Alderson

Physician Maggie Ballard was born on April 9, 1900, at Greenville in Monroe County, where her father was postmaster and owned a general store.

She attended school in Greenville and at the Alleghany Collegiate Institution in Alderson. After receiving her undergraduate degree from WVU, she became one of the first women to earn a medical degree from the University of Maryland. For the next four decades, she was a physician in Baltimore, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, and served on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

On October 4, 1890, a traveling circus called French & Company’s Great Railroad Show arrived in the town of Alderson on the Greenbrier-Monroe county line. What started as a circus show would lead to one of the more bizarre incidents in West Virginia.

  On August 14, 1894, entertainer Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith was born at Alderson. At age five, Ada made her stage debut in Chicago, appearing in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By age 16, she was performing on the vaudeville circuit. Soon afterward, a New York saloon keeper gave her the nickname ‘‘Bricktop’’ for her blazing red hair, unusual for an African-American.

On September 22, 1975, Charleston native Sara Jane Moore tried but failed to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford in San Francisco.

Moore, who was born Sara Jane Kahn, graduated from Charleston’s Stonewall Jackson High School in 1947. She once lived in North Charleston—reportedly not far from a young Charles Manson, who himself lived in West Virginia for several years. She later moved to California, joined left-wing groups, and became an FBI informant.

As many West Virginians continue to clean up from last week’s flooding, concerns about theft and looting linger in communities hit hard by the storm. 

In Appalachia, where green forests grow abundantly, food is scarce for many. Throughout Appalachia, grocery stores are disappearing. This week on Inside Appalachia we're looking at some ways communities are resolving to take matters in their own hands.