Memoir Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Memoir Celebrates 'Gilligan's' W.Va. Life, Family

Dreama Denver grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia before she moved to Florida in the early 1970s and went to work for Disney as one of the first cast members. That’s also where she met her husband, Bob Denver, an actor better known as “Gilligan.” When their son was diagnosed with autism, they eventually moved to West Virginia to provide him with full time care.

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Dreama and Bob Denver

Eric Douglas spoke to Dreama Denver about her memoir “Gilligan’s Dreams: The Other Side of the Island.” Denver still lives in Princeton and currently runs The Denver Foundation to support families of children with autism. The foundation also provides “honor flights” for West Virginia veterans to go to Washington, D.C and visit the memorials for free.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Let’s talk about Gilligan. What was your life like with Bob Denver?

Denver: I love talking about Gilligan. You know the reason I wrote the book was because people know him and love him as Gilligan or maybe Maynard, if you’re old enough to remember Dobie Gillis. And Bob was so obviously so much more than that. He was such a wonderful father to our autistic son, he loved me like a woman dreams of being loved. And we had a wonderful marriage of 30 years, and that counts, in spite of the stress that we were under with our son. I wrote the book to let people know, yes about Gilligan and the Hollywood years and all that, but about the man he was when it came to commitment and selflessness.

Douglas: You’re from West Virginia, right. That’s why you ended up back here?

Dreama Denver

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Denver: Yes, I am from Bluefield. I grew up there, graduated high school there. And then my family moved to Florida, where, right after I graduated and we moved to Orlando, I became one of the first 40 cast members at Walt Disney World back before the park opened when they hired college kids. It was great, great, great fun and a real honor in those days. I’m sure it still is, but it was a huge honor to be chosen because there were only 40 of us.

Douglas: Let’s talk about the memoir and your son. When did you first realize your son had developmental issues? And what was that moment like for you?

Denver: We started realizing that something was wrong when he wasn’t reaching the milestones. Like he didn’t roll over at four months, whatever the months are for that. Then we kind of suspected something was wrong and started looking for help.

The doctor was nice, but he said, I don’t even remember his name now, but he said “This will hold you back your whole life, you need to basically put him away, put him someplace where your life isn’t ruined.” It was devastating. I mean, that’s your baby, you know. And then we found a program in Philadelphia, at a place called the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, which I write about in my book. We went there for about four or five years and did a program with Collin through them.

At the beginning, it’s grief. I don’t know if people understand this, but it’s almost the kind of grief I feel like you would have losing a child. Because you have lost the child that you thought you were going to have. All these dreams about the first day of school, and the first girlfriend and the one that he’ll bring home that you don’t like, and then the one that you do like, and hope he marries, graduation, all these things are out the window. It took some time to get through that and you finally accept what you can’t change.

Bob was almost 16 years older than I was, and much wiser. I was 33 when we had Collin. I was going through the grief and all of that after we found out, and Bob sat me down one day and he said, “Honey, look, you’re grieving for your expectations. You’re grieving for the things that you’re not going to be able to experience with this child.” He said the truth is, Collin doesn’t know the difference. He is severely autistic. So Collin doesn’t know about marriage, and he doesn’t know about going to school and graduating high school and he doesn’t know about those things. So if we make his life as agreeable to him as possible, if we don’t put him in situations because he is severely autistic, where he’s made fun of or ridiculed, or those things don’t happen to him, then we’ll take care of them and his life will be fine.

That just really sort of straightened me out. Because I thought, the things I’m grieving over are my things. A few years after Bob passed away, I re-grieved everything as if it just happened. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I didn’t have my husband, I didn’t have a son who could go “Mom, we’ll get through this.” That took some time. But again, it was healing. Because at the end of all that, I came out of it again, being able to define joy, and my life and purpose.

Douglas: Is that where the idea for the memoir came from?

Denver: Bob had always told me long before he was sick, and long before he passed away, “If you want to write our story, feel free to do it. But if you do it, be straight about it. Don’t pull any punches, don’t sugarcoat it, tell it exactly like it was.” He thought our story would be helpful to people going through the same thing. People tell me that the book is raw. It’s just showing how you don’t know what life is gonna throw at you. You can be riding on top of the world, and then have a baby or do something that you think is going to be a happy addition to what you already have and it changes things completely.

Bob taught me so much he taught me to carry on. I’m just so grateful to have had 30 years with him. And now I’m grateful for my son who has taught me so much that I would never have learned.

New W.Va. Memoir Looks At Father-Son Relationship

A new book navigates the complex path between a son and his father. It tells the story of Frank Perry who spent a 20 year career in the army before retiring to St. Albans, West Virginia. His son, Mathew, always thought of him as the Master Sergeant.

In the new memoir, titled “You Are So Far Behind, You Think You Are In Front” Matthew Perry tells the story of getting to know his father in the last 14 years of his life.

Perry spoke with Eric Douglas by Zoom to discuss the book.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: The book is essentially a memoir of you and your father’s relationship. Tell me a little bit about the master sergeant.

Perry: Dad grew up in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and when he was old enough, directly after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Army. Immediately after combat engineering school, he shipped off to the Pacific Theater. He was selected for engineering school because in his teenage years, he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and had traveled around and built a few state parks in that area of Kentucky.

He went through World War II in the Pacific Theater. He stayed in the military after the war, and fought in the Korean War. He and my mother got married after a long letter writing campaign. And then they moved to St. Albans, West Virginia. When mom died in 2006, dad moved in with us. He was a big part of our lives for the last 14 years, until he passed last year.

Douglas: Effectively, you really got to know your father, in his last 14 years, much better than you knew him before.

Perry: That’s very true. It was difficult at times, because dad was always in charge of everything that he was involved in. And, at times, it was challenging, and he was uncompromising in his beliefs, and not only his beliefs, just his way of doing things.

Douglas: Is there a favorite story in there if you read for somebody. I’d like for you to read a story about your dad.

Perry: This chapter is about a science fair project when I was in seventh or eighth grade at Cross Lanes Christian School. My dad, uncharacteristically, got involved in the science fair project and his idea was that we should build a moonshine still. The chapter closes with this section, which really kind of epitomizes mine and my father’s relationship.

“As an adult drank a little, but I’m really more of a social drinker. One information security conference that I attended, I was introduced to apple pie moonshine. It was one of those dangerously smooth drinks that hit you before you know it. After getting a taste for it, I decided to make a batch. But being some 40 years since my science fair project, I did not have a still anymore, so I made it the city folk way using Everclear grain alcohol instead of actual moonshine. As I was finishing up, Dad came into my kitchen. He was sitting in his rollator walker pushing himself along backwards.

“What are you making, Jack?”

“Apple pie moonshine.”

“You ain’t got no still.”

“I know. I cheated and made it with grain.”

“Apple pie, huh?”

“Yeah, Dad, do you want a shot?”

“Sure.”

So, I poured us both about a triple shot in a couple of glasses. I cautioned him to go slow.

“This is pretty strong.”

Dad took a sip and then looked at me. And then put down the rest in one gulp.

“You need some tar for your socks, boy.”

“How’s that dad?”

“Tar on your socks to keep the ants off your candy ass.”

Douglas: A lot of people our age are going through similar situations where they’re now caretakers for aging parents. That actually struck me a lot. You tell a pretty unvarnished story at the end of the book of his last months, weeks and days; caring for him when he was unable to care for himself, even the very basics. I imagine that was a difficult period for you. And I’m sure it was difficult to write about, too.

Perry: It was hard to go through and it was hard to write about.

Douglas: So why did you choose to write about it?

Perry: Of course, my opinion is very biased, but he was just a remarkable person. How I would describe him in very short, simple terms is dad was an American. And I think that people in the newer generations need some more understanding of what the greatest generation did, what the country meant to them and what they sacrificed to keep the country going. I thought it was just an important story to tell.

The book’s title “You Are So Far Behind, You Think You Are In Front” comes from one of his Mathew Perry’s father’s sayings. This story is part of a series of interviews with authors from, or writing about, Appalachia.

You can find out more about the book on the author’s website.

WVU Professor Shares Personal Story, Tackles Reproductive Rights in New Memoir

When author Christa Parravani, a professor at West Virginia University, found herself pregnant for the third time, she worried she was unable to provide for her family so she sought to end her pregnancy. Ultimately, she was unable to find the services she needed and had the baby.

Parravani recently wrote a book about her own experiences as she came to grips with the decision and struggled to get help. She also looked into the healthcare system when it comes to infants and children, along with mothers in states with restrictive reproductive rights.

Parravani spoke with Eric Douglas about the book.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: The topic of the book is a difficult one to even discuss. Why did you decide to write it?

Parravani: It was not an easy decision. It was not what I imagined doing with my writing life. To be honest, I’d been working on another book when the events that take place in this book happened to me. It was a year of my life that changed me, and had me asking really fundamental questions about what it means to be a good mother and parent in the United States.

I was living in Morgantown, teaching at WVU in the English department as a creative writing instructor, which I still do. I had moved from Los Angeles to Morgantown to take the position and I had a second child while in Morgantown, and then, after less than a year, I found out I was pregnant with a third child.

It was really hard already to make ends meet. At that point, we did not have enough money to afford a third child. It was an awful, awful time in our lives. So I looked into my reproductive choice options in West Virginia and discovered that they were incredibly limited. That moment in my life led to a year of uncertainty and feeling a lack of agency and really a total lack of confidence, because I thought, I am not allowed to choose for myself.

Douglas: When you hear people discuss abortion, and reproductive rights, it’s often painted as promiscuous 20 year olds who are irresponsible. You’re 40 years old. You’re a college professor, you’re an educated woman, you’re a parent.

Parravani: I am all of those things.

Douglas: And you were still faced with this struggle. You had to make a difficult choice. To me, it turns the whole discussion of reproductive rights on its head.

Parravani: Which is why I wrote the book. The thing that I discovered, after I had my son Keith, was that the majority of women who seek to terminate a pregnancy are already mothers. I mean, there is a large misunderstanding about that. People think that women are using abortion as birth control, which is just not true at all. There are very few women, they would be in the probably a fractal of a percentage of women, who are using reproductive health care callously and not understanding that this is an incredibly hard decision. Nobody wants to have to make this decision.

I realized that as a woman who was a professor, as a woman who had a salary, as a woman who was already a mother, that I was in a minority of people in some ways, and especially in West Virginia, who would have experienced this and have been able to tell this story. And I felt a large obligation to do that for the women of this country. And for the women of West Virginia.

Douglas: You teach creative nonfiction, right?

Parravani: I do.

Douglas: Is this the ultimate example of well, I teach my students this, I have to do it for myself.

Parravani: That is an excellent question that no one has ever asked me. But the answer to that is yes, I felt a huge responsibility to my students. I’ve been teaching at WVU since 2015 and I have been teaching my students to reach for things that felt uncomfortable, to write about difficult topics, to embrace the moment that we’re in. I wanted to show them that I was willing to risk myself in that way, because I believe in the power of writing, and I wanted to give that example to my students. I think they have appreciated it.

Douglas: Let’s talk about the reactions to the book, both from your students and from the general public.

Parravani: The reaction to the book has been generally really positive. I’ve heard from a lot of mothers who have made the choice to terminate a pregnancy or did not have the option to terminate a pregnancy after having been in abusive marriages or not being in an economic position to be able to raise a child. I’ve had a great deal of thanks for that because they had felt silenced.

Parravani teaches creative writing at West Virginia University. “Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood” is available through MacMillan Publishers.

This story is part of a series of interviews with authors from, or writing about, Appalachia.

‘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.

Memoir Looks at Appalachia Through a Photojournalist's Eyes

Nancy Abrams is the author of a new memoir The climb from Salt Lick published by WVU press. The book is about her experience as a young photojournalist from the Midwest moving to Preston County to live and work. Abrams documents how she came to love West Virginia and the people who live here. Kara Lofton spoke with Abrams about the new book and what it means to write honestly about one’s own life.

LOFTON: You begin the book in the early 1970s when you came to West Virginia as an intern at a small-town newspaper in Preston County, at which point you fell in love with West Virginia and ended up returning after you graduated from college. What was the draw for you?

ABRAMS: Well, I saw the opportunity to do work that was meaningful and still have time to have a family – to combine work and a private life was really always my ultimate goal.

LOFTON: Throughout your book you infer and talk directly about being a feminist, and that a work-life balance was really important to you, and how you didn’t want to work for a big newspaper in Miami. How did working for a small-town newspaper afford you that potential? Do you feel like you achieved that goal?

ABRAMS: Well yes, I do think I achieved that goal. But what’s important is, I’m a control freak. And when you’re put in a box as a photographer or a writer or an editor or the designer – especially in print – the package is really important. So to me, to come to Preston County and be able to take the pictures and write the story and lay out the finished product – to see it – was really important to me.

In most big newspapers you have to fit into a small compartment. At a weekly newspaper, you have to do every job and at the Preston County News it included inserting Murphy Mart flyers and folding them up and stamping addresses on them, then dragging the newspapers to the post office. That’s not so glamorous. And that first summer, you know, I even pasted up ads. But that combination of skills to make that whole package – the words and pictures and the design – was really important to me and the Preston County News gave me the opportunity to do that.

LOFTON: Part of working for a small town newspaper is being deeply embedded in the community. Was it difficult for you to break into the community? Did being an outsider who was committed to the community made your work more difficult or easier?

ABRAMS: I think there’s a process of becoming part of the community. For newcomers to West Virginia, I usually tell them that it will take two years for you to find your circle, to find your tribe. And you have to prove over and over again that you’re here for the long haul – you’re not here to take the riches and run, which is the history of this state.

I volunteered at the local high school teaching journalism. I took kayaking classes, and activities with people in the community. I do think my softball team had a whole lot to do with welcoming [me] to the community because when you’re a part of a team, you put on a uniform. But it wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t been honest, if I hadn’t had good intentions.

Be nice, be kind, be generous, be honest. And those are those are instructions for anywhere you’re going to live.

LOFTON: Throughout the book you are rather honest and open about a number of things including various sexual exploits and use of pot. As a young woman, why did you decide to include those elements in your book.

ABRAMS: I’m crazy. It’s part of my commitment to honesty. One of my fears with this book was that people would read it and not be my friend anymore. You know, I have different circles of friends and I thought some of them would be shocked.

But it didn’t make sense without that. It is putting myself out there and it’s embarrassing and I’ve had a couple of instances where people have stood up in a room when I walked in and said ‘I can’t believe you wrote about your husband’s penis!’ And I’m blushing right now to even talk about that. But a good friend of mine said ‘Don’t leave out the naughty bits.’ And I think that’s good advice. Again, Honesty. Honesty. Honesty. Honesty. It’s really important, especially in this these times.