The Contemporary Hills & Beyond: Five Appalachian Sketches

The Contemporary Hills & Beyond Five Appalachian Sketches INTRODUCTION Surely one of the compensating pleasures of editing a magazine is the mail received in connection with it. Some of it is routine, of course, but there is always the anticipation of the gratuity, the unusual, the original letter or manuscript. And they do arrive and as unpredictably as a snowflake and as individual. The five sketches in this section stand witness. In May of this year came one of those in a large brown envelope containing a story and a letter with this explanation from Dorothy Holt of Columbus, Ohio: I am not familiar with Appalachia as it is now, but am a descendent (one generation) of people who came across the Ohio River into Southern Ohio during the depression years and brought their culture with them. My stories are about people who have left the area and are found . . . almost everywhere . . . their ways subdued a little, perhaps; even adulerated, but somehow distinctly intact. I am sending one story, "The Prophet That Never Left Home," hoping (believing) that you will immediately recognize the Appalachian "stump preacher" afield. I am hoping that you will read it, enjoy it, return it to me in the enclosed envelope if you don't want it, and publish it if you do. Both the story and the letter brought up questions—questions about migration, family , homeplace, Appalachia, language, dialect, Samantha Clementine. Here are selections from the written answers to these questions (and the addition of the autobiographical bit on Samantha Clementine brought the group of Appalachian Sketches to five): First of all, let me explain that my original interest in writing was not involved with Appalachia—as Appalachia. I am not at all sure that it is, even yet. Appalachia is a word that has become known generally throughout the nation because of government and humanitarian interest in the extreme poverty of the area and the injustice done to unwary natives of it by big business, and so forth. I'm sure you know the story. I'm not even sure that I know just what the geography of Appalachia is—that is, how far it extends, east, west, north, and south. My original passion was for my own people, for whom I had no word except "the poor, religious Kentuckian and his descendente afield." I was raised by them in Hocking County, Ohio. I have met them on the West Coast as migrant farm labor. And I was rocked to sleep, as a baby, in one of their home-made rocking chairs by one. And I have seen 5 the injustice, and felt it, of them as fun blocks—by people who, objectively seen, are pretty funny, themselves. And, would you believe?, I have deplored no other than the notable Al Capp himself because I recognize them "whumping up visions" as Mammy Yokum, for example. (They do not. The visions come, quiet holily. No whumping needed.) And I have seen them in bread lines for lack of adequate education, guffawed and mistreated by "welfare" personnel and every conceited, better-educated, tax paying neighbor . And I have seen them robbed of a reasonable wage for back-breaking farm labor. And I have heard their faith in God laughed at—and worse—as fanatic and silly. And I set out to tell their story; to present them the way they really are and let them, as my characters, do a little laughing of their own—even to present the real humor of them. But perhaps I misled you. It was unintentional, if so. My people were from Lewis and Carter Counties—at least from the time that I have family history for. My father had travelled west to Lewis County—from "som'ers." However, now that I have been hearing and seeing Appalachia through the eyes of interested people—I have found myself relating very much to those people. They are not unlike us. I have noticed, also, that the dialect varies from place to place and according to new environment where the people settle, and that pronunciation of a word can vary a great deal even from one county to another; or one person to another...