Christmas Fruit Bag

One of my Christmas memories is the goody bag the church always gave out after their Christmas program.  Handed to each guest, it was an unexpected and exciting little brown paper bag.  We’ve stopped handing these out at my church and while fruit is readily available to me and I eat way too much candy, I found that I missed the little bag this Sunday.  And it got me to thinking about where that tradition may have originated.

Fruit at Christmas time is a deep tradition for our family, and I think for most folks on the mountain.  My Grandpa, who had little input to the regular grocery shopping, would always make a point as the holiday season approached to go buy a big box of apples and another of oranges.  There would be peppermint candy and chocolate drops in the house at this time as well.  Now, it’s not hard to theorize that this man, whose childhood held few treats and for whom poverty had been a constant companion, reveled in the relative wealth of having a whole box of fruit both to enjoy and to share. 

I imagine the church’s bags had very similar origins.  Since our picturesque mountain home won’t grow anything citrus and even apples have to be harvested and safely stored pretty early in the fall, fruit at Christmastime has to come from far away and would be rather a luxury in horse-drawn days.

Transportation has changed so much in the past seventy-five years, and now trucks arrive at grocery stores all over the country filled with fresh fruits and vegetables from all over the world.  We can have anything from bananas or mangos to strawberries and apples anytime we want.  And we know that transportation greatly affects the cost of everything.  So imagine how valuable an exotic fruit like pineapple would have been a few years ago.

Of course the church’s goody bag was generally filled with good ole American goodies but even that wouldn’t be easy to come by in the remote mountain communities.  How hard is it to get a load of oranges to a store that is served only by mule team?  How often would poor children in those areas see foods that were harvested hundreds of miles away when they might live their whole lives and never travel more than fifty miles from home?

Top off those juicy fruits with a few pieces of peppermint and maybe even a bit of chocolate and you’ve got a treat that makes a lasting memory.  I don’t know who made the decision not to hand out goody bags at church anymore, and maybe they won’t be missed by many – but I may have to make one for myself, or better yet revive the tradition by handing out my own bags next year.

Keepin' Fire

Keepin’ Fire

When the temperature drops I always want to build a cozy fire.  Sometimes it seems I need to reach out toward an open flame no matter what the thermostat on the wall reads.  And it never fails to remind me of how important it is to be adept at “keeping fire”.

Have you ever heard someone described by their ability to keep fire?  I’m not sure if it’s about skill or ambition but for a mountain family dependent on wood heat it is an invaluable skill.  Some days I have it, other days – not so much.  Now I’ve talked here before about the heart-warming nature of a good fire and I’m sure it’s a subject I will return to – next winter probably.

I grew up with wood fires and I love them.  Love the unique heat, the cracks and pops and the smell of wood smoke.  In his later years my Grandpa spent most of his winter days sitting by the stove keeping the fire going.  He would bake potatoes in that stove and they were the best tasting treat you can imagine.  He seemed to have a natural skill with that stove.

It’s always been parents’ primary task to teach their children life skills – the nature of those skills just keep changing on us.  Do you think kids a century ago just knew how to keep fire without lessons?  I doubt it.  The problem these days is that there seems to be so many things begging for our attention – and I find it’s easy to forget about the fire until it’s too late.  

Of course if you’ve got a good tight stove it will hold fire with little attention – an open fireplace is much more challenging.  You’ve got to keep stirring up the coals and feeding its insatiable appetite for wood.  Still when I can find the time to curl up in front of it, a warm fire is a wonderful investment of my time.

In years past, the stove was the center of the home because it was the warmest spot with the distant corners of the house getting quite chilly on cold days.  I guess it served to bring the family together – do you notice in our modern homes with central-heating that it’s easy for the family to spread out with a tv in one room, computer in another, even children playing with toys can be in their own rooms.  We really aren’t as close as families that had to spend their time in the same room.

Today you can simulate a cheery fire in many ways – even streaming "the peacefulness of an old-fashioned, wood-burning fireplace, as well as a crackling yule log fireplace” on Netflix.  Wonder whether it’s harder to keep fire or hook up all of the video equipment and stream the picture?

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Why I write – and What’s next

Over the last few weeks I’ve tried to answer the Who What When and Where of Plans for Emma.  The final question – and always my favorite on any subject – is WHY.  It’s a question any author ought to be able to answer before writing a single word and one I’m happy to answer for you.

I write because I have stories to tell.  I have the stories of generations of family bouncing around my head – stories that have been told and retold for so many years that the facts blur into the legend that’s grown around them.  I love these people and I love their stories.  I believe there is value for the next generation of my family, other families from the mountain, and people everywhere to know about these people, who they are and what they’ve endured.

With that said, the bigger reason I write, and I hope the primary reason I undertake anything in my life is to glorify God.  After all, that’s the reason for life – our purpose for existing.  I write about a people with a deep faith in God, so in many ways it’s easy to weave faith into every chapter. 

I hope that a Christian can read my stories and come away encouraged and uplifted.  We have so many burdens in this modern world where Christ is assaulted on every front that we need some kind of escape – if only for a few minutes – into a world where the battle belongs to someone else.  There are happy endings in my books if you look deeply.  If your own faith will allow you to see that even in hardship there is joy and that leaving a legacy of faith is a greater success than any earthly convenience or pleasure.

Of course, not everyone who reads believes and I pray that my books might fall into the hands of someone who does not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  I pray that at the end of the story the gospel is clear and that the characters would draw you to Christ.

It is my intention that each story would end with an epilogue showing how the life of the characters affected the future.   It’s not a luxury we enjoy as we make decisions great and small in our everyday life so I hope it will be an encouragement to see the long term effect of the characters’ lives.  The end papers will always include a witnessing statement and resources where a reader can find answers to questions about God.

I’m so excited to have Emma in your hands and I can’t wait to hear what you think about this book.  As always I’m asking that everyone who reads the book will leave reviews – Amazon is a great place to start with those although there are certainly other platforms for book reviews.  I have so many stories I want to tell you and I’m turning right in on the next one.  At this point I believe I’ll finish a trilogy that I have about ½ complete.  It will follow a mother and her two daughters as they move from rebellion to obedience and service.  They will face great pain as well as great joy.  I’ll keep you updated as I progress on these three books.

Plans for Emma: The Place

One of the greatest compliments my writing can receive is for someone to tell me that the feel like they’ve visited the mountain in my stories.  A friend who is a stranger to the mountain said she felt like she was from that place after reading Replacing Ann.  Another reader who lived here until the 1940’s could well recall the places the characters visited. 

This is such high praise because you will remember that one of my motivations for writing is to share this precious place with others.

So I’ve shared really four different communities with you in Plans for Emma. 

Emma and her family live in Roslin.  Today Roslin has faded into obscurity as the school system first combined Roslin with Banner Springs to have a single elementary school that was called Banner Roslin.  Now even the school is closed, further consolidated into South Fentress Elementary.  Roslin had its own post office until 1961 – and character Preston Langford has to visit that landmark regularly. 

The Flat Woods were a large tract of timber in the Roslin and Banner Springs community.  At the turn of the twentieth century, little communities often sprang up around these logging operations.   Many times there was a railroad spur built to carry the products out and this transportation was utilized by all the surrounding area.  We’ve talked here before about how Isoline, Tennessee with its depot and post office made a critical contribution to the neighborhood.  The logging camps were largely self-sufficient and you get a little glimpse of such a place in the book as Preston Langford lives and works there.

No railroad spur arrived in The Flat Woods so Preston was often tasked with the dangerous task of hauling hewn cross ties out to the railhead in Sunbright.  We’re all so civilized these days that it’s hard to imagine the wild-west nature of some of these little towns.  I attempt to describe how the neighboring communities perceived the bustling rail-towns and how one wholesome country boy reacts to it.

Finally, we’ll visit Martha Washington the community so close to my own heart.  Without a railroad, country store or post office it’s not a town.  The roads were muddy wagon tracks and there was no booming timber or mining operation.  Yet Preston and Emma find there a warm people and a welcoming community that’s easy to call home.

I’m always fascinated with the movement of roads through history so even if you are familiar with these communities today you may not recognize the paths.  Still, I hope you will be fascinated as the characters move from one community to the next.

Plans for Emma: The Period

We’ve been exploring the ‘who, what, when where and how’ of Plans for Emma over the past few weeks.  Now we’ve arrived at the when and it’s one of my favorite parts.

It may well be the greatest part of being an author to choose just when your characters live.   I’ve seen stories from the Bible set in modern times – Francine Rivers wrote Hosea set in the old west and I couldn’t put it down.  There’s a new book out that juxtaposes a sovereign Jewish nation with 1930 and 1940’s Europe – just how would Hitler have faced that people with a standing army? 

While this may change in future stories, I can scarcely imagine writing outside the period of 1850 – 1920.  Maybe that’s because most of the best stories from the mountain are set then.  Maybe it’s because there was no real settlement on our plateau until around 1830.

Plans for Emma opens about 1905 which was a dynamic era for our area.

Sunbright, TN Train Depot

The Tennessee Central Railroad arrived in Monterey in around 1890 and began an era of prosperity as produce from local farms was given a sales outlet and men were provided new work opportunities.  Mines were also expanded as the coal could now be sold beyond the plateau and of course the timber that the mountain had in abundance was both necessary for track-beds and transported further down the line.

Sunbright had enjoyed rail transport since 1879 and this was the more logical railhead for the cross ties that character Preston Langford hewed in The Flat Woods. 

It may be hard for us to imagine today when we can hop in our automobile and zip between any of these little towns.  But in 1900 the railroad was the only reasonable means of travel for long distances and certainly the only way to move heavy loads like logs.  Roads in that day were muddy paths.  In fact, it’s hard to map where roads actually lay because as one route became impassable with mud and deep ruts the people would simply cut a new road.  If you can find an undisturbed path of woods today you can still see the scars of these old roads.  Of course with smaller trees – and a smaller forest canopy – as well as the absence of free range stock the woods quickly become obstructed.  However, at the turn of the century a wagon could easily drive among the old-growth timber where briars and brambles could not penetrate and take root. 

We’ve talked here before about the movement of post offices and they were certainly a critical part of any community.   Mail delivery could come to a boom-town for a year, or a community might enjoy their own post office for decades.  Of course no one ran to check the mail every single day – unless maybe you lived right in town.  Instead, correspondence would be collected whenever you could make it to town or when other necessities drew you to the store.  Of course without email or telephone getting a letter was a coveted event.  It was the closest thing to visiting with a loved one who you often would be unable to visit for years at a time.

The whole world was changing at the turn of the twentieth century and there was turmoil everywhere.  Queen Victoria died and ended the Victoria era.  US President McKinley was assassinated in 1901 ushering in the first Roosevelt presidency.  We were just starting to play baseball on a major scale and the first world series was held in 1903.  Just like today there were hurricanes and earthquakes.  Galveston, Texas’ 1900 hurricane killed 8,000 people.  In 1908 Henry Ford began production of his Model T car.  And of course all through the first decade of the century a political cauldron bubbled in Europe that would overflow in 1914 when Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand Franz was murdered andsparks World War I.

While many American men would be drafted to serve in the war and every state and community was touched by it, life in the rural communities of Appalachia continued as they had for generations.  And that’s the picture we see of this time period in Plans for Emma

Plans for Emma is available from Amazon.com or locally at Halls Family Pharmacy.  If you’ve read it, please be sure to leave a review on Amazon.