January-February 1984
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Contents From Our President
The Mountain Spirit The Magazine of the Christian Appalachian Project January-February 1984 Volume III, No. 1
Features: Nurses on Horseback.......................................................... 4 A Physician of the Spirit................................................... 16 Home Remedies.................................................................23 Departments: Around the P roject............................................................. 9 Letters................................................................................ 13 The CAP Closeup..............................................................14 Appalachian Arts and Culture..........................................20
Editor-in-Chief..................................................Rev. Ralph Beiting E d ito r .....................................................................................MargaretGabriel Associate Editor.................................................Glen Edward Taul Advisory Board . Mike McLaughlin, Bill Begley, Doyle Fortney Circulation M anager.................................................................KathyStathers Graphics Coordinator.............................................................. KathyStathers Typesetting...................................................................Teresa Richey The Mountain Spirit is published six times a year. The annual subscription price is $5.00. Subscriptions and other cor respondence should be sent to The Mountain Spirit, Christian Appalachian Project, 322 Crab Orchard Road, Lancaster, Kentucky 40446. Copyright 1984, The Christian Appalachian Project, Inc. All rights reserved. Member, Catholic Press Association. The Christian Appalachian Project is a non-profit Christian service organization operating throughout Eastern Kentucky. The Project operates on the philosophy that “ helping people help themselves” is the best approach to Appalachian poverty.
The January-February Theme In this issue The Mountain Spirit takes a look at one of the most crucial aspects of life in the mountains—health care. Garry Barker, a Berea native and new writer for The Mountain Spirit, introduces you to the Frontier Nursing Service in Leslie County; Glen Taul spends a day with Dr. Orville Stein of Somerset, Kentucky; and Beverly Carter Sexton shares some of the good old mountain home remedies which were passed down to her by two of her great-grandmothers. On the COVER, a modern day “ nurse on horseback” takes her skills to a patient’s home (photo courtesy of the Frontier Nursing Service); on the BACK COVER, a winter storm grips the region (photo by Gabriel); BELOW, Dr. Stein chats with a Somerset patient (photo by Taul).
From Our President
U u rin g the course of this past year I have had to sit in the doctors’ waiting rooms, visit hospitals and clinics—not as a pastor, but as a pa tient. For hours I have overheard conversations retelling the story of illness, fear, and dread. When you are ill yourself, the tales take on a deeper meaning. Somehow you feel with them, not merely for them. That poor health, lack of adequate medical per sonnel and facilities are a part of the Appalachian scene, is recognized by everyone. This is com plicated by the lack of public transportation which makes getting to a doctor or medical facility even more difficult. Lack of financial resources for many of our people means going to the doctor is impossible until an emergency arises that takes you there, whether you can afford it or not. In our mountains, we are faced with still another problem. Many of our fundamentalist religious groups insist that God will heal—all we need is faith. Medicine and medical procedures are frequently viewed as an enemy of a true religious faith. This feeling is reinforced by the electronic church, which by means of satellite and cable enters nearly every mountain home. Have faith. God will heal you. God and Jesus are made to ap pear as supermen who go about putting doctors and medicine out of business by their miraculous cures. Merely call a toll free number and others will inform God of your problem and a cure is yours if you have enough faith. A donation sent in immediately seems to have some special efficacy as well. I don’t mean to down play God and the role of Christ Jesus in our lives. I have seen miraculous cures. I believe firmly that they exist. But when we make God some kind of medical superman, we distort the true picture of God, our Savior and Redeemer. God works through his creation, which means doctors, medicine, and hospitals. In an age dedicated to things, people fare badly in all categories. Health care is but one example. It is no surprise that even our solutions feature “ things.” What we need are more things—money, hospitals, drugs, transportation. While I believe all these things are helpful, they can only be ef fective if personal involvement and personal change take place. January-February 1984
Father Ralph Beiting
You and I know of many, many dedicated, per sonally involved medical people. Their concern for the sick is an inspiration to us all. But the fact remains that too many doctors view medicine as a business, a way to become financially indepen dent. They become specialists and migrate to large population centers where personal care can so easily be overlooked. Last week I drove 250 miles to see a doctor. Instead, I was examined by a nurse, who recorded and videotaped the examina tion. I was told that the doctor would look at the tape later and be in contact with my other doctor. When I paid the girl at the desk, she said she would let me know when to come back again. I went home depressed. I needed some human assurance. The videotape was fine, but I needed a more personal touch. Hospitals and clinics need to remember that they only exist for the sake of the patients, not for the convenience of the medical and administrative staff. The family of the sick person can and must be a part of the healing process. More attention should be given to their role in restoring a loved one to health. We need more people in medicine who will return to basics. New ideas are needed in the role of personal care and needs. Religion and God need to be integrated into our medical pro grams. Science and faith are both children of God. They need to work together, not at cross purposes. Man’s role in life is not always to be free of sickness and pain. This is, at times, part of our pilgrimage to a better life with God. But we are to care for one another and reach out to touch and comfort our brother and sister. Medicine should be more a means to happiness than simple curing. Comfort and compassion were Christ’s first gifts to the sick. Only a few were cured, but all felt bet ter when he passed. Hopefully modern medicine will imitate Him. Make us see the full human pic ture—physical and spiritual. We can be happy even if we aren’t all cured. 3
Nurses on Horseback The Frontier Nursing Service
Gabrielle Beasley—Courtesy of FNS
by Garry Barker
The Mountain Spirit
O u r inaccessibility,” Mary Breckinridge wrote about the founding of the Frontier Nursing Service, ‘‘was a priceless asset.” Her point, well taken, was that if her model program of mid wifery and decentralized family health care was successful in remote Appalachian Kentucky, it would work anywhere else in the world. Hyden, county seat of Leslie County, Ken tucky, is infinitely more accessible now than it was in 1925, but still is an isolated, rugged, and hauntingly beautiful land. Interstate Highway 75 and the Daniel Boone Parkway were slashed through solid rock and rich seams of coal to create a high speed access from more populous and prosperous bluegrass Kentucky; lumbering, thundering coal trucks are a necessary highway hazard, an everpre sent reminder that this region’s economy hinges primarily on the fluctuation marketplace for Ken tucky’s ‘‘black gold” .
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From Hyden, a city of about 600 tucked tightly between the mountains, the trip to Wendover is a winding, bumpy, dusty crawl, in a convoy of growling coal trucks, past homes perched on the steep hillsides and past a narrow, vine covered swinging bridge, the swaying footpath across the Kentucky River. Wendover is the original home, since 1925, of the Frontier Nursing Service. When Mary Breckinridge made her first extend ed trip into Eastern Kentucky in 1922, she used up 13 horses and three mules, and she discovered “ a vast forested area inhabited by some 10,000 peo ple. There was no motor road in any direction. Horseback and mule were the only means of travel. Brought-on supplies came from distant railroad points and took from two to five days to haul in. U.S. mail sacks traveled in little carts or slung across the backs of horses and mules. There was not, in this whole area, a single licensed physician. Not one.” Untrained midwives were delivering the babies, with no doctors close enough to assist with emergencies. Many babies, and many mothers, did not survive. Mary Breckinridge left the mountains, but with a plan to return. Trained as a nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City, Mrs. Breckinridge had served as a volunteer with the American Committee for Devastated France, helping that nation recover from the ravages of World War I. In France, she first met a British nurse who was also a midwife, and realized that the nurse-midwife system would work in Appalachian Kentucky. During 1923, Mary Breckinridge studied at the British Hospital for Mothers and Babies in Woolwich; in 1924, she closely observed the work,
January-February 1984
in Scotland, of the Highlands and Islands Medical and Nursing Service. The Scottish agency, which provided the decentralized care which would be so necessary in rural Kentucky, was the model for the new Frontier Nursing Service. IVlary Breckinridge chose the remote Kentucky region for her experiment in midwifery and home health care for three reasons. First was the pain fully obvious need for a medical care system designed expressly to serve the isolated, sparsely populated mountains. A second reason was the prominent Breckinridge family of Kentucky, a core of physicians and leaders already pledged to the support of their kinswoman’s efforts. Third was the already mentioned inaccessibility, the challenge of building a health care system where none existed. In 1925, the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies was chartered; three years later this was to become the famed Frontier Nursing Service—“ nurses on horseback” —medical vi sionaries who literally risked life and limb to make one woman’s dream become a working reality. “ To meet the needs of the frontiersman’s child,” said Mary Breckinridge, “ you must begin before he is born and carry him through the hazards of childbirth. This means that the nurses who deliver him must be qualified as nursemidwives.” That was, and is, point one. Nurse-midwifery is the crucial solution for a region still plagued by a shortage of physicians.
ficient quantities of animals strong enough to withstand the rigors of river crossings, blizzards, and hard daily use. FNS Couriers, originally horseback mounted girls, age nineteen and older, ran the dispatch ser vice from Wendover to the district centers. Four wheel drive vehicles have replaced the saddle mare, but a volunteer prerequisite today is that the person be an expert driver, experienced in stan dard shift vehicles. Today’s Couriers live at Wen dover, serve six weeks to two month terms, and there’s a waiting list. Service to humankind en dures as a guiding principle of American youth. Mary Breckinridge, during the early years, spent much of her time on the road, raising funds to support the work of FNS, building a network of friends and contributors across the world—a net work which still functions to maintain a sixdecade effort. A black and white 16mm movie, produced by Marvin Breckinridge Patterson and released in 1931, features “ The Forgotten Fron tier,” the work and working conditions of Ap palachia in the late twenties and early thirties. World War II triggered another major change within the FNS. The British nurses began to return home, in early 1939, to serve in the war effort. American nurses could no longer be sent to Britain for midwifery training. In November 1939, the first class was admitted to the Frontier Graduate School of Midwifery, and the school has been in continuous operation since that day. In 1970, FNS
Point two. “ Even after his birth the young child is not an isolated individual. His care not only means the care of his mother before, during, and after his birth, but the care of his whole family as well.” Family centered health care, outlying district nursing centers to provide close-by treat ment in a land where travel is still a major diffi culty, and the teaching of good health practices, as a crucial element of medical care, are the prin ciples which still guide the work of the Frontier Nursing Service. By 1930, the FNS had established a clinic and administrative headquarters at Wendover, six out post centers in Leslie and Clay counties, and had constructed the new Hyden Hospital and Health Care Center. British nurse-midwives, and American nurses trained in Britain, were recruited. Good horsemanship, it was soon deter mined, was essential to both nurse survival and the health of the horses, and new nurses were given riding lessons. A recurring side story in Mary Breckinridge’s Wide Neighborhoods (University Press of Kentucky, 1981) is the continuing struggle to keep the horses strong and healthy, to find suf6
A Home Health nurse cares for an elderly patient. The Mountain Spirit
developed a certified program to prepare family nurses, coor dinating this program with nurse-midwifery education to p ro d u ce a th o ro u g h ly | prepared primary care nurse for service in rural areas. Graduates practice all over the world, and the FNS has “ reach ed h u n d red s of thousands of children whose names we shall never know, and to whom we, too, are unknown.” Mary Breckinridge died May 16, 1965. Ten years later, FNS completed and opened the new Mary Breckinridge Hospital and Health Care Center in Hyden, now the Mary Breckinridge Hospital, Leslie County, Kentucky busy heart of the complex FNS system of hospital, home health agency, district Approximately ten nurses are enrolled in each beginning class, which starts in January. Ap nursing centers, and school. After 57 years of operation, according to the 1982 report, FNS had plicants must be graduates of an approved school of nursing, licensed as nurses in the state of Ken delivered 19,542 registered maternity cases with a loss of only eleven mothers in childbrith. The last tucky, be in good health, and be able to present death was in 1952. To again quote Mary transcripts and professional references. They must Breckinridge, ‘‘the glorious thing about it is that have completed three years of clinical nursing, in it has worked.” cluding at least one year in an acute care setting. Those applying for the Family Nurse-Midwifery Today, under the direction of a distinguished program must have also completed one year of Board of Governors and Director David M. Hat maternity nursing, with six months of labor and field, FNS operates on an annual budget of nearly delivery experience. $6 million. Approximately 70% is funded through patient service fees; the balance comes from grants, individual contributions, and endow ment income. The program now includes the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nurs ing, The Mary Breckinridge Hospital, the Hyden Clinic, the Home Health Agency, and District Nursing Centers in Beech Fork, Big Creek, Wooton, and Pine Mountain, with affiliate clinics in Buckhorn and Cushin. On “ Hospital Hill” in Hyden are the old Hyden Hospital (now the location of the Frontier School), St. Christopher’s Chapel, and volunteer/staff hous ing. At Wendover are the Big House (Mary Breckinridge’s home), the FNS Development Of fice, courier and volunteer housing, a conference center, and guest house. The Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, a full time program for registered nurses interested in rural health, is directed by Mrs. Ruth Coates Beeman, who has given 25 years of her professional life to the teaching and supervision of midwives. Two types of certification are offered. The Family Nurse Practitioner requires three trimesters of four months each; the Family Nurse Midwife is four trimesters of four months each. January-February 1984
Needless to say, the ability to drive a standard shift vehicle, plus a fearless attitude toward nar row mountain roads and massive coal trucks, will help. The program is accredited by the American Nurses Association, and approved by the Com monwealth of Kentucky for financial assistance to veterans and others eligible for VA benefits. The program is approved by the American College of Nurse-Midwives, and has been granted reciprocity by the Central Midwives Board of Great Britain. The FNS District Nursing Centers serve families normally as close as an hour’s drive; each district nurse is a member of a physician headed health care team. The emphasis is on preventive and cor rective health care, innoculations, well child and health assessment clinics, and early disease detec tion. Until the summer of 1976, district nurses were also responsible for the home care of chronic and acutely ill patients, but now five nurses work under the Home Health Agency, each with geographically assigned case loads and backup services from the hospital staff. 7
The hospital itself is the medical center of FNS. Ten beds are reserved for maternity cases; Emergency and Operating Rooms care are provid ed. The Hyden Clinic, staffed mostly by nursemidwives and nurse practitioners, provides outpa tient care. Complete laboratory, pharmacy, x-ray, physical therapy, respiratory therapy, and dental departments complement ward and clinic care. Students in the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing train in the hospital. No patient is ever turned away for lack of funds with which to pay for medical care. Through the previous 12 month statistical period, the Mary Breckinridge Hospital had treated 1,451 medical-surgical patients, 593 obstetric cases with 440 deliveries, and the Hyden Clinic had averaged seeing 90 patients per day. Sixty-one patients per day had visited the District Nursing Centers; the Home Health Agency had logged 8,419 visits. The dental service had treated 2,560 patients. FNS serves Leslie, Perry, Harlan, and Clay counties, serves them busily and effectively. Much research has made use of FNS documen tation, always thoroughly maintained, and an oral history project began in 1978. The Rural Onocology Demonstration Project, funded by the National Cancer Institute, includes coordination of a “ hospice without walls” program. Medical journals and national magazines such as Life have drawn on FNS for articles and educational essays, and several film/tape productions are available (for any information, write Frontier Nursing Ser vice, Wendover, Leslie County, Kentucky 41775).
An FNS Courier outpost.
In the foreword to the 1981 edition of Wide Neighborhoods, Marvin Breckinridge Patterson wrote that Mary Breckinridge’s “ . . . great achievments lay in introducing to the United States the concept of the trained nurse-midwife . . . and in establishing a demonstration project of complete family health care.” Those are the direct, visible achievments. Perhaps more valuable, more lasting, is the dedicated, loving effort which spans the decades and is best expressed in the Frontier Nursing Ser vice motto, Isaiah 40:11: He shall gather up the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
around the project
by the CAP News Service
Christmas Wreath Program a Success TYNER, KY—The success of CAP’s Christmas wreath sales has reached an all-time high. Produc tion in 1983 alone increased 40% over the previous year. This is splen did news for job opportunities in Jackson County, one of the most economically depleted areas of Eastern Kentucky. Orders for some 25,000 wreaths were filled in 1982. This provided full-time employment for people during the months of November and December (at a time when Christmas, heating, and other utility bills are especially high). Because of increased production in 1983, eighty families enjoyed a financial boost with the hiring of extra personnel. Projections for next year call for 40,000 wreaths and an additional ten workers. This economic increase is directly attributed to the en thusiastic response of donors who have used wreaths throughout the years and have encouraged others to purchase them as well. An ancillary operation, CAP’s tree farm which provides a large portion of the needed pine, employs six or seven persons in the summer to pull weeds, cut grass, and trim trees. Additional pine branches are purchased from twenty local ven dors, thus further stimulating the economy in the county. In early spring of 1983, CAP ex panded its Appalachian crafts in dustry and distributed a mail-order catalog for the convenience of friends throughout the country. This has brought added work op portunities. Presently, the factory hires ten full-time, year-round employees. Eight ladies, unable to leave their homes because of family responsibilities, are hired part-time, year-round on various craft pro jects. CAP sheltered workshops for January-February 1984
Father Ralph Beiting observes Jackson Countians prepare Christmas wreaths.
handicapped adults also sub contract to produce various parts of these crafts such as dyeing and cut ting corn shucks, weaving baskets, or trimming rugs. CAP’s five year goal is to provide work for fifty full-time and twentyfive part-time employees year-round in its factory/home industry alone. Other work opportunities provided for residents of Jackson County would bring the total to well over 125.
Reclamation Project Begins in Martin County MOREHEAD, KY—Land that is level enough to be used for agriculture, industry, commerce, and recreation has always been a rare commodity in Eastern Ken tucky. But, if a reclamation project
in Martin County, Kentucky is suc cessful, thousands of acres will become available. As a direct result of Martiki Mine’s mountain top removal min ing methods, more than 4,000 acres of gently rolling landscapes will be created above the county’s flood plain. Mountain top removal methods literally remove whole mountains to uncover several seams of coal. To make the land useful after the coal has been extracted, MAPCO (Martiki’s parent com pany), Pocahontas Land Corp., which leases the land to MAPCO, and Morehead State University (MSU) have begun an ambitious research and development venture to demonstrate what can be done when private industry and institu tions of higher education cooperate. Mountain top removal and what it can mean for the future of Eastern Kentucky was the focus of the 9
around the p ro je ct . . . continued
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Please send, without obligation, my free copy of “ How George Washington Can Help you Write Your W ill. . . And Ideas From 11 Other Presidents.” To: Mr. William A. Begley Director of Development Christian Appalachian Project 322 Crab Orchard Road Lancaster, Kentucky 40446 Name ____________________ Street ____________________ City ______________________ State ___________ Zip _____ Telephone ( 10
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“ New Lands for the Future” con ference held at MSU November 10-11. Representatives from coal companies, local and state govern ment, financial institutions, and development organizations were there to learn about the agricultural frontier that Martiki and MSU are pioneering. The venture calls for the building of an agricultural complex, in phases, on 250 acres, which will be funded by Martiki and Pocahantas, and managed by MSU. The phases will respectively include swine pro duction, poultry production, cattle production, green houses, orchards, and eventually, crop production. The swine facility is near comple tion. It will house 240 sows and ten boars, which will produce 100 swine per week at a weight of 225 pounds each. In the next phase, about 80,000 chickens will be introduced. The main reason for beginning with animal production is to pro duce enough manure to build the top soil over an area where none ex isted before strip mining began. Manure from the swine buildings is flushed into a pond, and then pumped through irrigation lines and sprayed over grass that has been planted in the area. When the top soil is sufficient, crop production will begin.
After an invitation by Reverend Jack Morris, CAP’S Director of Community Relations, Mr. Rogers spent over an hour touring the CAP facility, meeting employees, and listening to concerns that were rais ed by Reverend Morris, which in cluded the possible increase in postal rates, a federal spouse abuse bill, and the U.S. News and World Report study which showed the 5th District of Kentucky as ranking last in all congressional districts in percentage of high school graduates and 432nd out 435 districts in per capita income. Mr. Rogers was vitally concerned about the problems concerning the low percentage of high school graduates in his district. “ It’s been the history of Appalachia that we have had to leave to find employ ment. That’s why we don’t have very many high school graduates left here.” Many people who had left in search of employment have
According to Martiki Vice Presi dent, Mike Vallez, reclamation plans for the 4,000 acres also in clude 45-60 acres of fresh water lakes, the largest electrical substa tion in the Kentucky Power System, and a land fill for Martin County.
Congressman Visits CAP Headquarters LANCASTER—Fifth District Congressm an H arold Rogers (R-Ky.) visited the Christian Ap palachian Project headquarters on Tuesday, Ocotber 11. Of CAP’S seven-county service area, five are in the 5th District.
U.S. Representative Harold Rogers
The Mountain Spirit
around the p ro je c t . . . continued returned to their homes in the last year or so, as the unemployment rates in Michigan, Ohio, and In diana have climbed. “ As times get better, they’ll go back to work in In diana,” Mr. Rogers stated, “ unless we have something to offer them here. We were making some pro gress here and there, in Somerset, for example, then we had a series of bad union problems, which drove one of the factories out. That made me madder than a hornet. The ma jor problem is that we don’t have jobs to hold students here after they graduate. Maybe it’s because we don’t have a good education system, but maybe it’s because we don’t have the good education system to hold them here when they graduate. But, they’re directly related to the poverty level, too. “ We’re trying to find out, now, at what age the big dropout is taking place. Is it sixteen? If it’s the law that’s the problem, then that sug gests a ctio n in F ra n k fo rt (Kentucky’s state capital), if they’re dropping out at fourteen, then that suggests another course of action. As we get into it, and get a game plan going, it may be that somebody will develop a state wide plan, or even a national action, that we may want to merge ours into.” Mr. Rogers suggested that the first plan of action should be a district wide campaign that would encourage children to stay in school, graduate, and suggested, too, that excellence in education relates directly to excellence in teaching, raising the question of merit pay. “ There has to be some way to reward excellence in teaching. It [education] is going to become one of the major issues of the presiden tial election.” “ One of the seven hearings that the national commission [on educa tion] had was in Somerset. Very few people realize that, but they were only going to have six hearings, and they were all in urban areas of the country. We put the heat on the January-February 1984
White House to get one of those hearings in a rural area, and we brought it to our district. It was fan tastic. When they made the report to the President, I was invited down, and I didn’t have any idea that it would kick up the kind of dust that it did, but it was calculated to stir some emotions, which it did.”
Christian School Moves Into New Facility MARTIN—In September of 1983 a dream was realized in Eastern Kentucky—the dream of CAP, of Father Beiting, and most important, the dream of a great many parents and children of Floyd County. When the Mountain Christian Academy held its first classes on September 12,1983, it was the begin ning of what all hope will be many years of quality, alternative educa tion for students in Floyd and sur rounding counties. Although construction of the school building was started in the late spring, various setbacks prevented opening classes to be held in the actual school building. Not to be delayed in beginning classes, the school chose to begin the year in facilities which were made available
to them by a Baptist church in McDowell, Kentucky. The students and faculty moved into the new building on new Route 80 near Mar tin in mid-October, despite the fact that only the first floor was com pleted, and some of the equipment, like blackboards, bulletin boards, and water fountains had not yet been installed. Judy Yunker, dean of the Academy says, “ things are going fine. We’re up to about 143 in our enrollment, and more are coming in every day, especially in pre-school. We’re accepting some in some of the classes. For example we have only 5 fifth grade girls, so we’re on the lookout for fifth grade boys! Other than that, everything’s going fine. We’re waiting for the second floor to get finished. That’ll give us a lot more room.” In October, all of the space on the first floor was being used for classes. The kindergarten was operating in the chapel, the observa tion room in the pre-school was be ing used for special tutoring, and a large closet in the administration of fice was being used to catalogue library books. A lthough the quarters were a little cramped, there was an exciting spirit that prevailed among the students, faculty, staff, and parents who were there
Father Beiting chats with Mountain Christian Academy students. 11
around the p ro je ct . . . continued volunteering their time and efforts to the success of the school. “ It’s the miracle of Eastern Ken tucky,” Father Beiting said of the beginning of classes, and the subse quent move to the “ mountain,” as they call the school building. In all of his years of experience in the Ap palachian region of Eastern Ken tucky, Father Beiting says that he has never seen such cooperation among people toward a common goal. This spirit of cooperation has paid large dividends already, and together, the students, faculty, and especially the parents of the Moun tain Christian Academy are working toward a bright future.
SOAR Takes Off in Eastern Kentucky LANCASTER — In the last several months CAP has become in volved with an interdenominational effort to raise funds for the benefit of several different volunteer organizations in Eastern Kentucky. The group, called Spirit of the Ap palachian Region (SOAR) is a pro ject of churches and other religious groups working in the Appalachian area. The fund raising project, which is being coordinated by CAP, involves a television commercial which will ask donors to contribute $18.00 per month for the support of a volunteer working in Appalachia. SOAR has contracted with Kaiser, Kuhn, Bennett, and Sharpe, a consulting firm in Atlanta, Georgia, to produce the commer cial, which will be aired in several cities throughout the United States. The filming took place in Lincoln and Rockcastle counties November 15-16, and it involved CAP volunteers as well as volunteers from Red Bird Mission, operated by the United Methodist Church. The pre-production work went on for several weeks before that, between Jack Morris, CAP’S Director of Community Relations—and Linda 12
A production crew films a segment for the advertisement for SOAR.
Bagwell, the producer of the com mercial. Jack’s responsibility was to “ scout locations,” and make con tacts with the volunteers, and the people with whom they work, to ask them if they would like to par ticipate in the commercial. As he worked out the details, he forward ed information, including Polaroid pictures to Linda, who, along with the other production people began to formulate a “ story board.” Something different, and maybe even a little bit glamorous, is always a fun diversion, and those volunteers and employees who were with the crew as the filming was be ing done really seemed to enjoy the experience. It was cold and rainy as the crew traveled about Rockcastle and Lincoln counties, and some of the “ exteriors” had to be changed to “ interiors,” but the spirit was ex
citing, nevertheless. The crew, which made the trip to shoot “ on location,” was small. Dick Bennett, one of the partners in the consulting firm explained, “ we wanted to keep the cost down, and if you bring in a large production crew, it has a tendency to over whelm people.” By the end of the two day period, there was a great sense of commaraderie between the CAP staff and the production crew. Each had learned a little from the other. The volunteers and employees had seen a bit of what is involved in television production, and the production crew had a short introduction to the dedication of volunteers in Ap palachia, and the special relation ship they have with the people they serve. The Mountain Spirit
Letters Thank you for the editorial, “ From Our President,” in the November-December issue of The Mountain Spirit. As I read of your busy day, your feelings of rebellion, your difficulty in discerning whom and how to help—I kept thinking, “ I know how he feels.” St. Leo’s is an urban parish, nes tled between hills that give our community the flavor of rural Kentucky. We have 60% black, some Appalachians, and the old German families who’ve been here for many years. We’re poor—many on welfare . . . I share your frustra tions. I’ll pray that you and I both can continue to say, “ not my will but thine be done.” Fr. Norman Langbrunner St. Leo Church Cincinnati, OH I enjoyed the September-October issue with the good articles on min ing, Grady Stumbo, and Mary Frances Leavell. I also appreciated your “ Ap palachian Arts and Culture,” in which you contrasted Appalachian culture with what you call “ true” Western culture by reviewing the Appalachian Humor Festival at Berea and the production of The Taming o f the Shrew at Pioneer Playhouse in Danville. However, I take issue with your judgement that art culture is “ the pure thing” and that folk culture, represented in this case by Appalachian wit and humor, is a “ remnant” of this pure thing. I believe you have it backwards. Shakespeare created his masterpieces out of the very wit and wisdom that you denigrate. He could not have written plays with such insight and humor unless he had been completely saturated in the folk culture of his day. Such works could never spring only from pure individual intelligence and creativ ity. Tristram P. Coffin, and others, have written at length on the folklore in Shakespeare. The Shrew January-February 1984
tale is common in Appalachia as it is throughout the United States, and the origin of the idea for King Lear can be found in a folktale that is part of the lore of the Appalachian people. The very language that Shakespeare spun into his plays (as artfully as it was ever used) was a product of generations of people, both earthy and refined.
Van Gogh, or Wolfe.
Many people, schooled in Western European art culture, believe that it is the height of human achievement and that it ought to be good for everyone else. Nonconforming people usually are com pared to those who are most like those who are making the com parison. Appalachians are described as poor examples of main-stream Americans or elite Englishmen, or whoever. Thus, they are seen as “ belated Americans,” “ contem porary ancestors,” “ yesterday’s people,” or “civdevant” heirs of Western Civilization who have lapsed into barbarism.” Such a mind set prevents those making such judgments from ever considering that Appalachians might just have a legitimate culture of their own.
Would you please tell me why it is that no mention is made of Jesus Christ in the message “ From Our President.” Is yours a Christcentered ministry? Scriptures from 1 John 2:23 is essential to teach, if one is to share God . . . I was raised in an Episcopal church. No mention was made of Salvation. I was not taught about the Comforter, St. John 14:16 . . . Other verses that seem important to refer to are St. John 15:1 . . . I will look forward to hearing more about your ministry. May you receive this in the name of Jesus Christ. I pray that He will il luminate my feeble words, so that His purposes will be advanced.
This is not to put down Shakespeare or the “ will to excellence.” In fact, Berea College, which put on the Festival of Appalachian Humor, also that very week staged King Lear to top off a series of good plays. Neither do I wish to defend Appalachian culture against all comparisons with notable people and cultures in other times and places. Rather I argue for the importance of human culture, of which art culture is only a part. All of us, like Shakespeare, live in folk culture. It is the element in which we exist, relate to one another, and find meaning in the complexity of life. We should all rejoice when extraor dinary persons arise from the genes and culture of ordinary people, but we should celebrate the fact that or dinary people in their genes and culture possess all of the ingredients that once every century or so pro duce a Shakespeare, Beethoven,
Loyal Jones, Director Appalachian Center Berea, K Y Greetings to you and may God bless you and your work. I read with interest the July-August issue of The Mountain Spirit and I applaud the work God is doing through you.
Marlene M clnturff Miami, FL Your inquiries sent us racing to our copies o f the July-August issue, as ours certainly is a Christ-centered ministry. Sure enough, the editorial made no mention o f the name o f Jesus. Father Beiting noted all o f the points that you made from Scripture, and wholeheartedly agreed with each o f them. I have often heard Father Beiting refer to Jesus as his best friend, and one o f the mottos o f our work is that “with Him we can do all things; without Him we can do nothing. ” Thank you fo r your thoughtful in sight.—ED. Letters to the editor are welcome.
They should not exceed 150 words in length, and we reserve the right to edit them fo r space. Address letters to The Mountain Spirit, Christian Appalachian Project, 322 Crab Or chard Road, Lancaster, Kentucky 40446. 13
The CAP Closeup
Pat Gallagher “She’ll Even Do Windows”
by the CAP News Service
4 *Y o u talk about the Lord wanting you in a place, and the round-about ways you do things. Well, getting to CAP had to be the wildest thing in the whole wide world for me! He must have really wanted me here,” exclaimed Pat Gallagher, a se cond year volunteer, working in the pre-school program at the Mountain Christian Academy in Martin, Kentucky. Pat came to CAP after eleven years of volunteer service in the inner city of Louisville, on the recommendation of Father Charles Dittmeier of the Catholic Deaf Office. “ Father Charlie gave me two phone numbers to try. I called one, and asked for Mike McLaughlin [CAP’S executive vice president]. I tried for about a week, and could never get him. The other number was Father Beiting’s. By then, I had decided to give up on CAP, but I had heard that Mother Teresa was coming to Jenkins, Kentucky, so I wanted to call Father Beiting to ask him about joining Mother Teresa’s order. It’s terrible, right? But, I did. The number was for the convent here in Martin, and the sister who answered told me that I had the wrong number. As I was talking to her, I heard children in the background, so I said, ‘well, what are you doing?’ She said, ‘I’m with day care,’ and I said, ‘great! Do you want somebody to help?’ She told me that she only cared for six kids, and she thought she could handle it. So I asked her if
she knew of anything I could do. She said no, and then when another sister came in, she asked if there was anything that she knew of that I could do in Martin. When I thought she was away from the phone, I said, ‘I’ll even do windows.’ Then I heard her say to the other sister, ‘she’ll even do windows!” ’ Eventually, Pat got in touch with Kathy Kluesener, CAP’S coordinator of Volunteer Ad missions, who told her that there was an im mediate opening in the child development center in Lancaster. Never one to let grass grow under her feet, Pat reported to Lancaster within the week. “ When I arrived, there was nobody around in the whole place. I remember thinking, ‘please, Lord, I don’t know what it took to get here, but now, I’m here, and there’s nobody around.’ I walked all over the place, and couldn’t find a soul. Finally, I found somebody who told me where to find the head volunteer. After I got settled in, I never thought of leaving. I’d come to work, and that’s what I wanted to do.” A f te r an initial two-week period in Lancaster, Pat moved to Martin and devoted her first year as the religious education coordinator for St. Juliana Church. When she was asked to participate in the pre-school program for the Mountain Christian The Mountain Spirit
“ This is one thing that the school is going to do—it’ll create a lot of fantastic, wonderful things because the teachers are so creative, and we’ll need to be able to get things close-by.” A sid e from the demands placed on local mer chants for material things needed for the Moun tain Christian Academy, Pat believes that there is a very tangible spirit that has emerged in Floyd County since the school opened in the fall. “ The parents are so involved—they want something great for their children. They’re not taking anything for granted. The community is coming together. We have fifteen or sixteen different religious sects in this school, and some of these people have never talked to one another before. Now, they’re on boards, they’re on PTO. There was a PTO meeting the other night, and it was beautiful. It was tense, at times, because of where they were coming from, or lack of communica tion, but they worked through it. I don’t know if that would have happened if it was just a meeting. By the end of the meeting, just about everyone said, ‘if I’ve offended anyone, I’m sorry.’
Above, Pat gives a backrub and sings to one o f her “students” at nap time. Below, a Mountain Chris tian Academy pre-schooler gave the camera a big smile when she finished her lunch.
Academy, she felt like it was a dream come true. “ I’d worked with pre-schoolers in religious educa tion, and as a coordinator, but I’ve never been in a school. It’s been my dream. I just love kids,’’ Pat said. “ I guess it shows.” Pat’s love for the children she teaches does show, both in the way that she deals with them, and in the way they react to her. She says eleven years of experience in the inner city with the black community has proved valuable in communicating with the mountain families with whom she is involved now. X here’re a lot of similarities between the black community and the mountain folk. It’s in teresting. They’re both very family bound. Their kids are very important to them. Their sense of en joyment—of enjoying the little things are very much the same. When I first came down, the geography really struck me. It’s so different, but the people aren’t. The biggest culture shock is not having a K-Mart when you need one! You get so used to having everything just around the corner. January-February 1984
“ There’s so much that we’d like to do with parenting skills. So many of the parents are just kids themselves—young people who are looking for directions. What we hope to do, when we get the infant care here, is to work with parents. I don’t know how much you can teach an infant, outside of stimulation things, but we can get to their moms and dads, and show them different ways of doing things. “ The day we moved up here to the mountain, Father Beiting said it was a miracle, and I really believe that’s true.” It is to CAP’s advantage that the Lord wanted Pat Gallagher in Martin, and to its advantage, too, that Pat has taken His will and made it her own for the good of the children and families she touches. And she’s even done a few windows since she’s been here. cap.
It isn't important to serve in a ‘missionary' sense but to serve where you are. Dr. Orville J. Stein
In these photos, Dr. Orville Stein of Somerset ex amines a child in St. Luke’s Clinic and discusses his work for the Lord at the free clinic.
The Mountain Spirit
I. he Lord must have been planning for your visit today,” Dr. Orville J. Stein told me. The reception room of the Christian Ap palachian Project’s Saint Luke Medical Clinic in Somerset, Kentucky had a woman waiting for Dr. Stein to finish consulting with her daughter. When the free clinic is open on Mondays and half the day on Saturdays, it is not unusual to have fifteen to twenty patients, Dr. Stein said. Because there were no patients, we were able to sit and talk about his work with the free clinic without interruption. Dr. Stein, whose spirit is sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, started Saint Luke’s through the Spirit’s leadership about 31/2 years ago. Dr. Stein had met Father Ralph Beiting when Father Beiting’s mother was under his care at the hospital in Somerset. “ She had had a heart attack when they were down on the lake here.” That was in the summer of 1979. Later that year, in December, Dr. Stein was on his way back home from an ordination service in Lexington. “ . . . I was by myself. The Lord says, ‘you ought to stop and see Father Beiting.’ ” So when he went into CAP’s office, and asked if Father Beiting was in, the receptionist said, “ yes, he just got back.” This in itself is an indication that the Spirit was leading Dr. Stein, as Father Beiting is rarely in his office. When Father Beiting walked in he said, “ it’s rather strange that you stopped to see me. I just came from Somerset.” Father Beiting had been there looking for land to start a job training program for the deaf, Dr. Stein said.
A Physician of the Spirit
Dr. Stein told Father Beiting that that was strange; “ I just happen to have sdme land. I stopped by to see if you could use some farm land for something.” Although his offer was not taken then, the meeting established a relationship with CAP for Dr. Stein. By March 1980, CAP leased, with an option to buy, the former Pontiac-Buick garage in Somerset. That year CAP employees and volunteers worked continuously for months to make the place ready for a used clothing store. During that time, Dr. Stein told Father Beiting that he had been led by the Lord to start a clinic. Father Beiting showed him a small house next to the garage, which Dr. Stein accepted. At first, it was not frequented too much, Dr. Stein said. It was hard for people to get here, medicare was still paying well, and there was not as much unemployment. During the time he used the building, CAP began a sheltered workshop, a child development January-February 1984
Story and Photos by Glen Edward Taul 17
center, and a job training program for deaf high school graduates. “ We stayed in the house for about a year and a half,” Dr. Stein said. T h e Wisconsin native was called to be a physician while serving in the army in Dover, Delaware. He failed at his first attempt in college. “ Too much socializing,” he said. He went into the service in 1946 and stayed 4 Vi years. “ I didn’t know if I could go to school, having failed previously.” But an overpowering light struck him before attending a two-week convention of the Koinoia Foundation, a non-denominational group. Soon after that experience he took a test to see what he was suited for, but he never got the results. He said that he was full of the faith then, and it seemed that he succeeded at anything he tried. When he left the service, he went to live in Campbellsville, Kentucky with his mother and brother before entering Georgetown College, a Baptist school in central Kentucky, in 1956. When he completed his degree in 1958, he continued his education at the University of Louisville Medical School, where he graduated in 1962. Dr. Stein has lived in Somerset since 1963. “ The Lord just called us here,” he said. He and his wife, Sue, were returning from Jamestown, Ken tucky, when they decided, on the suggestion of their friend in Jamestown, to stop and see Dr. Stephen B. Kelly in Somerset. After talking with him, Dr. Stein thought the man was crazy. “ But I was back the next week.” He said, “ Dr. Kelly was by himself. He needed help, and I needed a place to practice.” On first meeting Dr. Stein, a person is impress ed with his gregariousness, his energy, his dedica tion, and a spirit that is prepared to respond to service at the beckoning of the Holy Spirit. In work relationships, in family ties, in church, and in business, the Spirit plays a prominent role in whatever he does.
But Dr. Stein takes it all in stride, and looks at the humor of the situation. “ The Spirit doesn’t move very well in a tight organization, but you need to have it,” he said. Trust is difficult to establish when you have to ask for money. “ Money and trust don’t go well together, especially if a person feels bad about himself,” Dr. Stein said. The days that the clinic is open, his schedule is flexible “ I’m rather fluid,” Dr. Stein said. He arises around 6 a.m. Before going to the clinic, he visits his patients that are in the hospital, usually four and five at a time. He finally arrives at the clinic at about 10 a.m., after visiting his office. His corporate partners take care of his calls on Mondays. At 11:50 he attends communion service at Saint Patrick Episcopal Church, and then, after eating something, he returns to the clinic. N othing major is performed at the clinic. “ We don’t give shots, we don’t give sutures,” Dr. Stein said. He does write prescriptions, he examines, and he acts as a liaison between the patient, their physician, and the hospital. At 11:45 a.m., Dr. Stein invites me to attend communion service at St. Patrick’s. It is a small church. There are few Episcopalians in Pulaski County, of which Somerset is the county seat. At-
iss
i
“ There has to be a freedom to work here,” Dr. Stein said. “ When you have a clinic, you go through so many trials and tribulations. There needs to be a freedom of not working as well as working. It’s really a struggle for each person try ing to give of themselves, especially when someone gets protective of their space or responsibilities.” '
Dr. Stein, right, enjoys a humorous moment with one of his patients at St. Luke’s; above right, he continues fellowship with his wife, Sue and his pastor, Rev. Moultry McIntosh, after par ticipating in communion at St. Patrick Church.
18
The Mountain Spirit
tendance is small. It is a good place to meditate. It is peaceful. It is quiet. Rev. Moultry McIntosh leads the members through their religious exer cises. In the interlude before the Lord’s supper, members embrace and greet each other in the name of the Lord. Around the altar, communion is served, with Dr. Stein serving as assistant pastor, while simultaneously singing hymns, some of which a Southern Baptist like me even knows. As we leave, we continue to fellowship. “ The essence, the one thing I need to do is be in communion with my community of believers,” he said.“ I believe that’s where God needs and prepares us for His service. If I am not well spiritually, then it is difficult to minister to others.” Dr. Stein believes that he needs the daily feeding by the community of believers and the family, if he is to be the instrument of God’s heal ing. “ He heals people through me, but he also heals me through them.” That is the “ neat” thing, he said. “ You can never out give God. The more you give, the more you receive.” “ God loves us so much, and we do so little for Him,” Dr. Stein believes. When he reflected on the wonderful experiences he has had in Somerset, he said, “ we kind of take Him for granted many times, don’t we?” cap. January-February 1984
Appalachian
Artsand Culture
The Story Ends The American Character in Generations
by Glen Edward Taul
Jordan
1.5 that you, John?’ he said, squinting to bring my face into focus. ‘I ’ve been looking fo r you, hoping yo u ’d get here. ‘I ’ve always told you I ’d try to wait around until you come back, ’ Burnam said, ‘but this time I just barely made it. ’ The effects o f his ordeal were etched in the lines on his face. ‘Everyone had told me how sick yo u ’ve been, ’ I said to him. ‘I ’m glad yo u ’re better. I t ’s a good sign that you ’re able to sit up. ’ He shook his head. ‘Uh-uhm. I ’m not going to get well. I t ’s time fo r me to go home now, John. I ’m ready to go. I feel like I ’ve done all I can do in this world. I thank God fo r letting me keep my mind right up to the end, but I don’t want to stay longer. I ’m getting out o f life now, before I get old and lose my mind. ’ There was nothing I could say in response to that. I tried to change the subject: 7 brought you something, Burnam. Here’s our book at last, all set in type, ready to be printed. You need to get well now, so we can go around and show it o ff together. ’ I placed the sheaf o f page proofs in his lap. He picked them up, weighed them in his gnarled hands, held them up close to his face. For several minutes, he read silently from the paragraphs on the top o f the page. Then he put the pages down again.
Mr. C. B. Ledford 20
‘I ’m glad you ’re through, ’ he said. ‘Some peo ple will get a lot out o f reading that book. I ’d like to read it again myself, but I won’t be able to. It doesn’t matter, though—I know what’s in it. I ’m just glad I could wait this long, so I could see it. But I don’t want to wait any longer. I ’m tired now. I ’m ready to go on.’ The Mountain Spirit
Book Review. John Egerton. Generations: An American Family. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983. 264 pp. $19.95. Curtis Burnam Ledford was in the midst of his final illness when John Egerton visited him in February 1983. After the conception of a project six years before, Mr. Egerton had finally com pleted his book on the Ledford family of Lan caster, Kentucky. When Mr. Egerton went to see Burnam in the hospital, he went to show the 106-year-old man the fruit of his labor. Burnam “ went home” soon after this visit. With the publication of Generations in July, his story and the story of his wife Addie and of their family, past and present, was finished, yet not complete. In Generations, the Ledford family is used as a metaphor of the American experience from the colonial period to the present. Through the oral recounting of personal and family stories by Bur nam and Addie, the family’s two oldest survivors, and by their descendants, an image emerges of the American character and of how America evolved. In an interview, Mr. Egerton said the need to tell the Ledfords’ story came “ out of my own per sonal experience.” They were unknown, and yet, like Egerton’s family and other American families, they were part of the main current of the American experience. They were observers of and participants in events more than shapers. “ They had seen history, and lived it, and participated, however indirectly, in its shaping; inevitably, unescapably, they were both beneficiaries and vic tims of their nation’s history.” Mr. Egerton’s original idea was to select a family of four or five generations “ whose collec tive life stories were sufficiently diverse to be typical or representative” of most Americans. He found those qualities in the Ledford family, but it is “ not the story I really set out to write,” Mr. Egerton said. Instead of a strict social history of the American experience as exemplified by one family, “ it became a story of old people living out the rest their lives in dignity.” Generations became a biography of the couple because “ their personalities captured me,” Mr. Egerton said. He chose a family other than his own so that he could approach the subject with a reasonable amount of objectivity. The Ledfords allowed Mr. Egerton, in the beginning, to stand outside, listen, and participate. But as time pro gressed, and his relationship with them deepened, his professional detachment weakened, and the project became a personal journey toward selfidentity. Mr. Egerton narrates the Ledford story January-February 1984
Mrs. C. B. Ledford
from a personal perspective, describing his sub jects in great detail as well as describing the sur roundings in which they live and the circumstances within which their stories are told. The narrative is a constant interaction between the author, Bur nam and Addie, and their past and present. The book is organized chronologically. Short chapters like “ The Beginning: Aley and Betsy” and “ A Nice Place for Old People” gives the reader glimpses of how Mr. Egerton pursues his quest and of how his relationship with the Led fords develops. We receive an idea of the Ledford family’s unique past when Mr. Egerton writes a fictional account of Aley Ledford’s story. The ac count is rooted in the detailed stories of Aley and his times (1789-1873), in scattered remnants of recorded information about him, in the retracing of his passage into the Kentucky mountains, and the history of his generation in America. Later, in chapter eight, Mr. Egerton traces Aley’s path into Kentucky from North Carolina on his own. He divides Burnam and Addie’s lives into five time periods, and includes separate chapters that give brief life stories of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. In another chapter, he takes Burnam for one last look at Harlan County, 21
the place where life began and was established. Burnam said, “ When I lived in these mountains, it couldn’t have been much different for us than it was for my father and grandfather and great grandfather. It’s different now, though—a whole lot different.” The book ends with the last homecoming in 1983. In their lifetime, Burnam and Addie produced thirteen children, ten of whom survived to adulthood; and in succeeding generations, they had thirty-two grandchildren and thirty-nine great-grandchildren. Burnam had been a husband, a father, a school teacher, a merchant, a farmer, and a store clerk. Addie, who now lives in a nurs ing home in Stanford, Kentucky, has been a wife, a mother, and a school teacher. They were mar ried seventy-nine years before Burnam died. Although Mr. Egerton strayed from his original idea, he is still able to help us “ define who we [Americans] are in our own eyes.” The Ledford family’s path from poor beginnings up to the relatively prosperous present over several genera tions was similar to many other Americans who came to America in the colonial period. It is a story of coming from England to Virginia as in dentured servants, of eventually buying their own land, of moving to begin again in North Carolina after Indian depredations, of settling down for two generations, of moving into Eastern Kentucky and staying for four generations, of big families, of intra-family marriages, of Burnam’s family moving again and settling in Garrard County, Kentucky, of Burnam and Addie’s children dispersing in all directions to lead different lives. It is a story of the family changing from an ex tended unit to one separated by change and space. And it is a story of how the three previous genera tions have lost touch with their roots of identity. In reflecting on his work, Mr. Egerton said that he was impressed by the extent to which history is accidental. Few events of the past were predict able, intended, or controllable. For instance, Egerton recited, the course of Aley Ledford’s life was changed the night strong winds blew a tree on to his parents covered wagon at Cumberland Gap in 1802. With their deaths, instead of continuing on to the Bluegrass country, where the family had intended to go, Aley—now an orphan—was adopted by Steve Farmer, the wagon train’s guide through the Gap, and they settled in present-day Harlan County, Kentucky, where he later married Farmer’s daughter. In another episode involving Burnam in the early 1920’s sharp declines in tobacco prices caused him to lose his country store and his farm. Burnam could not have predicted, or prevented, the tobacco prices from dropping, and he had no idea that the people who sold him 22
John Egerton, author of Generations.
the farm would demand full payment, knowing that he could not pay. If these events had not oc curred, Burnam and Addie would probably have raised their family in rural Garrard County rather than in the town of Lancaster. In reciting these events during the interview, Mr. Egerton emphasizes the point that most events in history, and in a person’s life, are uncon trollable and unpredictable. “ How we have responded to events makes the difference,” Mr. Egerton said. The ability to act and move with relative freedom has helped make us what we are as Americans, Mr. Egerton believes. But in the pro cess of acting, unforeseen events and conse quences occur, and it is our response to them that has given the United States its vitality. But what in the American character has deter mined how we will respond? Mr. Egerton has pur posely avoided making any conclusions. He wants readers to glean the information and decide for themselves. A partial answer is that Americans, as exemplified by the Ledfords, have an abiding faith in the future and live with a sense of humor, en durance, determination, and independence, c a p . The Mountain Spirit
How many o f these elements o f nature could be used to cure common aches and pains? A ll o f them, probably!
Home Remedies by Beverly Carter Sexton
Two of my great-grandmothers, Ollie Boles Bowman on my mother’s side of the family, and Peggy Malicoat on my father’s side, were Cherokee Indians. Mom’s great-grandmother was a Cherokee Indian princess whose father, a tribal chief, sold her to Garriet Boles for a jug of whiskey. She made him a good wife and was also a respected Indian doctor. She brought with her into the white man’s world a remarkable knowledge of native Kentucky wild plants, shrubs, and trees. Her ability at preparing and administering the various ointments, teas, and medicines from this plant life was remarkable in affecting cures. These “ cures” are not to be scoffed at even in our day of modern medicine. Many of the common herbal remedies used by the Indians were included in the United States Pharmacopeia, the official source book of medicinal products. At one time or another the Pharmacopeia listed almost 200 drugs from indigenous plant sources that were used by the Indians. When Mom’s great-grandmother passed on, her daughter, Ollie Boles Bowman, took over doctor ing for the family. She had her hands full ad ministering to her numerous children, grand children, nieces, and nephews. In those days it was all but impossible to get out of the hills to seek treatment from a “ real” doctor. Roads were only horse trails, or rough wagon roads—a trip to town could take hours—so, families relied heavily on homemade remedies. Usually these remedies were basically sound in the use of ointments or teas, but occasionally some far fetched “ cure” was used, as illustrated in this factual story told to me by my mother.
gallon of tea from this mixture and divided it be tween the two girls. Mom said it was just awful tasting, but took it regularly for about two months. Her coloring improved, her appetite pick ed up and she started growing. Her aunt, in the meantime was cured of her boils. She still had some of the tea left and was afraid it would sour, so she added quite a large quantity of whiskey to it. It must have also improved the taste, because Mom recalls her aunt consumed a large amount of it and got quite drunk. “ It made her feel real good,” Mom remembers. “ She went around all day hollering ‘wheeeeee!’” As winter started coming on, Grandma Bowman would dip flannel rags into a mixture of ground hog grease, camphor, glycerine, and coal oil. Then she applied these rags to the children’s chests to protect them from colds. These rags were re-dipped in the mixture daily and worn all winter. She used catnip liberally. For cranky babies or those with colic, she made a tea out of a catnip, sweetened with molasses or honey. A tablespoon of catnip steeped in a pint of water and sweetened with honey made an excellent cough syrup. She also used catnip tea to induce sweating in feverish colds. One of the more common ailments suffered by large families of country folk was the itch. Mom said her mother used to say, “ It ain’t a shame to catch lice or the itch, but it’s a shame to keep
“ I was very young,” she begins. “ I must have been only around a year or two old, and I had what was called the tizzie. I had trouble breathing and as I got older it got worse. Aunt Ellie came by one day and said for someone to go out and cut a sour wood branch. Then she measured me by that branch and cut it off the same length as I was. She placed the branch in the rafters of the house, and said that when I grew enough to out grow that branch that I would be cured. Well, I got well sure enough, when I grew a little, and I never had the tizzie no more.” Mom’s Grandma Bowman stuck to the cures she could get down her patients throats or rub on them. When Mom was twelve she was much smaller than other kids her age and had an unhealthy yellow skin coloring. During the same time a young aunt of hers was suffering from a painful outbreak of boils. Grandma Bowman decided to cure both of them with the same remedy. She gathered together an assortment of mayapple, blackberry, and burdock roots, along with some berries and bark. She then made a 24
James and Ollie Bowman
The Mountain Spirit
Taul
sock, covered liberally with goose grease, around his neck for the sore throat. A poultice made from mustard, flour, and water, and spread on a flannel rag was placed on his chest for relief of a chest cold. He said that beginning in February and con tinuing into April he received regular doses of sulfur and molasses as a protection against any illnesses which may have been circulating during that time. Whenever he got a splinter or an in fected sore, Grandma Malicoat applied a salve of pine resin, sulfur, and molasses. “ It really does the job,” he said. “ It will draw out a splinter or infection every time.” To stop bleeding, Ellis says to apply soot. “ I was around 10 years old,” he recalls, “ and I was outside chopping wood. Dad had just sharpened the ax blade and I accidentally cut a deep gash across my foot, just above my toes. I went into the house, and Mom reached up into the fireplace, got a handful of soot, and applied it to the cut. It stopped bleeding immediately and never did get infected. I still have a black scar across my foot.” One of the more distasteful remedies that Hazel recalls taking is large doses of skunk oil. Grandma Malicoat would render out the fat of a skunk and use it as cough syrup. “ I would take real bad coughing spells at night,” said Hazel, “ and Grandma would come to my bed and tell me to take a big swallow of cough syrup. I would ask, ‘is
’em!” Mom recalls that during her courting days, a pail of itch medicine hung on a nail on the front porch post. It was left there from a previous bout of the itch. She can’t remember the ingredients of the medicine, but says they had to rub it on their arms, face, and legs everytime they went in or out the door. The pail had been forgotten after they had rid themselves of the itch. This forgetfulness proved to be a well remembered embarrassment to Mom later. She was courting Dale Carter, her future husband. He came to her house to call on her and as they were standing on the front porch talking, he spied the smelly bucket of itch medicine. “ What is that stuff?” he asked. She was too embarrassed to say anything, but her mother calmly replied, “ it’s itch medicine.” Mom can’t remember Daddy’s reaction to this, but I am sure he understood, since he too was well acquainted with the native ills and cures. My great-grandmother, Peggy Malicoat, used many of the same remedies to doctor her children and grandchildren as Grandma Bowman used on hers. Two of her grandchildren, Ellis Carter, who now lives in California, and Hazel Carter Mullins of Wildie, here in Rockcastle County, told me of several cures they remember receiving from Grandma Malicoat. Ellis recalls wearing a man’s January-February 1984
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it really cough syrup Grandma?’ and she would say ‘yes it is.’ So I would take a big dose and it would be skunk oil. ” Many of the herbal remedies used by my great grandmothers were lost when they died, for they were written in their minds, and never on paper. However, the ones used most often have been passed down through the generations and I use a few reliable ones on myself and my own children. Timing is very important in order to collect the plants at their peak of quality. Most tree roots are dug before flowering in early spring. They are cleaned, and used either in their fresh or dried state. Bark from trees is collected during winter or early spring, when it can be easily stripped from the trunk. Leaves are gathered before blooming, and dried. Flowers are gathered when they first open, and fruits at maturity. Herbs are gathered in late fall when their growth has stopped. The usual way to prepare these plants for inter nal use is to make a tea. The plants are steeped in boiling water and sweetened with molasses, honey, or brown sugar. Never use refined sugar. Effective cures can be obtained from plants we see every day. Mint, clover, mustard, dandelions, and others can be served in various poultices, liniments, and teas which heal. Many of our modern medicines are derivatives from the plants used by the Indians centuries ago. Today, a medico-botanic renaissance is beginning. Scientists are once more searching for new medicinal plants and re-evaluating the active prin ciples of ancient herbal medicines.
This note was on the back o f this photo which Beverly received from Ellis Carter: Beverly, your Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother. Great Grandmother Malicoat was a thorough bred Cherokee squaw from the Cherokee Strip in northern North Carolina. She was a very sensitive person, always carried her old worn Bible.
My Favorite Home Remedies Backache Crush any o f the mints or spikenard root, and mix it into a vegetable oil or animal fat. Strain it after several days, and use it as a massage lotion.
Coughs Catnip leaves, comfrey root, sassafras root, or onions steeped in boiling water, strained and sweetened with honey, molasses, or brown sugar can be given as cough medicine.
Burns Apply the juice from the leaf o f an aloe vera cactus, cider vinegar diluted with water, yar row tea, or fresh buttermilk and baking soda to the burned area. Yellow prepared mustard applied directly to burns eases pain and prevents blisters.
Insect Bites & Stings Apply a slice o f raw onion, plain mud, or mud mixed with tobacco juice to the sting. Garlic juice, chewed up honeysuckle flowers or baking soda moistened with water and applied directly will take the swell ing and itch out o f a sting.
Cuts, Scrapes Red pepper (cayenne) applied directly to a wound is very healing. Fresh garlic, fresh comfrey leaves, fresh bay laurel leaves, and cooked plantain leaves are all good antiseptics. 26
Rheumatism, Arthritis, Sprains Rub oil from wintergreen leaves into the affected area, and wrap with flannel cloth soaked in the oil. Wet ting brown paper in heated cider vinegar and salt, and applying it to the painful area is also effective. The Mountain Spirit
Come to the 1984 Country Fair!
You can help employ people in Appalachia by purchasing their handcrafted products as you at tend the “Country Fair ” in the comfort o f your own home. You are invited to view ninety items crafted by hard working Appalachian people in our new catalogue, “Country Fair. ” Items, such as the ones displayed here, will be of fered fo r sale and illustrated with full color photographs. We will be happy to send you a free “Country Fair” catalogue. Just use the form on the envelope in the fo ld o f the magazine, and we ’ll rush your copy along today! I f you have previously requested a copy o f “ The Rail Fence, ” we will automatically be sending a copy o f “Country Fair. ”