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Foxfire Book Showcases Appalachia Through Its Women

A recent Foxfire collection spotlights the lives of 21 Appalachian women, who capture the depth and breadth of life in the mountains. It collects oral histories from throughout Foxfire’s long history, beginning with early interview subjects in the ‘60s and ‘70s and continuing through today.

This story originally aired in the Jan. 7, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

A recent Foxfire collection spotlights the lives of 21 Appalachian women, who capture the depth and breadth of life in the mountains.

The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women: Stories of Landscape and Community in the Mountain South was published in 2023.

It collects oral histories from throughout Foxfire’s long history, beginning with early interview subjects in the ‘60s and ‘70s and continuing through today.

Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Kami Ahrens, the book’s editor.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Adams: One of the things I love about this book is its attention to negative space. In the curation around these oral histories, there’s a lot of attention paid to who’s here and who’s not here. And then even within interviews, you’re paying attention, not only to what’s said, but to what’s unsaid. And to me, as a reader, I find that really powerful. Why is that such an important part of curating oral histories like this?

Ahrens: That was an important thing that I was considering when writing the book, because oral history is inherently biased. I had someone recently ask me, “how do you go do an oral history and leave your bias at home?” And, you don’t, because we always come with our own experiences. And naturally, conversations are going to be influenced by what you’re asking, but also by what you’re not asking, and by what people want to share and what people don’t want to share. And even though these women in this book, and in the Foxfire archives, do often make themselves very vulnerable, there are experiences that they don’t share.

And it’s also important to remember when dealing with the material from Foxfire, that the interviews were conducted by students who didn’t have a research agenda. So these are high school students who are going out to write magazine articles. And when you’re going to an interview with that in mind, you’re going with a very different set of questions than if someone who is a seasoned academic was going out to collect specific stories.

So it was important to me to make sure that the reader understood the context with which these interviews were collected, and how they have been curated, interpreted over time. And also the demographics of the region have changed drastically. And, you know, I can’t attest to the fact that we’ve all kept up with those changing demographics. But it’s important to note that this book should serve as a beginning, as a foundation, for starting conversations of your own. So it’s not meant to be the only book of Appalachian women, but an inspiration for people to begin conversations in their own communities and to further, deeper explore what Appalachia is.

Adams: Although you mentioned the book’s just a beginning, it does offer just an explosion of narrative and stories. I mean, I connect with these women as human beings who are, you know, galaxies of stories among themselves. And then, with their stories positioned next to one another, this sort of larger narrative emerges about change over time. Is that something you thought about as well — sort of the bigger story you’re telling with these particular women’s stories?

Ahrens: Yeah, absolutely. So this project came about just from my initial research of Foxfire. When I first came to work at the museum, my supervisor told me to just read everything that I could. And as I was reading, you know if you’re familiar with Foxfire books, there are personal stories kind of sprinkled throughout these other articles — on how to make log cabins, how to cook over an open fire. And each time I encountered these women’s stories, I was just, like, stopped in my tracks because of how much they shared.

And as you mentioned, all of the themes that they pull out about changing Appalachia are experiences in Appalachia. And I just saw the need for them to be together to tell a larger story. And so when I was trying to put this book together, I spoke briefly with a researcher looking for some advice on how to organize it, and she said to let the women speak to each other. And as I started arranging these narratives next to each other, I could see that there were these conversations happening between the women’s stories. And they were really fitting in as puzzle pieces to tell this, again, larger story of change over time and Appalachia.

Adams: I’d like to talk about a few of the women who were featured in the Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women. And maybe we should start with the first one: Margaret Burrell Norton. I grew up around Foxfire books, so I can’t speak to whether I’ve run across Margaret Norton before many times, or if she’s just so reminiscent of mountain women that I’ve known. But she feels very familiar to me. Can you tell us more about her?

Ahrens: Absolutely. And I’m sure you’ve read an article by her. She was in so many articles, both in the Foxfire magazine and Foxfire books, most notably, the planting by the signs article. Margaret contributed a lot to that article, and it was in the first Foxfire book. Margaret is probably really typical of what people think of a mountain woman. She was born and raised on Betty’s Creek, and she talks about how she basically just moved up the road when she got married, so she never really lived anywhere else her entire life. She, like a lot of people in Appalachia, traces her ancestry back through the land for hundreds of years. She was a practitioner of a lot of folk traditions and folk knowledge. And she tried to share that with the Foxfire students.

She talks about planning by the signs, which is a practice of using the signs of the zodiac to tell you when to do things, whether it’s planting or cutting your hair. She also shared information about folk songs, especially when it came to butter churning, and she was a weaver and a quilter. So she kind of sets the stage for what we think of as the Appalachian woman. Then, we kind of take the narrative from there by branching out and looking at diverse stories that are coexisting with people like Margaret in Appalachia.

Adams: Margaret’s followed by Beulah Perry, who again reminds me of mountain women that I’ve known — but I realize in reading it how much I don’t know. Tell me more about Beulah Perry, and why she follows in that second chapter.

Ahrens: On a practical level, the book is organized by date of interview, but Beulah makes a great follow chapter to Margaret, because her story shares so many of the same themes, the same activities. But Beulah’s Black, so she comes from a different background than Margaret, but yet she still found her way into Rabun County, Georgia.

Beulah was raised the children of sharecroppers in the South Carolina Piedmont. She has these memories that were inherited from her by her grandfather that he shared with her and her siblings when they were children about his experiences during slavery. So she gives us a window into a much different lifestyle. She talks in many ways about racial experiences without necessarily sharing her personal opinions. This is a chapter where examining the negative space is really important, because there are a lot of things that Beulah says, but there are a lot of things that she doesn’t say.

She just offers a really great alternative perspective and a different background to what life in the mountains was like. We really value Beulah for opening up to the Foxfire students in the ‘70s, which would have been quite a different experience than it would be today.

The Foxfire office in Rabun County, Georgia.

*Credit: Lilly Knoepp*

Adams: And as the book continues, it just, you read through all these different women. One of the great delights for me was when I got closer to the end, and there were women who were younger than me, who I don’t always associate with oral histories. So there’s folks like Sandra Macias Glitchowski, who immigrated from Ecuador and is much younger than me. I loved reading her story.

Ahrens: Yeah, for many people Sandra was the unexpected one, but it was really important to me to make sure that there was the immigrant experience included in this book, because Rabun County, and many other areas in Appalachia, are seeing large numbers of Latino immigrants come into the region, specifically because of agricultural opportunities. Many of them are staying and building businesses, so it was important to include a Latino voice.

Sandra emigrated from Ecuador to Miami as a young child, and she basically raised herself. It wasn’t until she was married with children that she moved to Rabun County. She’s become a really important figure in our community, and especially among the Latino community. So she serves as kind of a contact for that community here, because they are in many ways a very closed community, both culturally and linguistically.

What was interesting when I sat down with Sandra was that her story echoes so many experiences and themes that come out. It’s really interesting to see those parallels so many decades apart, and certainly in different regions. There are shared experiences, no matter how diverse we think people are. And Sandra is young, she’s 35, 36? She really has a lot to share, and I think this goes to show that oral histories aren’t just sitting down with older people. While those certainly have value, we all have stories to share that can make a difference to people around us.

Adams: So then there’s Dakota Brown of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Wolf Clan, who I found really compelling — not only because of her youth, but she also is so in touch with the history and sense of self on the landscape. Can you tell us about Dakota Brown?

Ahrens: Dakota is incredible. She’s employed at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, and she’s working really hard to bring back traditional values in our community and to help change the way that people see and speak about indigenous people. I’m really excited for the work that she has been doing with her team over at the museum. Dakota personally has really traditional values when it comes to her heritage as a Cherokee woman, and she’s really proud of that heritage.

What’s interesting about Dakota’s conversation is how much she talks about the way that other people interpret and understand native peoples. I’ll never forget, she told me that it’s nearly impossible to change the way that people think about you when they think that you don’t exist anymore. People have a tendency to, you know, understand that native peoples are gone. And they’re not — they’re very much present in many places throughout our country today. We tend to lump native culture into one group, and we see Native peoples as one. And that’s not true. A lot of the things that she talks about that are part of the tourist industry in Cherokee, North Carolina, come from western tribes, plains tribes. So like powwows, and headdresses, all of that — that doesn’t belong to traditional Cherokee culture.

So, working through those stereotypes to represent to a broader public, what your culture is, but also to help your own people understand that is a massive task. But if anybody is up to it, it’s definitely Dakota.

Adams: Those are just a few of the 21 women featured in this book. But, after we hear from 20 of the others, we end with Kaye Carver Collins. How did you choose Kaye to end the book?

Ahrens: I wasn’t positive that I was going to end with Kaye, but as soon as I started doing her interview, I just knew that it was the right ending point. During her interview, she pulled together a lot of themes that had been running through the book, and kind of brought everything full circle. Kaye also has a really longstanding history with Foxfire. I felt like that, in and of itself, was worthy of ending the book on that note. She as a child remembers her father, Buck Carver, who was a notorious moonshiner, being interviewed by Foxfire students.

Then as a teenager herself, she joined the Foxfire program, her and her twin sister. After she graduated high school, she started working for Foxfire and spent a lot of time working with Foxfire, editing Foxfire books, supporting local students. Then in recent years, she’s served both as a community board member and a board member, and now is on an advisory committee for the museum. And she just kind of pulls it all together. I think the way she ends her interview is a really great way to end the book as well.

Adams: There are 21 women featured in this book. But really, there’s 22, because you as the curator are in each of these pages, whether we see you or not. What was your experience? What wisdom have you taken away from your work with this book?

Ahrens: There’s so much to take away from it. But I think at its core, I took away a sense of resiliency and understanding — a long-term view of what’s most important to us in our lives, and how we can use that to shape our daily experiences with others. There’s so many hardships that people go through, that most people don’t even know about until you take the time to sit down and ask somebody. I think that opening up of yourself as a researcher or as an interviewer to other people’s stories, to other people’s experiences, and leaving your own concerns behind — I think that can shape you if you allow it, and can help you grow if you’re open to it.

I would say that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve taken away, is to sit and to listen, to be open to what other people’s experiences help shape how I understand myself and my place, and how I can react and respond to others better to make them feel important and valued in difficult times.

Card Game Inspires Players To Be Storytellers On This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, the holiday season is full of gatherings, get-togethers and parties. At some point in many of them, someone brings out a box to play a game. West Virginia native Harrison Reishman has one he’d like you to try. It’s called Story Wars – a card game where players battle to come up with the wildest, craziest story.

On this West Virginia Morning, the holiday season is full of gatherings, get-togethers and parties. At some point in many of them, someone brings out a box to play a game. West Virginia native Harrison Reishman has one he’d like you to try. It’s called Story Wars – a card game where players battle to come up with the wildest, craziest story. Bill Lynch has more.

Also, in this show, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is beginning an Appalachian fact-finding mission in West Virginia. Randy Yohe reports.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Caroline MacGregor is our assistant news director and produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Tazewell, Virginia Family Keeps Black Poetry Alive For Today’s Generation

For nearly 100 years, Jeanette Wilson’s family has used poetry to share stories of African American life in southwest Virginia. Now those poems are reaching a wider community – and a new generation.

This story originally aired in the Sept. 10, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Jeanette Wilson thinks she was about five years old when she heard one of her grandfather’s poems for the first time. Her aunt Edna used to recite them to the children. “She would say them and we’d be cuddled in her bed, like story time,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s aunt Edna Dickerson Moore with Wilson’s grandson, the fifth generation who will know the family poetry. Aunt Edna was also known for her poetry and storytelling.

*Courtesy Jeanette Wilson*

Some of her grandfather’s poems were matched with tunes to make it easier for the children to memorize. “He made up a song, ‘Dickerson Boys Are We’ and it would go something like, ‘All those biscuits in that oven/ How I wish I had some of them/ Sop, sop, the goodness I declare/ All them molasses on that plate/ Something something/ Don’t be too late.’ I can’t remember it all, but they used to sing it all the time,” Wilson said.

Rev. George Mills Dickerson, center, surrounded by his sons, many of whom moved away to pursue higher education.

*Courtesy of Jeanette Wilson*

Her grandfather was the Reverend George Mills Dickerson. She called him Papa. He was born in 1871 in Mudfork, a freed slave community near Tazewell, Virginia. He attended Virginia State University, and taught school in the segregated schools for 25 years, at a time when public education for Black students only went to the seventh grade.

Dickerson became an ordained minister in 1898 and preached for more than 50 years. He married more than 1,000 couples at the Tazewell County Courthouse. His ceremony was poetic and often drew courthouse workers to listen in.

Over his lifetime, Dickerson wrote hundreds of poems. He wrote poems about Black children making the long trek to a school in TipTop, about soldiers coming home from World War I with shell-shock, about the development of cities within his region, and one poem about the city of heaven. There were family poems, Tazewell poems, landscape poems and love poems. Themes of his Christian faith were woven throughout.

Rev. George M. Dickerson, standing top left, at a family reunion in 1936 with most of his 16 children and his grandchildren. He formed a neighborhood children’s drama group called the “Rock Alecks” and taught children how to sing shape notes. Many of his poems were about family life.

*Courtesy of Jeanette Wilson*

Black Community Shares Poetry

One poem, the Outcast Stranger, was about a poor man who found shelter in a preacher’s woodshed before he died. It became a favorite in Tazewell’s Black community.

Wilson says she was shopping one day and ran into a man who asked her for a copy of the poem. “And he told me the story of how he memorized it,” she said. “When he got in trouble, his mom would send him upstairs and say, ‘Now you go memorize one of George M.’s poems.’ And he would come down and recite it to her. He said, ‘Please can you get me a copy, because I love that poem,” Wilson said.

One thing that helped the poetry to circulate in the family and community was that her grandfather copyrighted and published more than 100 of his poems as a paperback book. They were printed by the Hilltop Record, a newspaper company in Columbus, Ohio in 1949. Years later, one of Jeanette’s uncles had more printed.

“I’m so thankful they got these books published,” Wilson said, “because they would have been lost. And it’s our history. You can just imagine how they were doing things from reading the poetry.”

Poetry Tracks History

Joseph Bundy is an African American poet, playwright and community historian based in Roanoke. He said many of Dickerson’s poems provide a historical track of Black life in southwest Virginia in the first half of the 20thcentury. They also show Dickerson’s aspirations for his people.

Commenting on the poem “Black Folks Coming,” Bundy said, “I think he was really way ahead of his time. Instead of saying ‘Negros coming’ or ‘colored folks coming,’ he’s saying ‘Black Folks Coming.’ He was not letting someone else name us. He is naming himself. He’s saying our roots come from Black Africa.”

In the fields of old Virginia.
And on Georgia’s sunny plain.
Africa’s able sons and daughters
Sing a hopeful glad refrain.

They have leaders true and faithful
Men and women brave and strong.
Armed with love, instilled with duty,
Working hard and waiting long.

Douglas struggling up from slavery,
Bruce and Scott, if I had space,
I can name a thousand heroes
Champions of this race.

Bundy said he thinks Dickerson’s poems convey a Booker T. Washington-like philosophy, showing the dignity of all labor. “He’s talking about growing corn, working in the coal mine, and he doesn’t seem to place one occupation or one thing above another. He sees dignity in all of it.”

In the pulpit, in the workshop,
On the railroad, on the farm,
In the schoolroom, mine in factory,
There was power, in brain and arm.

Ignorance shall flee before them.
Hate shall hide his ugly head.
Idleness shall be discouraged
Honest toil shall earn its bread.

Dickerson could write on an everyday level, Bundy said, but also on a high level. “This man, he could definitely write,” he said. If Dickerson had, had more than a local audience, Bundy said, “he could have been like a Langston Hughes or somebody. He could have really been known.”

Joseph Bundy reads from Rev. Dickerson’s book of poems, copyrighted 1949. The book is dedicated to his first wife Sarah and second wife Mary, and his 16 children.

*Credit: Connie Kitts/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Tradition Carries On With Son

Rev. George Mills Dickerson died in 1953. But the tradition of writing poetry carried on with his son George Murray Dickerson. This George Dickerson, who is Jeanette Wilson’s uncle, was born in 1917. He was well known throughout the region for his recitation.

His poems were humorous and topical.

We’ve got a President today,
His name is Richard Nixon.
From what I hear and read about,
This country needs some fixin‘.

Uncle George recited his poems in the public schools, at the community college, local museums, libraries and festivals. He recorded them on cassette tape and made a 45 rpm vinyl single that was sold throughout the community as a fundraiser for the Tazewell Rescue Squad.

Four of George Murray Dickerson’s poems were recorded on a 45 rpm vinyl.

*Credit: Connie Kitts/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

I’ve always wanted to ride in a Rescue Ambulance
I think I’m gonna try it if I ever get a chance
But I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you first
Cause some of the folks who ride these things
Wind up in a hearse.

He printed a handful of his poems and sold them as a tri-fold pamphlet. When the town held its summer festival on Main Street, Wilson said, “[Uncle George] would be selling his little booklets, and setting up his little tent and reciting poems.”

Together, the poetry of Wilson’s grandfather and uncle spanned momentous points in African American history. “Papa was right out of slavery,” Wilson said, “and Uncle George’s was right after the Civil Rights Movement.”

George Murray Dickerson was the topic of a research paper for an American Studies class at Southwest Virginia Community College. Holding a student sketch, former college president Charles King dubbed Dickerson “Poet Laureate of Southwest Virginia.”

*Credit: Connie Kitts/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Juneteenth Returns Poems To Broader Community And New Generation

After Uncle George died in 1999, Wilson said the family continued to read his poems – and her grandfather’s, too – at reunions and church events. But the community as a whole began to lose touch with the poetry.

That started to change in 2021. The Town of Tazewell passed a Juneteenth resolution that called for honoring contributions African Americans made to the town and the region. Now, the Dickersons’ poems are read aloud as part of the town’s Juneteenth celebrations.

During the 2023 Juneteenth program, Steve Rainey, left, reads “The Hills of Old Virginia” by his grandfather Rev. Dickerson, and Bettie Wallace, right, read “‘Cause I’m Colored” by George Murray Dickerson.

*Courtesy of Vanessa Rebentisch*

Bettie Wallace read the poem “‘Cause I’m Colored” by Uncle George at Tazewell’s 2023 Juneteenth Celebration.

Everybody picks on me,
‘Cause I’m Colored.
They don’t think I want to be free
‘Cause I’m Colored.

They won’t give me a decent job,
And claim that I just steal and rob;
And they call me “boy” when my name is “Bob”,
‘Cause I’m Colored…

I thought one time I’d try to pass
And then I looked in the looking glass;
My hopes went down the drain real fast,
‘Cause I’m Colored.

Wallace, 72, said this poem, written in 1973, has special meaning for her.

“I can relate to it so much,” Wallace said. “Coming up, so many things we couldn’t do, not just because I’m colored, but because I’m a dark-skinned colored person. Most of my life people would say, ‘Oh you dark skinned, you can’t do this.’ I did not learn that Black was beautiful until Black became beautiful – that the color of my skin was a very important part of me,” she said.

Wallace said she has known Uncle George’s poetry for years. But now his poems are finding a new audience as well. BrookeAnn Creasy, 18, is starting to write poetry herself. She first heard Dickerson’s poems at the Juneteenth celebration, and she said while they are sometimes funny, they’re also eye opening.

“When you hear poems from other times, like segregation – it makes you understand what we don’t understand. Because I’m a white person. I don’t get to experience discrimination like Black people do. And that’s why I think a lot of people show arrogance, because they don’t like to learn about other people’s perspectives. Because that’s important…empathy,” Creasy said.

Wilson, left, and BrookeAnn Creasy, right. Creasy said she thinks Dickerson’s poems should be included in the school curriculum. “If you’re going to learn poems, don’t include just white poetry. Include all the sides of southwest Virginia.” The humor and short format of Uncle George’s poems, she said, is a good fit for kids like her who have grown up with social media.

*Credit: Connie Kitts/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

As for Wilson, she said empathy and equality were recurring themes in her grandfather and uncle’s poems.

“I think they both had the same idea, about life in general for anybody,” said Wilson. “Not just the Black people but everybody – the idea to just have equality for rich, poor, Black, white, you know. Everybody has a part in this world.”

In 2020, Tazewell citizens voted to keep the statue of a Confederate soldier in front of the courthouse. The county then supported a citizens-initiated mural of 16 local African Americans – including the Dickersons – with placards telling their stories as well.

*Credit: Connie Kitts/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

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The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.

Dan Kehde: A Tale of Haunting

Dan Kehde, Charleston author and playwright, offers this excellent tale of a childhood haunting.

Every Halloween season, I out roll classic films such as Night of the Living Dead, The Fog, Halloween III: Season of the Witch and others.

The newest tradition is now the third annual collection of ghostly tales from my fellow West Virginians.

Author, playwright and director of CYAC, Dan Kehde.

Dan Kehde, Charleston author and playwright, submits his third ghostly tale of his childhood haunting. His work is superb.

Note: this is the original submitted story. It is slightly longer than what aired in West Virginia Morning.

Summer Storytelling Workshop Offered At Glenville State University

Glenville State University is offering West Virginia high schoolers an opportunity to explore storytelling traditions this summer.

The weeklong “Come Spin a Tale!” workshop is a partnership between Glenville and the West Virginia Storytelling Guild.

Incoming 9th to 12th grade students, as well as new high school graduates, will be given instruction in drawing from personal narratives, developing improvisational skills, using body language and inflection, and more.

In a press release, workshop co-director Jo Ann Dadisman of the West Virginia Storytelling Guild said the chance to offer a week of youth storytelling is a dream come true and aligns with the guild’s goal to keep storytelling in the mountains a part of our folk culture.

“Storytelling is a significant part of our culture and our oral tradition, but there’s so much more to it,” said Dr. David O’Dell, Glenville State University professor of chemistry and workshop co-director. “The techniques that storytellers use to connect with an audience can be applied to any situation in which a speaker needs to connect with a group.”

The workshop fee is $100, which includes meals and lodging, and will take place from Monday, July 18 to Friday, July 22, on the Glenville State University campus.

Singing The News: Ballads Tell A Tale Of Community

“Hang down your head, Tom Dooly. Hang down your head and cry. Hang down your head, Tom Dooly. Poor boy, you’re bound to die.”

Even during the folk revival, the ballad of Tom Dooly seemed an unlikely pop hit. Yet somehow, this song from shortly after the Civil War struck a chord a century later and reached #1 on the charts in 1958.

In my hometown, the ballad’s story — of a murder, a manhunt and a hanging — wasn’t just a folk song. It was personal.

I’m from Wilkes County, North Carolina, the mountain home of the man whose real name was Tom Dula. It was here that he was arrested for killing his girlfriend Laura Foster, who was rumored to be pregnant. And from the way people talk about it, you might think these events happened yesterday, not 150 years ago.

“The Dula family – if you talk to them, Tom Dula is innocent,” said Karen Reynolds, who wrote a long-running outdoor drama about the tragedy. “If you talk with the Foster family, Laura Foster is almost, you know, sainthood.”

Reynolds’ great-great grandfather owned a store in the Elkmont community where the murder happened. She went to school with Dulas and Fosters.

“When I wrote characters, I knew how those family members felt about things,” Reynolds said. “I was privy as a young girl to listening to the actual family members give their take on the story.”

Today, you can still start a debate about whether Dula’s other, married girlfriend, Anne Melton, was truly the guilty one. Some of Anne Melton’s descendants are embarrassed by her, and will not speak of it.

“Anne Melton’s grandson was really old. His name was Grade Allen,” Reynolds said. And Allen didn’t get along well with his family. “He came to our store, and he had his grandmother Anne Melton’s coffee grinder and eyeglasses. And so he traded those to my father for four or five cases of beer.”

Reynolds still has them.

My own family was caught up in the drama, too. My dad was a guitarist fascinated by old ballads, and I tagged along when he visited the graves of Tom and Laura. I took a school field trip to see the old Wilkes jail where Tom was held before trial. A few years before he died, Dad wrote his own song about Laura Foster for Karen’s play. It sets the scene for her death by Elk Creek, where she was supposed to meet Tom to elope. The song implies that only the whippoorwill knows what really happened to her there.

Dula died denying his guilt. My hometown paper even called on the governor to pardon Tom Dula — 130 years after the murder.

It all made me wonder: How do ballads keep these long-ago events so immediate?

I turned to Bill Ferris, a folklore professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina.

“You may hear it the day after or 10 years after or two centuries after the event, but the ballad is like a time capsule,” he said.

Ferris told me that ballads first came to Appalachia from the British Isles, where for centuries they were printed on long sheets of paper called broadsides.

“Those sheets were hung on a long stick, and if you bought one, the seller pulled off one sheet and gave it to you,” he said. “And those were often composed before hangings or public events, and as soon as the event occurred, the ballad would go out and be sold all over the countryside.”

These songs were a way to share explosive local news.

“When we look at broadside ballads, those really could be compared to social media today in that they were a quick and easy way to spread news, and they were filled with all kinds of gory details,” Ferris said.

They often depicted tragedies, ranging from hangings to train wrecks to weather events, like tornadoes and hurricanes.

Ted Olson, a balladeer and Appalachian Studies professor at East Tennessee State University, says ballads helped communities process these tragedies.

“When disasters happened… people had to psychologically cope with the aftermath: the death, and the destruction, the interruption to people’s everyday lives,” he said. “Ballads provided a way to cope with those circumstances.”

In North Carolina, the verses were rapidly published in newspapers. Then musicians set the words to popular tunes and themes that everybody already knew, like noble outlaws or betrayed love. This made songs easy to remember, so they spread even among those who couldn’t read.

“Otto Wood the Bandit,” another famous ballad about a Wilkes County man, is a great example. Wood was known across the Southeast as a carjacker, thief and moonshiner with a genius for prison escapes. He made 11 successful breaks from five state prisons, but after his final escape, he died in a shootout with police.

Otto Wood ballads showed up in newspapers right away. Then Singers Cranford and Thompson made the first recorded version in 1930, a month after Wood died in a gunfight, using the tune and theme of “The Ballad of Jesse James.”

Trevor McKenzie wrote a book about Otto Wood set for publication this fall. He’s also a Folkways reporter for Inside Appalachia.

“You have this ballad to the tune of Jesse James which people know, and it recounts the life of this larger-than-life character who has just died in this sensational way,” McKenzie said. “These sort of Old West style events happening in the middle of several parked cars on the streets of Salisbury, North Carolina.”

A little later, another Otto Wood ballad with an original melody was recorded by Walter Smith and the Carolina Buddies. It became the most widely known version after Doc Watson’s recording and made it famous.

So, why do ballads like these reverberate so long after their newsworthiness has faded?

For Olson, they offer a bridge to other times.

“The reason why I personally love to sing them is I feel connected to people and places far in the past,” he said. Ballads may have had the immediacy and personal opinion of social media. But they required more thought, length, and poetry.

“I can’t imagine reciting a Twitter statement in 100 years or 200 years,” Olson said. “I think that a Ballad is a communication that has universality in its essence or it wouldn’t survive.”

Today these stories are kept alive in my hometown largely through yearly outdoor dramas, written and performed by locals. (Also, by one of the town’s few tourist attractions: The old jail where Dooly was held before trial and Otto Wood was held for stealing a bicycle at age 15. He didn’t escape.)

Before she wrote the Tom Dooley play, Karen Reynolds invited descendants of the main characters to share family details in a story circle. When locals come to see the play, they can tell.

“They’ll have their 90-year old grandmother that was just dying to see this, that still remembers her family talking about this, and they’ll look at me and say: ‘This is the way I’ve always heard it,’” she said. “And that’s all I need. That satisfies me.”

Wilkes County — long a haven for draft-dodgers, moonshiners and rebels — has embraced these criminals as part of its cultural heritage.

“There’s sort of a community infrastructure around these ballads in celebrating them as community events,” said author Trevor McKenzie, who played in the band for some of the productions of the Otto Wood outdoor drama. “They brought people together who, many of them, had sort of a background and deep Wilkes County roots…. They could connect with these stories in a way that could convey them with a sort of power.”

What I’ve come to realize is that ballads aren’t just a gathering of facts, like news. And they aren’t just entertainment. They are part of the long-term process of creating a shared identity. That’s the root of their staying power in my hometown. By telling and retelling these stories to each other, arguing back and forth, we are also saying: This is where I’m from.

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.