government expense. And one of the other real tragedies of this whole relocation effort lies in the fact that many of the older cemeteries would have also contained poorly marked or even totally unmarked graves which were never found and are flooded today.  In many of these cases, no living human remained who even remembered the exact location of these graves or the names of the individuals buried in them. 

Each of these merged cemeteries is operated by a manager under the laws of the state and federal governments. Most, if not all, of these cemeteries are managed in an efficient and ethical fashion.  This article is intended to be a non-biased look at the cultural issues involved in relocation of graves in Appalachia and not intended as any negative assessment of the processes involved in the management of the new cemeteries.  I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions about how this massive relocation of graves has affected the descendants of the dead in each case, both in and outside Central Appalachia. 

I have not visited most of the cemeteries involved in Central Appalachia.  But I have visited several in both Kentucky and West Virginia.  I am more concerned with the general cultural issues involved and limit specific references to those lakes and cemeteries with which I am most familiar.  I have also sought to gain first hand information from one or more of the managers involved in the process.  However, an initial attempt to gain previously publicly released information about the cemeteries from a Corps of Engineers employee was less than openly addressed.  I suspect that, in many cases, relocation of graves has been a touchy subject in Central Appalachia.  I can only vaguely remember the construction of Carr Fork Lake in my native Knott County Kentucky.  But I do recall that my neighbors who were often unemployed avoided applying for the jobs available as laborers in the relocation process.  Contractors were generally not local but did advertise and hire local people when they would accept the work.    However, most local males would not apply for and would not have accepted jobs whose sole purpose was the excavation of graves and relocation of the dead.

Culturally speaking, three major aspects and key values of Appalachian Culture collide with the process of relocating cemeteries. These values are Love of Place, Familism, and Religion.  These relocated graves and cemeteries were most often located on old family home places and considered sacred to the descendants.  The two most important institutions in Appalachian Culture are family and church.  The three most important physical locations to the average Appalachian are the old home place, the family cemetery, and the church which the family usually attended.  In many cases, the construction of these lakes and the relocation of graves would have destroyed all three of these important locations and dealt serious damage to the two institutions as well. In all cases of property transfers for these lakes, the property would have been appraised at actual market value if sold.  Many of these older churches, especially Old Regular Baptist, United Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal churches would have been simple wood frame buildings with little monetary value in relation to their religious and cultural value. These congregations would have often been tasked with buying land and building new buildings in an area where land was now more valuable both because of the tourism potential and the increased scarcity due to flooding. More often than not, these small congregations would have been placed in a position of great monetary stress due to the much larger cost of replacement compared to the market value of buildings that were small, cheaply built, and of advanced age.

Although I do not generally believe that feuding was as common an occurrence in Appalachia as various forms of media have described it, disagreements between neighboring families occur in all locales across the world as a part of normal daily life.  Relocating several small family cemeteries in a relatively constricted locale, usually one creek or river valley, would have often resulted in members of several families being buried in close proximity to people with whom they had disagreed in life.  Descendants would not have forgotten those disagreements and would have been upset by the idea of having family members buried in the same cemetery with "them Hicks'" for example. 

But the real opposition to moving graves lay in the idea that graves are sacred and the dead should remain in the original grave until the resurrection. This is a topic which I did not address adequately in my earlier posting about family cemeteries.  It was an idea I should have addressed more thoroughly at the time.  Most graves in Appalachia, especially if they are more than 40 or 50 years old, nearly always face the rising sun due to the belief that the resurrection will happen in the early morning at or near sunrise.  This positioning of the graves is intended to guarantee that the people interred will be oriented toward the coming Jesus in order to be one of the first to rise from the grave. The relocated cemeteries almost never made a point of facing graves toward the rising sun and usually located the orientation in the manner most likely to maximize the use of the land.  This point alone would be upsetting to descendants of the dead who had been raised to practice this religious based custom. 

Whenever I discuss the issues of death and burial in Appalachia, I generally refer to two books: "Death And Dying In Central Appalachia" by James K. Crissman and "Coal Camp Kids" by Barbara Ford Ritch.  "Faith And Meaning In The Southern Uplands" by Loyal Jones, whose work I often mention, also contains material pertinent to this discussion. The Crissman book is a somewhat dated but classic discussion of nearly every aspect of death and dying in Appalachia. It is in every way a masterpiece.  The Ritch book is a large oral history of the coal camps on Beaver Creek in Floyd County Kentucky which contains a large chapter on death, dying, and burial customs which contains many vintage photographs of graves, tomb stones, caskets, and dead bodies.  It is somewhat deficient in expository writing but the photos and first person transcriptions are quite informative.  For those readers who are interested in further information on the topic of death in Appalachia, I would also refer you to any or all available copies of "The Minutes" of any of the various associations of the Old Regular Baptist Church in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and several of the northern states affected by the Great Migration.  Individual obituaries are generally contained in most associations minutes and are written by either ministers or family members who knew the deceased individuals.  Although they may appear to follow a stock and rather staid format, individual obituaries may contain real gems of cultural information and these gems may often be found only by browsing dozens of "Minutes".  I refer to one such obituary in my post on "Visiting The Urban Appalachians In Kendallville Indiana".  Although I have never done research there, it is my understanding that the University of Pikeville library in Pikeville Kentucky has a nearly complete collection of these minutes from several of the associations.  Each of these "Minutes" is an annual report of events in a particular association of Old Regular Baptist Churches and, in addition to the obituaries, contains statistical reports of the churches.  They are a wealth of information for researchers and the simply curious in Appalachia.  In particular, the statistics are often far more complete than other enumerations of any kind at the same time in Appalachia. 

There have also been numerous cultural collisions between coal and other mineral extraction companies and the local populace concerning attempts to relocate cemeteries in order to facilitate strip mines, oil wells, gas wells, and rock quarries.  One such battle is currently ongoing at Carcassone in Letcher County Kentucky.  I have no direct personal knowledge of the conflict other than what I have seen in the media. But a local couple whose family members are buried on a small, mountaintop cemetery are involved in an ongoing battle with a coal company which wants to move the cemetery more than twenty miles away, which is a massive distance by Appalachian mountain standards.  Newspaper accounts can be found at the Mountain Eagle , the local newspaper in Whitesburg, KY. I will attempt to directly contact the people involved in the conflict and gain more information which is certainly pertinent to this discussion.

 

This article will not be complete until I have managed to interview at least a couple of the cemetery managers involved about policies and procedures involved in the relocation of these graves.  I will also try to take the time to do some research in the Floyd, Rowan, and Johnson County Kentucky Libraries and newspaper morgues from the time period involved in the construction of Dewey Lake and Paintsville Lake in order to search for information about current events and opinions at the time the lakes were created.  Please feel free to insert your own personal information about this process and to make suggestions of ways to obtain more accurate information about the processes involved.  I would also love to interview any former employees who may have worked in the relocations. 

"Public Health In Appalachia Essays From The Clinic And The Field" Edited by Wendy Welch--Book Review

Welch, Wendy, Editor: Public Health In Appalachia Essays From The Clinic And The Field (Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland And Company, 2014)

This book is one work in a series of books from McFarland and Company in Jefferson, North Carolina, called the Contributions To Southern Appalachian Studies series which in the last twenty years has produced roughly forty books.  It is a book I should have read and written about promptly after it was published in 2014 since one article in the book quotes substantially from an article which I co-authored in 2005 with Dr. Heather Ambrose, Ph.D. on the topic of "Culturally Appropriate Counseling and Human Services in Appalachia: The Need and How to Address It" which was published online by the American Counseling Association and which we delivered in a presentation at the 2005 National Conference of the ACA.  However, that quotation and citation is not the best reason for me or anyone else to read this book.  The real reason you should read it is that it is a compilation of ten very cogent and informative essays written by more than a dozen human services and/or education professionals in the Central and Southern Appalachian region.  The subtitle, "Essays From The Clinic And The Field", explains very aptly why I consider this book to be a fine resource for human services and education professionals working in the region.  It is taken directly from the mouths of more a dozen of the "horses" who have been pulling the load in some very tough professions in the region and who clearly demonstrate their professional skills and cultural competence in their writing.  

In the opening paragraph of the Foreword, John Dreyzehner addresses one of my pet peeves for nearly all my life which I have always confronted in the header to this blog.  Mr. Dreyzehner has begun his introduction to the book by saying: 

"Many years ago a young college student from Chicago signed up for a brief Catholic mission experience deep in rural Appalachia.  One of the first things the ignorant young man noticed was that the locals and the host clergy didn't pronounce "Appalachia" right.  What they said sounded more like "apple-AT-cha".  Fortunately, he did not try to correct them, nor they, more kindly, he in saying "app-a-LAY-cha".  That was the beginning of an education in cultural sensitivity and cultural literacy.  There was a lot to learn." (Dreyzehner, Public Health In Appalachia Essays from the Clinic and the Field, p. 1)

I cannot think of a finer way for any non-native resident of Appalachia to begin a discussion of the region.  My own aforementioned header to this blog uses nearly identical words to address the same topic:

"An ever growing site of non-fiction,flotsam, fiction,memoir,autobiography,literature,history, ethnography, and book reviews about Appalachia, Appalachian Culture, and how to keep it alive!!! Also,how to pronounce the word: Ap-uh-latch-uh. 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." (Roger D. Hicks, see above)

This book makes a meritorious attempt in several of the articles to address that need for cultural competency and the same article which quotes my work, written by Bob Franko, also quotes and cites  the work of my friend and mentor Loyal Jones from his book "Appalachian Values" on which I have based much of my writings about the need for cultural competence in writing about or working in Central and Southern Appalachia.  It was quite refreshing to see anyone directly addressing the widespread and deliberate mispronunciation of the name of our homeland.  One of my very early blog posts,  and I am proud to say one of the most frequently read on this blog, directly addressed this issue.  I also frequently mention the excellent, early Appal Shop movie "Strangers and Kin: A History of the Hillbilly Image", which is one of finest attempts ever made to address the negative attacks on Appalachia and Appalachians.  Those of us who have fought this battle for most of our lives can truly appreciate the effort by Franko and Dreyzehner.

But there are numerous other reasons to appreciate this book and the greater series from McFarland and Company.  Nearly every article in the book has direct applications for both professionals working in the region and native Appalachian who simply want to be understood by the greater America around us as an unappreciated and frequently maligned minority which are generally denied minority status.  The first section of the book contains four articles which address a quartet of the most serious problems facing the region today: cancer, diabetes, drug addiction, and inadequate dental care. The second section is comprised of three articles about culturally appropriate health care delivery systems.  All three of these articles are well written by individuals who understand exactly what they are talking about.  Steve North, M. D. wrote a very good article about telehealth in Appalachia.  But I must take offense with the general need for telehealth in Appalachia or anywhere else in a country which mistakenly claims to be the most advanced in the world.  I am still offended that in America we have reached a time where it is necessary for people in any part of the country to participate in telehealth in order to participate in the health care system.  I also take offense when I am seen at one of the best hospitals in the entire southeast and I am unable to see a person who is actually a medical doctor.  I have worked with and know several highly qualified nurse practitioners and physicians assistants but I will never believe that this country could not, if politicians and health care administrators would allow it, produce a health care system in which every patient would meet with a physician at the moment of initial contact.  Such a system would require us, as a nation, to actually create new systems of taxation, education, and healthcare delivery. Such a system would allow every qualified applicant to be accepted into a medical school without fear of losing their future freedom of choice because of paying off education loans.  Other countries with far less average gross domestic product pay for a college education for every qualified applicant.  We should also.  If those applicants choose to become nurse practitioners or physicians assistants instead of becoming doctors, we should support them just the same.  A free public college education for every qualified applicant in America would vastly increase our gross domestic product, average income, and general effectiveness as a nation.  But for the time being, I do admit that the current system of using medical practitioners who are less qualified than full medical doctors does give us the ability to delivery minimally effective health care to the greatest number of patients especially in remote areas of Appalachia, the Deep South, and the far west.  But it should never be accepted as the best or most widely used system. 

The third section of the book contains three articles on cultural theory and clinical policy.  One of those articles written by Tauna Gulley, RN, on fatalism and its effects on Appalachian youth.  Fatalism is one of the old topics which has been repeatedly used as a club with which to beat Appalachia and Appalachians.  In my opinion, this article could have been left on the cutting room floor and the overall book would have been better.  Fatalism is an easy place to fall back on if an author is attempting to continue the denigration, defamation, and defeat of Appalachia.  It is not nearly as prevalent or important as some people believe. At the time of publication of this book, Ms Gulley was a professor of nursing at the University of Virginia College at Wise.  Today, she is the coordinator of a nursing program at the University of Pikeville and apparently now holds a doctoral degree.  I do not know her or her educational or personal background.  But it has generally been my experience that the topics of fatalism, familism, and internecine squabbles, when used in reference to Appalachia are most generally used by non-natives of the region as a way to justify  what they mistakenly believe to be our shortcomings as a people and a region. 

Do not allow the couple of negative assessments I have made of individual articles to overly color your opinions of this book.  The strengths of the work strongly overcome any weaknesses a couple of articles may exhibit.  Read the book and benefit from it.  Read it with a critical eye and use the parts of it you are willing to accept at face value.  Use the parts with which you disagree to broaden your own knowledge base about how to overcome or counterbalance the alleged weaknesses those authors may discuss.  And realize that the opinions of any particular author may well not represent those of the editor or the other authors.  This is a book from which to learn. It is a tool.  Use it wisely!