Eric Douglas, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

‘Hill Women’ Examines Three Generations In Eastern Kentucky

Stories of life in Appalachia are often told from a male perspective, but many young writers and authors are trying to change that. They want to make sure the story of Appalachia’s women are not forgotten.

In Cassie Chambers’ memoir “Hill Women” she examines her life in eastern Kentucky through the eyes of three generations of women in her family.

She spoke with Eric Douglas to discuss the book — and her pursuits that ultimately led her back to eastern Kentucky.

Douglas: The book is set in eastern Kentucky. Can you explain to me a little bit more specifically where we’re talking about?

Chambers: The book is set in Owsley County, which is one of the poorest counties in America. It’s a place where the average household income is around $16,000 a year for a family of four. It has very high rates of disability. There are two restaurants in town, a sort of dairy bar and a diner. No franchise restaurants, no franchise businesses other than some dollar stores and a couple gas stations. And so it’s really just a very small, very rural town in the hollow of the eastern Kentucky mountains.

Douglas: You made a choice leading into your junior year in high school to leave the mountains to go away to school. Why did you make that decision?

Chambers: My parents had always instilled in me how important education was. And although I had not seen a lot of the world, and I had not traveled to a lot of places, I had been raised to know that that was something I wanted to do. There was never a doubt in my mind that I was going to go to college and that I would probably go to college away from my family. That’s what my mom had done. That’s what she had sort of assumed I would do, as well.

I got a brochure to this international high school in New Mexico. It was free for everyone who got in and then it had college scholarships. I decided to apply. When I got in, it was such a good opportunity that I felt like I couldn’t pass it up. That sort of started me on this journey to seeing the larger world and experiencing the larger world outside of the mountains.

Douglas: You talked about, both at the high school and then at Yale, feeling uncomfortable with your own roots, your Appalachian roots. You were trying to put them aside and trying to fit in for a while. What was that period like for you?

Chambers: I think I was always aware of the negative idea of a hillbilly, all those stereotypes. As a teenager, I think all of us want nothing more than to be accepted. I thought that coming from the mountains, being a part of a family that I think the outside world probably still thinks of as hillbillies in a lot of ways, was something that was going to stop me from being able to fit into these new worlds that I was trying to explore. I thought people would judge me and that they would look down on me.

I spent a lot of my late teenage years and early adulthood trying to figure out how to be who I thought belonged in these privileged environments. I didn’t think I could both be myself, the poor kid from eastern Kentucky, and fit into these very privileged environments that I was working really, really hard to be a part of.

Douglas: Once you were finished with Harvard Law, you decided to return to eastern Kentucky.

Chambers: I’d been working on problems in Boston, on poverty law issues. There are good organizations doing really good work in Boston and New York and DC. There are good organizations doing that kind of work in Kentucky, there just aren’t as many people trying to do it to address rural poverty. It’s harder. People are more diffuse. There are all kinds of unique logistical challenges. I decided if I wanted to work on these issues, I felt tied to Kentucky, I’ve always felt tied to Kentucky, and I decided it was time to go home and make a difference in communities like the one I grew up in.

Douglas: To come back to the book for a second, it’s a memoir, it’s you talking about your experiences and the lives of your family. What lessons did you learn about yourself when you actually had to sit down and put it all together?

Chambers: I think there’s this idea out there of this “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” narrative. A lot of people, if they were telling a story like mine, would start with being born into poverty in a trailer, and then working hard and going to the Ivy League. That would be the story and that would be the arc of it.

I knew this intuitively, but writing the book really drove home how it took three generations for me to even have the opportunity to even think about applying to those types of educational institutions. Now that I see that, I see that change takes generations and it takes a village. I’ve really been talking about “Hill Women” as this anti-bootstraps narrative because I hope what it does is change the way that we talk about those types of stories, those sorts of rags-to-riches or poverty-to-elite institution-type stories.

Hill Women is published by Ballantine Books. This interview is part of an occasional series with authors from the region.

‘Stranger, You Still Don’t Know’: Historian Explores Meaning Of Appalachia

Stan Bumgardner is a historian and the editor of Goldenseal Magazine, a folklife publication about West Virginia. He recently wrote an essay titled “What is Appalachia?” for the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

The essay begins: “Appalachia evokes an immediate reaction from most people. For some, it’s a backward image of the Hatfield McCoy feud, or perhaps the 60s TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies. Although growing up as a big fan of the show, I still see it more as a family of kind and authentic people in a very fake gratuitous world.”

Eric Douglas spoke with Bumgardner about his essay.

Douglas: What was the message that you were trying to get across?

Bumgardner: I just kind of started with that concept of ‘what is Appalachia?’ As I said in the column, Appalachia is very diverse. There are pockets where it’s not as diverse as other places. But if you start looking out over the whole of Appalachia, and even sections within Appalachia, it’s very diverse in so many different ways.

Douglas: How can we take advantage of that diversity?

Bumgardner: I think we can leverage that diversity by celebrating so many pieces of our culture, because Appalachian culture is a mix. There are many Appalachian cultures and subcultures and subcultures of that. And I think rather than say, ‘Okay, we’ve got one Appalachian culture and you’ve got to fit into this category or this category to be considered Appalachian,’ let’s celebrate the fact that as a region, we’re one of the most diverse in the country, and we’re very unique. If nothing else, we are a unique group of people. Rather than say, this is what a mountaineer is or this is what an Appalachian is, celebrate what we are.

Douglas: Do we start giving that message to the world outside of Appalachia? Or do we have to educate ourselves? First we have to get Appalachians to believe that about themselves and realize what’s around them or do we start that message from outside?

Bumgardner: You know, it’s a two fold process and it can happen at the same time. Yes, we do need to have a better understanding of our cultural differences within Appalachia. Always keep in mind that thing that brings us together. The moment we start seeing that in ourselves, I think the world is going to see us as trendy, which we are. I mean, how much are ramps selling for in New York right now?

Douglas: Which is frightening, because I know I could buy them on the side of the road right up here.

Bumgardner: Exactly. It’s like things that we’ve known for hundreds of years, the world is certainly just now figuring out. We need to take more pride in those good parts that we do. In the end, there’s a bond, there’s a familyhood here. It’s kind of like Texas. That’s the closest thing I can think of to Appalachians and West Virginians. If you’re from Texas, and if you moved to Texas, you’re still a Texan. It’s all based on this very fascinating history, but more importantly, a pride in that history. Even when there’s bad parts of it, they’re really proud of their history and they get their identity from their history. And as Appalachians we’ve forgotten that.

Douglas: Stand up and be proud of who we are.

Bumgardner: It means something when they say ‘I’m from Texas,’ it means something to say ‘I’m from West Virginia.’ It means as much as that or more.

Bumgardner’s essay ends this way:

“Appalachians always seem to have an eye toward a better future, if not for ourselves, then for our children — cynical optimists, if you will. Despite our struggles, there’s always a belief that tomorrow might be better if we’d just be allowed to have a say in what tomorrow brings. Far from helplessness, it’s hopefulness and authenticity — often for good, sometimes not so much — that best describe us. But please don’t define us.

In the words of West Virginia poet Muriel Miller Dressler, “I am Appalachia; and, stranger, though you’ve studied me, you still don’t know.”

Listen to Bumgardner read the entire essay.

wvpublicnews · What is Appalachia, by Stan Bumgardner

Novel Looks At Appalachia Through Eyes Of Sisters

Author Bonnie Proudfoot began working on her new novel “Goshen Road” nearly 25 years ago, but she said she had to get older before she had the confidence to finish it. The story follows two sisters growing up in northern West Virginia, beginning as teens in 1967.

She described the book as women-centered Appalachian fiction, although she was quick to point out that not every chapter was told from a woman’s point of view.

She explained the book is told in “linked narratives” meaning that each individual chapter could almost stand alone as a short story, but the same characters are in each chapter.

“Really at the heart of it is the story of two women who come to terms with who they really are. And they can look the world squarely in the eyes on their own terms. But they needed to go through a lot,” Proudfoot said.

She added that what she wanted to convey to the reader was how much family means, how much the land itself means and how much the two rely on each other, both in good and bad times.

While she tries to leave it vague, the book is set in a fictional town and county, in north central West Virginia. She said a lot of people ask her if it is set in Fairmont, and she replies, “No, it is smaller.”

Another familiar reference for readers, and people who drive Interstate 79, is in the name of the book — Goshen Road. It is an exit between Clarksburg and Morgantown, West Virginia.

Proudfoot said when she started writing the book, the title ‘Goshen Road’ was a given, both for its local reference and to the Land of Goshen from the Old Testament.

She said her characters were “so tied to place and the place itself figures largely in the book.” Adding that it is “kind of a spiritual force.”

The promotional materials for the book describe it as “elegiac” meaning pertaining to an “elegy.” The book itself covers the lives of the characters from 1967 to 1992.

“This harks back to the past when there was still a vestige of cultural inheritance. People did canning. They went hunting, they knew how to make some form of living off of the land and not everything was material,” Proudfoot said. “They traded for things. It’s an elegy a little bit in that regard. Things have gotten harder, economically speaking, since that novel.”

“Goshen Road” is Proudfoot’s debut novel and it is available through the Ohio University Press. She is a fiction writer, a poet and a glass artist.

This interview is part of an occasional series of Appalachian Author Interviews with authors from, or writing about, the region.

Use Online Time With Family To Record Family Stories

Many families have turned to video conferencing apps like Zoom and Skype to stay connected during the coronavirus pandemic. Those online conversations can also serve a larger purpose — to capture family oral histories.

Oral histories are, at their simplest, recordings of memories. They have been around since the earliest days of reel-to-reel tape recorders. Documentarians or researchers would head out into the field to record the memories of people who survived grand events in human history. In the process, they also recorded local music and tall tales.

While the technology used to capture oral histories has changed over the years, the need to record family memories has never been greater. As older generations pass away, the stories of how things happened and how we came to be who we are passes away, too.

Stan Bumgardner, the editor of Goldenseal Magazine, said oral histories capture the emotions attached to a memory.

“If it was an important event in your life, you certainly remember how it made you feel,” he said. “ You remember how it affected the people around you. And that’s from good to awful, to funny, to tragic.”

Getting Started

During this socially distant time, many families are using online software to stay in touch. Most have the option to record the conversation built directly into the application.

To get started, make sure you tell everyone on the call that you are recording it and then just talk, said Francene Kirk, interim director of the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center in Fairmont.

Kirk said to begin, ask a few leading questions and listen to the answers. You can’t want “yes” or “no” answers. Here are few examples.

Tell me about your family/tell me about your people.
What was it like where you grew up?
What do you remember about your parents? Going to school?

She said if you want to know more about a story, or need clarification on what they’re telling you, try repeating the last couple of words.
“So when my grandmother said, ‘I sat there and all those wet underwear,’ I said, ‘wet underwear?’ and you just make it sound like a question,” Kirk said. “And then she launched on what she wore to school.”

But aside from having those memories and voices recorded, Kirk thinks there’s another benefit of collecting oral histories.

“I think it’s about figuring out who you are, and why you are who you are,” she said.

For Bumgardner, oral histories are great for capturing sensory experiences.

“People can remember their grandmother baking an apple pie. And they don’t have the recipe for it. And they have no clue how to make it themselves, but they know exactly 50 years later, what it smelled like when it was baking, and how it tasted and how it made them feel when they ate it,” he said.

When recording an oral history, the best thing you can do as a listener is to be quiet, Bumgardner says.

“Especially with elderly people, sometimes they’ll have to fumble around for a memory for a few minutes, and you just want to jump in and help them and all you’re doing is kind of shutting them up,” he said.

Even experts like Bumgardner make the mistake of talking during an interview. He said when he listens to oral histories he recorded early in his career he wants to yell at himself to be quiet. But having an imperfect one is still better than not having any recording at all.

Once those stories are recorded, you’ll have them forever. The sound of your loved one’s voice is just a click away.

Resources

If you are looking for more help recording oral histories, these are helpful resources.

Pandemic Emails Provide Surprising Inspiration For W.Va. Poet

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Jessica Salfia began receiving emails from companies she had interacted with over the years. Most said the similar things, like how they “cared about their customers” and were “looking after their employees.”

Instead of just deleting those emails, Salfia, who is a creative writing teacher from Martinsburg, W.Va., saw the makings of a poem.

Salfia said she encourages her students to keep a “writer’s notebook,” an informal writing journal to record things for writing about later.

So a few weeks ago as Salfia was reading the marketing emails, instead of deleting them she pulled out her writer’s notebook.

“The language was very intense. Everyone was trying really hard to sound sincere. And I kept seeing these same phrases pop up over and over again,” she said.

Some of the phrases included “In these uncertain times,” “As you know, many people are struggling” and “We hope this finds you and your family safe.”

“It all started to sound very lyrical to me,” she said.

As the pandemic moved on, she also noted a change in the language. She said it moved from true sincerity to marketing veiled as sincerity — she recorded those phrases, too.

Finally, Salfia used the first lines from many of those marketing emails to write a poem and it went viral on Twitter. As of May 1, it had more than 46,000 shares and 169,000 likes.

Salfia said she thinks the reason her poem has resonated with people is that those emails are something that many of us have received. She added that she has gotten emails and comments from people who think the poem is hilarious and others have thought it was moving, sad and poignant.

“I teach a unit on ‘Art as Argument’ to my Advanced Placement Language and Composition students. We focus mostly on visual art and we talk a lot about how art is subjective. And that audience really plays a role in how art is interpreted and that’s the goal of good art,” she said.

“People can bring to it the thing that they need to bring to it. Or take away from it the thing that they need to take away from it and so the reactions to it have been really diverse.”

The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining

By Jessica Salfia

In these uncertain times as we navigate the new normal, Are you willing to share your ideas and solutions? As you know, many people are struggling.

I know you're up against it: the digital landscape. We share your concerns. As you know, many people are struggling.

We hope this note finds you and your family safe. We've never seen anything like this before. Here are 25 Distance Learning Tips! As you know, many people are struggling.

Feeling Fiesta today? Happy Taco Tuesday! Calories don't count during a pandemic. Grocers report flour shortages as more people are baking than ever! As you know, many people are struggling.

Count your blessings. Share your blessings. Get free curb-side pickup or shipped to your house! Chicken! Lemon! Artichokes! As you know, many people are struggling.

How are you inspiring greatness today? We have a cure for your cabin fever. Pandemic dial-in town hall TONIGHT! As you know, many people are struggling.

Mother's Day looks a little different this year. You're invited to shop all jeans for 50% off. Yes, buy 1, get 1free! As you know many people are struggling.

Call us to discuss a loan extension without penalty. ACT NOW: Tell Congress Charters should Not Line their Pockets During the COVID crisis. Now shipping face masks as recommended by the CDC. As you know many people are struggling.

This is not normal.

Rainbow Girl Murders Book Stirs Modern Controversy

On June 25, 1980, Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero were killed in Pocahontas County. They were on the way to the Rainbow Family Gathering, an annual meeting of hippies and other like-minded people that celebrate peace, harmony and freedom held at different national forests across the country.

The murders captivated the region for decades. Local resident Jacob Beard was convicted of the murder in 1993, but he was later acquitted of all charges in a second trial in 2000. Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist and serial killer, confessed to the murders. Franklin was put to death in 2013 for a different murder. He was never tried for the murders of the Rainbow Girls.

On its face, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s new book “The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia,” is a true crime read about the 1980 murders of these two women.

But the story is also about its author. Eisenberg learned of the murders when she was working in the county as a VISTA volunteer around 2009, and in the story she recounts her own experiences living in the area and how it changed her.

“In many ways, the investigation of these crimes was the larger trauma to the community than the deaths themselves. That there was a lot of harm done to Pocahontas County because these women happened to die in this place, and I hope that people feel in some way relieved of some guilt,” she said. “I think it’s important for folks to know that I have a genuine love for that place.”

The book received good reviews from literary critics across the country, but some people in Pocahontas County have not responded well to it.

That’s why we asked one of West Virginia’s literary experts to give his take on the book.

Doug Van Gundy, a writer, associate professor of English, and the director of West Virginia Wesleyan College’s Master of Fine Arts program, in Buckhannon, West Virginia, has a personal tie to Pocahontas County himself. Van Gundy lived there when the case of the Rainbow Girls murder went to trial in the 1990s. He worked as a program director at a local community radio station at the time. In his review for “Inside Appalachia,” Van Gundy expressed mixed feelings about the book and found it was more of a memoir about Eisenberg than the true crime story the title suggests.

“Despite the subject and the setting, this is not, at its heart, a book about West Virginia, or Pocahontas County, or the difference between truth and perception, or even the murders of Vicki Durian and Nancy Santomero. It is about Emma Copley Eisenberg, and her occasionally painful, often self-destructive quest to understand herself,” Van Gundy said.

In Her Words

In an interview with associate producer Eric Douglas, Eisenberg said when she first started writing the book, she didn’t include her personal experiences in it, but she eventually changed her mind.

“I felt it was important to acknowledge where I was from and what my position in encountering the community in Pocahontas County was,” she said. “I hope the book will speak to readers both inside the county and elsewhere. But I want to make sure that readers elsewhere also understand that Pocahontas County is a contemporary place that’s living and breathing. That is not something of the past.”

Writing a book about an event that was so emotional for the local community was difficult for Eisenberg, and she felt she needed to share her own experiences to make the story complete. She said this was the most truthful book she could write.

On the other hand, she never intended her book to be a “definitive history of the crimes.” She said she knows there are other research projects going on and she welcomes them, even if they end up conflicting with her book.

Eisenberg did a lot of research into the convoluted investigation, including

interviewing Jacob Beard. Eisenberg traveled to Florida, long after he was released from jail. She recounts it was a tough conversation.

As to the negative reactions from some people in the community? She said she hopes their anger spurs conversations about the issues she raised in the book.

“I didn’t want to write a true crime book that is a page turner about who killed the Rainbow Girls,” she said. “That isn’t my intent and never was. What I wanted to write was a book that explored what these crimes mean.”