A Visit With Verna Mae Slone

A Visit With Verna Mae SIone by Dianne Watkins 22 In October, 1983, my brother-in-law, living in Georgia, sent me a book written by a Kentucky author. The book, entitled What My Heart Wants To Tell, was classified biography/history-my favorites . The cover photograph showed a grandmotherly figure sitting on a porch step with her hands clasped around her knees. I saw a resemblance to my own paternal grandmother and felt an immediate kinship with Verna Mae Slone. The review on the back cover by Vic Sussman, Washington Post Book World, stated: "These simple stories of joy and tragedy and people caring for each other will stay with you long after your first reading." He was right-they did. As I read Slone's book, I underlined favorite passages and noted the pages on the front cover page. I've read and reread, shared and passed the book around. Five years after receiving the book, I registered for my first Appalachian Writers Workshop at the Hindman Settlement School. I was excited to be going to the workshop "located at the forks of Troublesome Creek in Knott County." The brochure had promised a trip to James Still's home on Wolfpen Creek. The first evening, in the May Stone Building, I was admiring the dozen brightly colored, extraordinarily beautiful quilts hanging around the meeting room walls. The maker: Verna Mae Slone! I was ecstatic. Another particiEant told me that Mrs. Slone lived close y and loved to have folks stop by and visit. I hardly slept the first night. I had met so many interesting people; the workshop was going to be exciting; James Still was in the dining room for supper, and Verna Mae Slone lived close by. Why is it that would-be writers are 23 awed to sit at the side of or visit the home of accomplished authors? Monday afternoon, I invited two new friends to go exploring with me to try and find Verna Mae's house. "It's but a short distance to Pippa Passes or Caney Creek, as many still refer to the area," I was told. "Look for a guardrail on your left and Verna Mae's green house will be just past it." We found the guardrail and I parked my car in an area beside the narrow, curvy road. We walked a short distance down a gravel road and I called to small children playing in the yard. "Do you know which house is Verna Mae Slone's?" They pointed to a forest green house to my right. We followed a small honeysuckle bordered footpath to an attractive two-story board-and-batten house tucked snugly at the edge of the hill that lines the holler. The neat frame house had a long porch and tin roof. "Yoo-hoo," I called, "Verna Mae?" I was feeling guilty for imposing on the privacy of the Slones but excited to be at the foot of the steps of their home. As we stepped onto the porch, we were greeted by Willie Slone. I told Mr. Slone we were over at the Settlement School for the Writers Workshop and wanted to say hello. He smiled and welcomed us and told us he and Verna Mae usually got over there for the workshop but he had had a difficult year healthwise. He called to Verna Mae. She appeared at the door and stepped out onto the porch. A smile appeared on her face-a face of cameo smoothness. Her long, white hair was gathered at the nape of her neck and fell down the back of her cool, sleeveless cotton dress. We were invited to sit on the porch. From her wellspring of experiences, she talked with us. In her wildest imagination , she said, she never dreamed that What My Heart Wants To Tell would be published. She wrote about her childhood for her grandchildren to pass on to them "the heritage my father left me." Verna Mae's father, Kitteneye Slone, "was a wonderful man, wise beyond his own place and time, with a spontaneous wit and humor that was 'meractious' for his limited education." Her original manuscript was entitled In...