When Times Was Hard

I mentioned the other day about being the guest author at a book club. Most of the comments about my book were complimentary, which, of course, I lapped up like a thirsty dog.

One lady, who was very complimentary otherwise, said the one thing she noticed that she thought odd about the book was I did not represent the repressive poverty that one "always associates with Appalachia."

This made me think, which I need to do a lot more.

We discussed this, and I mentioned that I did talk about it briefly, but that it was also seen through the eyes of a child.

Early on, when Missouri is reflecting on her life, she remembers how she and her husband had fed and kept up her sister and her family because the husband had lost his job at the sawmill and they didn't have a big enough garden, etc.

But I think the scene that illustrates poverty through the eyes of a child is reminiscing about old Aunt Dulcy Gardner who was 93 when Missouri (who is 87 in 1997) and Kizzie, Missouri's sister, were children. Dulcy remembered the Civil War. Dulcy was a great story teller, and Missouri and Kizzie loved to hear her tell tales.

Poverty as seen through the eyes of a child from "Out on a Limb of the Family Tree":

A few times when Dulcy would feel 'poorly', Missouri and Kizzie would be taken to her house to spend the night. Dulcy's house was not much bigger than their smoke house, and it was magical to the girls because of this. The front porch had a plank  nailed between the two posts and laid flat, so Dulcy could put her pots of flowers on it in the summer; bright spots among the little unpainted shack. The house had two rooms: the front room was her sitting room and bedroom. There was a large rock fireplace that dominated this room, (in fact, the fireplace still stood to this day) and her bed sat catty-cornered across from it. Dulcy had hung a quilt on each wall to frame the little bed; and she told the children this helped warm the walls in the winter so she wouldn't freeze. There was a night table, two straight chairs for company, and an ancient rocker that had come from 'across the pond'.

The other room was the kitchen, and it held a wood cook stove. The table was five feet long, made of large oak planks, and this was what was 'made up' for a bed for the girls when they spent the night. Much giggling occurred about them sleeping on the kitchen table. And there was always at least one cat to curl up at their feet to sleep. So winter nights were always toasty. Summer nights were torture, and they usually drug the table out on the porch to sleep there, trying to catch a breeze, for Dulcy was old and cold all the time. No one could stand being in her house for more than a few minutes but Dulcy when the weather turned warm.

I think most people today would believe they lived in poverty if they had to live where and  how Dulcy lived. And maybe Dulcy knew she was poor. But the children saw it quite differently.

I've heard people say, "I was poor as a kid, but I didn't know it."

It's true I did not address the hardscrabble poverty that is so popular in Appalachian fiction. It's touched on in the book in other places, but not much.

It just wasn't my story to tell.