GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Come To The Mountains

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Staff
Series 14: MEDICAL Grace M. Rood, Nurse, 1936-1962
Grace Margaret Rood (1897-1988)
GRACE M. ROOD STORIES
Come To The Mountains

View across corn field to mountains. Pine Mountain valley. Arthur W. Dodd Album. [dodd_A_001_mod.jpg]

TAGS: Grace M. Rood, Nurse, Pine Mountain Settlement School, mountain living, Eastern Kentucky, nursing, walking in the community, Appalachian mountain life, Appalachian mountain language, transportation,

GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Come To The Mountains

Come to the mountains, the Kentucky Mountains, with me, for I have much to show you. there is. scenery, There are gorgeous, awesome views from the tops of the mountains. There are quiet little creeks with a friendly trickle of water flowing along them, but best and most of all, I want you to meet my friends, in their homes, perched up and down the mountain sides and along the creeks.

For 17 years, I have lived and worked as a nurse, teacher, counselor, and friend among the people here I have walked and ridden horseback, I have driven jeeps up and down the creeks day and night, winter and summer, and the memories I most cherish are those of my good friends.

Unless we travel through the country a bit, I do not believe that you will understand or truly appreciate my friends. only after you have crossed the dry Creek in several places, waded in it in others, and perhaps crossed it on a footlog, will you understand why Marsh Leaks did not send his little ones to school. after we have walked the long three miles to his house. Will we truly appreciate his invitation to “come in and set a spell.”

But first I must get you to my home in Pine Mountain, Kentucky. There is no greyhound or any other kind of bus passing our gate.. If my neighbors are coming down from Louisville or Cincinnati, they will take the night bus and then meet up at the railroad station with John A. Period, who drives the mail bus.. He charges 50 cents for the 15 – mile ride across the mountain, and will let you get off at the crossroads just a few hundred yards from. Our gate. If you get to his bus early, the ride on the front seat will be easy, but there is always room in the back of the truck. On top of the mailbags and other things. If you are a lady and have a few gray hairs as I, some younger woman sitting in the cab may offer you her seat.”, dumping the baby in your arms, saying, “I don’t want hit to catch cold.”

The best way to really see the mountains is to come in on a little plain. There is a private airfield about 10 miles away. I flew out to Minnesota. In a little cubplain. As the overcast was heavy, we had to fly low, so we wove in and out of the valleys, so low that I felt if the windows were only open, I could touch the mountains on both sides.

The most usual way our friends from the outside have of coming in is by private car. You can get right to my own cabin that way, but I’ll warn you that you won’t like driving the 8 miles on the winding mountain road. it seems good to us, but treacherous to folks. Who drive it for the first time.

I always advise my friends to make the drive in the daylight, though I can’t help thinking of the lady who made the trip for her first time.” If I had ever seen what I was driving over, I’m certain that I would have turned and gone back.”

Folks have done it at night and got lost in turning in an old blogging road.. One family had to stay out all night after going about two miles without finding any place to turn around, and so gave up. and another couple. Had engine trouble and were stranded for six hours waiting for some one to pass.

” When you finally get to Pine Mountain, I can put you up in my little log cabin home. This may seem crude to you, but if you could hear the, “Ohs,” and “Ahs” That I do when I entertain an occasional friend in it, you would realize what a luxury it seems to others.

To meet my friends, you will not have to walk very much, for my little army Jeep will transport us most everywhere now. one of my friends was heard to remark. “, wherever a goat can go, that woman will!” Still, a few home visits that will require walking. If you are easily scared, you may prefer to get out and walk in some places anyway. some of the paths are.

p.2

Pretty rough and narrow, And through some parts of the creek, you can’t see any road at all.

we’ll take the day and visit the turners up on blessing branch.”. It will be a little. piece.” to walk, But there is a good path. First we’ll go down. Laurel Rd.() It’s a good road., and we’ll pass lots of houses as we go. I can remember a friend from Philadelphia saying,”Why, ! there can’t be anything worse than this road!” Then, as we turn off up Abner’s branch, you will exclaim,” but surely this is not a road.!”

I’ll say, “No, It isn’t, but it is the one we’re traveling.” ” I’ll go on and ask you, How would you like to travel this night and morning to school in a little jeep school bus? ” l’d probably go on to boast, ” And that’s not everything; There’s a girl, lives 5 miles up here who did not miss a single day last year at school, that the bus ran. ” In some of the children have to walk a mile. To meet it. I’ll notice you are hanging on pretty tightly, and I’ll tell you,” I always prefer driving myself, for I feel safer behind the wheel with it to hold onto.” The road is full of rocks, but I’m never afraid for all I could do would be to go into the ditch, And my extra 4 – wheel – drive, has gotten me out of some pretty bad places.

The road may be full of rocks, but how lovely the trees will be. You may see the lovely white dogwood blossoms with the blue sky as a background, or it may be, we will look at the beautiful pink laurel against the hillsides. It probably won’t be winter, but if it should be and the snow has turned to ice, On the pine branches, your eyes will be dazzled with a million bright diamonds.

Now here we are at Blessing Branch. Hang on tight; It’s easier to go across the branch in the Jeep than on foot. We’ll drive on a little piece, and we may catch up with Daphne, carrying a load of groceries and a flower sack across her back. We’ll have to stop by that bunch of bushes and finish our trip by foot.

To my, ” Good morning. Daphne,” ” there will be a shy smile and a “Howdy!” Daphne has been coming out to school for a year now that a bus runs up Abner’s branch, but she still is a very quiet little girl. Although 9, she had to start in the first grade as it was her first experience at school. She has made two grades this year.

“How are those ferns a growing we brought you?” She may ask, as we pass along a bank of moss and ferns. ” Did those violets stick??”

We will walk along a narrow path, with a hill arising on one side of us and a gently flowing creek on the other. As we’d pause for breath in our climb up a hill, we smell the sweet blossoms of the tulip tree and hear the little birds chirping. it is. quiet here, and we feel that we are quite out of the world. With all its worries.

“Well, friend,” I ask, “Shall we take off our shoes and stockings like Daphne and wade the creek, or risk getting our shoes wet in jumping from stone to stone?” : Yes, I expected you to say, “Let’s jump.” I prefer that way myself.

When I asked Daphne, ” How high does this creak get in early spring?”. Her reply will no doubt be,”Oh , sometimes it’s way over the rocks.” There used to be a good footlog, but it washed away. You may ask Daphne how she gets to school on a day like that.

” One time last winter,” I hope she will tell you, “Pap said, ‘If the creeks up, you can come right home.’ Then Corum saw that I was about to cry, he pulled off his shoes and carried me across. We never told Pap, we knew he’d be mad. Corum, he’s strong for his age, he’s 12, you know.”

Having to pick our way across the branch in several places, and to watch our steps on the narrow path up the side of the hill, will make it seem like more than a mile, but it is a restful walk.

Suddenly we will come around the side of a little hill, And before us….

p.3

………will lie a cleared piece of land. The hound dogs will come rushing to the fence, barking fiercely, to welcome Daphne, or to warn us off. Daphne will call to Calvin to come out.” and tie the dogs up, soon, Mrs Turner will be embracing me and saying she has been like a mother to me.” as you look at the log house and the split rail fence, you may wonder if you have chanced upon Abe Lincoln’s house.

There will be flowers in front of the house. On Sundays when we can’t work in the fields, we’d put these out.”, Daphne’s. May tell us, as we climb the stones, which are the steps to the porch. It will be good too sit a spell.,” Maybe on a log sawed off and set on end, or maybe on a hand made chair with a hand woven split- Hickory bottom.

I will be aware of the moving of the lids on the stove, and will call to Mrs. Turner”, Now., Liza, I wasn’t planning to slip someone in on you to feed.”.

She no doubt will answer, “Now, we’re not aiming to cook special, but we got to eat anyway, and if you’ll eat our plain food, you’re welcome.”

After, she says, ” Go ahead, Miss Rood,” and I ask the Lord to” Bless this house, the hands that prepared this food, and all of us friends together.”

As we sit and talk together, you may hear of a woman’s aspirations and longings for her children. ” She may tell us of how. when they are young, they pull on your apron strings, And when they are old, they pull on your heart strings.”

But I really can’t tell you what it is all like. You must come and see it for yourself, see where my friends and I live. You must visit us in our quiet, out-of-the-way homes.

” So, won’t you come to the mountains, our Kentucky Mountains?”

END

SEE

GRACE M. ROOD Staff
GRACE M. ROOD Correspondence 1940
GRACE M. ROOD Correspondence 1962

GRACE M. ROOD PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM GALLERY One
GRACE M. ROOD PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM GALLERY Two

PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL COLLECTIONS

"Over 100 years enriching lives and connecting people through Appalachian place-based education for all ages."

GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Come To The Mountains

GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Come To The Mountains