Dean and I got an email today expressing appreciation for our documentary on the demise of the American Chestnut. The writer, Gail, was from New York, was scheduled to give a speech to a gardening club, and apparently had run onto the video on youtube as she was researching for the talk. She had taken the trouble to find an email address for us and send us an email telling us she liked the video. We are thrilled every time we get a communication like that, especially one that takes some trouble to do. It's wonderful to know that viewers appreciate the chestnut video. We reaped such pleasure and had such a great learning experience as we made it that we are always glad to know that others had the same pleasure in viewing it.
In her email, Gail mentioned the poignancy of the oral histories. That set me to thinking about how lucky we were to get those. Lucky to locate some of those from past Appalachians, and luckier still to have some neighbors in this county who had personal memories. We particularly loved Grace Caudill's memories. Grace passed away a few months ago, and would have taken that knowledge with her had we not had the luck to capture it. Pauline Cantrell was a hundred years old when we filmed her, so her memories were on the verge of being lost as well. Besides the chestnuts, she told us wonderful stories about her family's moving up into eastern Kentucky from Tennessee when she was a young girl. They came by wagon over the most minimal of roads. It took more than a week, driving during the day and camping at night, to cover what would be much less than a day's journey now, even on the very narrow, curvy roads we still have in these mountains. Although she didn't say so, I suspect they were drawn to make that long, difficult journey by the prospect of work in the coal mines for one of the coal companies, which were just beginning to build towns and establish mines on a large scale.
My guess is that, on that journey from Tennessee, there were no bridges, and the wagon had to frequently ford creeks. Sometime, I suspect, the creek was the road. I can guess that with some comfort, because here in this county today, I have drivens roads that were creek beds. The road up Kingdom Come starts as a paved road which becomes a gravel road, and then becomes a creek bed. With water. The water wasn't deep when we drove it in a car - maybe six inches - but it wasn't dry either, and there are times when it's a lot deeper. To get to the homestead where my uncle Gene grew up, you have to take the creek a ways, as we would say in Appalachia. To an urbanite, that might seem incredible, but to me, it's a piece of Appalachia I am glad to see still exists.
In her email, Gail mentioned the poignancy of the oral histories. That set me to thinking about how lucky we were to get those. Lucky to locate some of those from past Appalachians, and luckier still to have some neighbors in this county who had personal memories. We particularly loved Grace Caudill's memories. Grace passed away a few months ago, and would have taken that knowledge with her had we not had the luck to capture it. Pauline Cantrell was a hundred years old when we filmed her, so her memories were on the verge of being lost as well. Besides the chestnuts, she told us wonderful stories about her family's moving up into eastern Kentucky from Tennessee when she was a young girl. They came by wagon over the most minimal of roads. It took more than a week, driving during the day and camping at night, to cover what would be much less than a day's journey now, even on the very narrow, curvy roads we still have in these mountains. Although she didn't say so, I suspect they were drawn to make that long, difficult journey by the prospect of work in the coal mines for one of the coal companies, which were just beginning to build towns and establish mines on a large scale.
My guess is that, on that journey from Tennessee, there were no bridges, and the wagon had to frequently ford creeks. Sometime, I suspect, the creek was the road. I can guess that with some comfort, because here in this county today, I have drivens roads that were creek beds. The road up Kingdom Come starts as a paved road which becomes a gravel road, and then becomes a creek bed. With water. The water wasn't deep when we drove it in a car - maybe six inches - but it wasn't dry either, and there are times when it's a lot deeper. To get to the homestead where my uncle Gene grew up, you have to take the creek a ways, as we would say in Appalachia. To an urbanite, that might seem incredible, but to me, it's a piece of Appalachia I am glad to see still exists.
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