We can not depend on educational institutions or film makers or even publishers to capture stories of the Appalachian coalfields.. It is difficult for outsiders to get a true picture of mountain life so it is left up to people like you and me – just ordinary, common people who live here - whose own ways are the ways of the mountain people and who care deeply about the people and their stories.  I realize the importance of recording a story  through  a first-person interview is the only way to go.  I can not let one more day go by without doing something toward the preservation of this unique mountain culture.  If these stories can be told to someone who lives here – lives with the people who hold this history in their heads and hearts they will feel comfortable to talk freely and paint an intimate, colorful portrait of their lives.         

The primary source for the history of the mountain people is from the elders, who mainly are of an oral civilization.  These people are pre-television, pre-electricity,  early automobiles, hand loading coal miners who used mules to carry the coal from the mines.  Stories from Depression era   individuals who found it necessary to work at any job to keep from starving to death.  This was during the 30s.  I fear we may have already lost the majority of stories from  the first generation immigrants to America.  I did capture one, she was 98 when I interviewed her in her hometown of War, West Virginia.

These stories not only  tell us about the different stages of  building this country, but they tell us who the mountain people are, how and why they settled here.  They tell us who we are.   They tell us how strong our ancestors were.  How they survived tasks of total self-sufficiency, back-breaking jobs and terrible tragedies. They looked after their neighbors and kin people. These stories  tell us how they entertained themselves.  Out of need, they became artists, musicians and quilters.  They tell us how they were able to live off the land by becoming expert gardeners, hunters and fishermen.