We. Are. Appalachia.

It’s been hard for me to wrap my head around the devastation and the loss due to Hurricane Helene.

Western North Carolina is an absolutely beautiful part of the United States. It became one of my favorite areas in 2004 when I went hiking in the mountains. It’s where my dad famously told me, “You sure do drive a long way just to go for a walk.”

Amid the devastation though, I am seeing something rather breathtaking to me: the Appalachian people are showing up and doing what they do best. They are helping their neighbors. They are making things happen. They have a can-do attitude like no-other. They are showing the world what we’ve known all along: we are resilient. We are strong.

As my colleague, Dr. Sarah Mahan-Hays, communication studies professor at Ohio University, and I are working on research and a publication on a new framework for economic development in Appalachia, one of our goals is to change the narrative of Appalachia. Change the story. But, not only that, we want to change the author. We don’t want “outsiders” to tell our story anymore. We want to re-author our story. We will be our own authors. And in true Appalachian-fashion, we are showing rather than telling.

The Scotch-Irish mountaineers were some of the first to enlist when George Washington put out the call for soldiers for the Revolution. They’d come to this land after turmoil in Scotland and then Ireland. The Loyalists in the backcountry, however, didn’t “rise up to support the British Army.” George Washington even said that if he had to make a last stand, he’d want to stand with the Overmountain Boys, because they knew how to fight.

A few years later though, the new government in desperate need for money realized the mountaineers had something else they needed: whiskey to be taxed. Unfortunately, not only did this new tax remind the people of the war they just helped win (and one of the reasons they fought the war!), but the tax was also supposed to be paid in cash. Cash was scarce in the mountains (aka “the frontier”). Whiskey was often used as the money in the mountains. Whiskey also kept longer than the original crop from which it was made and shipped more easily back over the mountains to the eastern “rich people.”

Enter the Whiskey Rebellion. From the books and articles I’ve read, I get the sense that the Appalachian people felt betrayed. Here they had helped win the Revolution and now they were being taken advantage of, from their perspective.

I’ve also read about how the Appalachian people in the late 18th century were really the people of the frontier. At times, they were battling the Native Americans to their west. They wanted more protection at times from their new government to the east, but rarely received the help they wanted.

Now, let me skip gears for a minute before returning to Appalachia. Let’s quickly discuss generational trauma. Trauma responses can be passed down from generation to generation. I’ve read some research that says it can last four generations while I’ve seen others mention six generations. I’ll give you an example of what I mean. My grandmother’s brother drowned as a teenager. Because of that, my grandma was scared to death of water. She never allowed her three children near a farm pond. It wasn’t discussed. It just was. To this day, my mom does not like being around water. She won’t go out on a boat. That fear was instilled in her since birth. I’m much the same way (but since my dad loved the water and his fishing boat, there was a little balance to the water fear). This is a very simple example.

The children of Holocaust survivors sometimes talk about how they always tried to be happy for their parents or appreciative of everything.

Think about habits that your parents and grandparents may have because one of their parents lived through the depression.

The trauma responses can last generations.

Now go back to Appalachia. The mountain folk helped win the Revolution. Then they had whiskey to tax. In the early 1800s, coal became another commodity. Timber. Oil and gas. Extraction. Extraction.

If the generational trauma can last four-six generations, and within that timespan there is a repeated trauma where a family feels taken advantage of from outsiders or government, is it any wonder they are the way they are?

The first book to sell over a million copies was written by John Fox, Jr. about the mountain people with a strange accent. He even toured in the late 1890s and early 1900s, giving readings of his writings. I’d like to close this article with a quote from Fox’s biographer, Bill York:

Once, when speaking at Berea College in Kentucky, a school established expressly for mountain youth, Fox found himself in something of a tight spot. He had given a reading from some of his works, in dialect, and “the mountain boys were ready to mob him. They had no comprehension of the nature of fiction. Mr. Fox’s stories were either true or false. If they were true, then he was “no gentleman” for telling all the family affairs of people who had befriended him. If they were not true, then, of course, they were libelous upon mountain people.”

Those mountain boys in Berea were not overly sensitive; they were, perhaps, more intelligent and shrewd in literary matters than most might have thought. Once, Horace Kephart, author of Our Southern Highlanders, gave a copy of one of John’s books to a typical mountaineer, to see what he thought of the writing, especially the manner in which Fox rendered the mountain speech. According to Kephart, the man “scanned a few lines of dialogue, then suddenly stared at [Kephart] in amazement.” Kephart asked what was wrong, and the mountaineer replied in a shocked voice, “Why, that feller don’t know how to spell!” When Kephart explained to him that the dialect style of writing was done that way on purpose, the man was “outraged.” “That tale-teller,” he said, “is jest makin’ fun of the mountain people by misspellin’ our talk. You educated folks don’t spell your own words the way you say them.” It was something of an eye-opening experience for Kephart, and, he said, “gave me a new point of view” (p.112).

I hope this article gives you a new point of view.

I’m proud of the resilience, loyalty to neighbors and community, and the can-do attitude of the people Appalachia.

We. Are. Appalachia.

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Extras:

• If you want to learn more about the Appalachia people and traditions, I urge you to watch this video.

• If you’d like to read a perspective of someone on the ground in North Carolina, please consider Dispatch from Western North Carolina. The author also posted a great video on Instagram you should watch if you have a chance.

Thanks for joining me at The Creighton Cabin this week. Hold your loved ones dear. Be kind.