The image of “Appalachia” many people have today came from a 1964 Life Magazine story that featured the town. Now researchers are looking to add another chapter to the story of the small southwestern Virginia town, written in the voices of people who live there today.
“You know how it got its name, don’t you? This guy had a big old bucket. And he had a whole lot of apples in it and these kids kept messing with it and he said, if y’ all don’t stop that I’m going to throw an Apple a’cha.”
It’s a joke John Clark is telling, a tall tale about the town he grew up in. The name likely has roots in an Indian language. But the aim of this oral history project to give residents the chance to define their own story. Too often, that story has been told by others and too often, has cast the region in a negative light.
Meredith McCool is a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia, working on the project. “I carry the burden of that of sharing these stories in a way that honors these people instead of re-enforcing these stereotypes.”
As part of her work, McCool looked more closely at a series of power photographs that have become icons of Appalachia. For decades, they have been emblems of poverty and despair, like one of a man holding a coffee mug and leaning against a shelf.
“And at first look it looks like he’s in a coffee shop in the middle of the day and the caption underneath has to do with unemployment and you think, OK, he’s got nothing better to do than hang around at this coffee shop waiting for something to happen to him.”
McCool found another photo in the series of the same man, standing at the same shelf.
“Only it’s not a shelf, it’s the mantle of the fireplace in the living room and you see his wife and their baby and you see the fireplace and you see that they’re actually in the living and it’s more this domestic tableau. Suddenly that first image with the caption, having to do with unemployment becomes suspect.”
Yes there have been hard times in the town of Appalachia, in a boom and bust coal economy where prosperity is fleeting. “But we also know that resilience is a big part of life there and communities helping each other and I think that a lot of those stories weren’t shared because of the purpose of the Life Magazine article was to bring light to poverty. It only focused on the negative aspects.
“You build a town like Appalachia one brick at a time you know?...”
Dr. Larry Fleenor is another of the 22 current residents recorded for the project. “My mother, people loved her, she was crippled and she would get out in the middle of the public street and sweep it every day of her life and that was her idea of community of keeping the street swept.”
That’s typical of the recurring theme in these recordings of hard work in hard times and celebration in good. Tessa McCoy Hall, a communications major at UVA Wise also worked on the project.
“There’s a certain amount of pride that can be taken from talking about the hard times because if you’re sitting there talking about it that means that the hard times have passed and you’re a survivor, you’re a fighter, you made it through and I think that also carries forward into the good times and the sense of pride and nostalgia that they have for the good times as well.”
She and McCool recorded stories from 22 people, most of whom grew in the 1950. She says next, those words will be transformed into a stage play.
John Cubine recalls, “In the 50s it was a boom town. It was fun. There was a theater there was all kinds of, well there was all kinds of pool rooms and bars, and there was all kinds of grocery stores, pharmacy stores there was three hardware stores and the all coal miners came to town on payday Saturday.
Next, those words will be transformed into a stage play. Organizers hope these voices recalling the past, will help provide a future for the town and become a stop on the trail of cultural tourism that’s part of the economic initiative for the region.
