My Appalachian Roots

My Appalachian roots are a source of pride for me, not something to be covered with shovels of black earth, hidden away. They can be found in my manner of speaking—twangy, you say? Musical, I reply. They are the stories of my childhood my grandfather recited from his childhood– ancient mountain tales brought to these hills by settlers from far away lands. They are the old English ballads my great grandmother sang as a young woman when she played the dulcimer and entertained in her farmhouse in the shadow of Black Mountain.

They are the treasured childhood memories of my grandmother milking the cow and then letting me churn the frothy liquid into butter that later bore the oak and acorn imprint from her butter mold, the same one that now sits on my kitchen shelf. These roots are alive and growing when I place the doll quilt she made for my daughters over the dolls of my granddaughter and respond to her questions about her “old, old grandmother,” pressing me to tell her about the clay pipe, ornate shoe button and wire-rimmed glasses in the shadowbox.

These same roots claw their way to the light when I put on the long white starched apron with the beautiful border of the finest crocheting you will ever see, already passed to four generations and one day to the fifth, then the sixth, continuously deepening the roots.

Those roots reared their heads when my daughters entered college in the Bluegrass and were teased about their accents. Don’t flatlanders know that all Kentuckians are lumped into one basket by folks from other states? My grandfather would chuckle at that.

I still use my grandmother’s iron skillets and sleep under her hand-stitched quilts. My memory is strong, but poignant of watching my Dad wrap a quilt around her before she was buried as she requested.

My daughters experienced those summer nights scented with honeysuckle sitting on the porch swing stringing beans to hang behind the coal stove in the kitchen to savor in the cold winter. My sister worked for years to perfect the apple butter our grandmother made with an unwritten recipe she carried mentally rather than stuffed in the pocket of her apron. We thought it was a treat to heat the heavy black irons on the coal stove to press the doll clothes she made from the flowered feed sacks. Appalachian roots–touching and molding every aspect of my life.

Frequently now, I think of the small family cemetery nestled in a clearing where my siblings and I walked when my grandfather mowed the grass and cleaned off the graves. It was a pleasant, peaceful place where we played as my daughters did later. This spot bears the remains of my ancestors who came here after the Revolutionary War. I expect to join them some day, returning to the site of my Appalachian roots with the knowledge that they are alive, strong and growing.