Hill Women

by Cassie Chambers

  In the digital age, landscape matters less than it used to, and many high-tech jobs can be done from anywhere. Jobs in areas such as computer coding, tech support, and call centers may offer a new type of career for Appalachian residents. But this would require redefining what it means to be a hard worker: engaging in mental work on a computer rather than body-crushing labor.

  One company called Interapt is running a program to teach coding to retired coal miners. As some have pointed out, there are similarities between coding and coal mining; both require strong decision-making skills and complex technology. Another project is turning a reclaimed coal site into a solar farm. Although outsiders assume that coal country would be slow to embrace a renewable energy project, one of the founders says that the opposite is true. People in the mountains are eager to find good-paying, meaningful jobs, and they have welcomed this new industry, even when the Kentucky state government has made it harder for solar power to thrive.

  It’s hard to say whether these one-off opportunities offer a real way forward for Appalachia. One former government official told me, “I used to believe in bringing jobs to people. Now I believe in bringing people to jobs.” He developed several industrial areas in Eastern Kentucky during his time in office, hoping to attract new businesses to the region. Now he believes that only the best-positioned Eastern Kentucky towns—those that are easily accessible to major cities via roads and airports—have a chance of developing. “That’s the way of the world,” he told me. Over time, he thinks that people will slowly trickle out of the mountains, moving to larger and larger cities until the hills sit empty.

  I hope that he is wrong.

  * * *

  —

  I’d known of Melinda Turner since I was a little girl. Aunt Ruth worked with her at the food service, and, years before that, she was my mother’s middle school science teacher. Despite these intersections, I don’t remember meeting Melinda until recently, when I told Aunt Ruth that I was writing about some of the incredible women in Appalachia. “Well, you best talk to Melinda, then,” she said matter-of-factly.

  When I went to visit Melinda a few weeks before Valentine’s Day, her porch was covered in red and pink décor. She had even tied Valentine’s Day–themed bows to the lights lining her path. “Come on in,” she told me, greeting me with a hug. “Any friend of Ruth’s is almost family.” Her house was filled with beautiful artisan baskets, and the air smelled like cinnamon.

  Melinda was born one county over from Owsley, just a few years before Ruth. Like most kids in Appalachia then, she grew up poor, even though she didn’t realize it at the time. “We grew gardens, always had clothes, and were clean,” she told me. “I didn’t know we needed anything else.”

  Melinda’s mother had been married to another man before Melinda’s father, and she had a child from that marriage. When that husband passed away unexpectedly, Melinda’s mother had to figure out how to support a daughter on her own—no easy feat in the hills of Appalachia at the time. It would be years before Melinda’s mother would marry again and Melinda was born. In the meantime, her mother worked at any job she could to help provide for her first child.

  Melinda’s mother learned through experience that it was important for women to be independent and self-supporting. She taught Melinda the same from a young age, sending her daughter to work at a five-and-dime store in town during her lunch break from school. Melinda’s mother believed that education was the only way to gain true independence, though, so she encouraged Melinda to go to college. Melinda started college at Eastern Kentucky University in 1975, a time when it was unusual for women from her home to go on to higher education.

  After she graduated, Melinda and her new husband moved back to the mountains. They were both committed to improving the area they had come from and took jobs at Owsley County High School. Melinda started off as the science teacher and nutrition director. She oversaw the school food program and quickly realized how many hungry children there were in Owsley County. One child had never learned to chew properly because he hadn’t been given enough solid food to eat. Melinda vowed to make things better.

  She started by teaching herself more about nutrition, reading books and driving to conferences and working to get more choices and nutritious food into the school. But she also realized that her role wasn’t just about nutrition—that she had an opportunity to make children feel proud of their school, of their community, of themselves. She started decorating the school for every holiday, putting up elaborate displays that changed frequently. People warned her that the students would destroy them, but she says she’s never had a problem. “Even the tough boys like it when it looks nice,” she told me. “It just makes the chil’ren feel special.”

  In a place where excess feels unfamiliar, Melinda went above and beyond. She bought a boy a suitcase and taught him how to pack it, after he won an award that would fly him to Washington, D.C. She made sure the school found the money to pay for the trip. When she encountered needy kids at the grocery store she would slip them an extra twenty dollars to help her carry her groceries to her car. She made an effort to mentor students and teach them about the importance of work and education. One summer, she and her husband drove a student to an internship every day of the school break.

  Melinda kept working and learning, and soon the Owsley County school system gained recognition for having one of the best food programs in the state. It was one of the first to offer universal free lunch to its students, and community members said the school food service was “the best restaurant in town.” Melinda went on to become the president of the Kentucky School Nutrition Association and, eventually, the president of the School Nutrition Association, a national organization. She was the youngest person ever elected to serve, from the smallest district ever to be represented at that level. In her role she traveled around the country, speaking out in favor of policies to give children access to more nutritious foods. She even testified before Congress.

  Melinda’s role as president of a national association with more than 60,000 members opened doors. Prior presidents had gone on to high-powered jobs in Washington, D.C., or similar cities, and Melinda had no shortage of job opportunities after her tenure. But she wanted to stay in Owsley County, near the community that she had worked to improve. Today, she has a senior-level policy job with a company based in Atlanta, but she works remotely from Owsley County. “I just love it here,” she told me. “It’s home.”

  As we sat and talked in her living room that cold February afternoon. I asked her what she thought about kids in Owsley County today. Melinda’s role still lets her work directly with children in multiple school districts in Appalachia. “You’re on the front lines more than I am,” I said. She told me that she’s worried, that she thinks a lot of kids don’t grow up having the same sense of pride instilled in them today that they used to, that a lot of poor families feel more shame than pride. “That’s not how it was when I was growing up,” she told me. “You needed extra pride if you were poor.

  “But I also have a lot of hope,” she added, her eyes growing more lively. “There are good kids with good values out there.” Melinda sits in on one of the youth groups in Owsley County every so often, just because it makes her feel good to see the ways the young people support one another and the community. “Yup, there’s plenty of hope to go around,” she says.

  Later, as I am driving home, I think about Melinda and the way her work breeds hope in the community. She gives kids the tools, both nutritional and otherwise, to succeed. But maybe most important, she gives them a sense of pride. That’s something the outside world tries to steal from this community in the mountains. I’m glad Melinda has found a way to kindle it.

  * * *

  —

  “Why, Lord a mercy, child! Jesus don’t care what you’re wearing!” I felt myself blush as Aunt Ruth’s shrill voice carried above the hushed murmurs. I had a meet
ing in a nearby county the next day—Monday—and I had come down a day early to go to church with Aunt Ruth. It had been a while since I’d done that, and, without thinking about it, I’d put on pants before leaving Louisville. Pants were easier to drive in.

  When I arrived at the church, I realized that I was the only female not wearing a dress or a skirt. I worried that Aunt Ruth would be embarrassed by me. I slipped into the pew next to her and whispered, “I didn’t realize I needed to wear a skirt.” She looked at me sideways. “You can wear anything you want to church.” Her expression was a little amused and a little annoyed. “I like your outfit.”

  After church, we went over to see my uncle Dale. His birthday had been the day before, and I took him a camouflage hat and a card. His eyes got a little misty as he thanked me. He looks like a tough mountain man, but I know he has a soft heart.

  A few Christmases ago he gave my mother an acorn with a ribbon fixed onto it. There was a story behind this handmade ornament. When Dale and Wilma were children, Dale used to walk Wilma home from school. One day, Wilma was bound and determined to find an acorn “with its hat still on it” to take for show-and-tell the next day. But all of the ones she found had lost their tops. “Please, Wilma,” Dale implored her, “we have to get home. Mommy’s going to be mad at us.” But Wilma, fully absorbed in her pursuit, paid him no mind.

  Because of Wilma’s dallying, both children were late getting home from school. As the sun grew lower in the sky, Granny got worried. She marched down the hill and set off down the small road that ran through Cow Creek. When she found her children loitering under an oak tree, her worry turned to anger. She grabbed a switch and waved it in the air. “Git on to the house!” she hollered at them. The children scampered to the farmhouse, and Granny followed behind, whipping their legs as they went. Dale was mad at Wilma for weeks.

  That Christmas, over four decades later, Dale got Wilma an acorn with a hat on it. She hangs it in the prime spot on her Christmas tree each year.

  Dale spent his life doing hard labor, first in the tobacco fields and later for the city water company. He dug ditches to expand the water system to rural areas. “We got water out to ninety percent of the county, I’d guess,” he said, trying to hide his pride lest it be misinterpreted as bragging.

  Now Dale’s body is worn out. His back hurts most days and even his constant banter and playfulness can’t hide his pain. A couple of years ago he gave up his work with the water plant to drive a dump truck because it was less physically demanding. He supported Donald Trump because he thought that candidate would make things better for him. But he just found out that his tax refund will be smaller than usual this year, and money remains incredibly tight.

  That day after church, Dale told me he wants to apply for disability. He knows that he can’t keep doing the type of physical labor he has been. He doesn’t have health insurance. Even with the Affordable Care Act subsidies, he can’t afford the premiums, and, even if he had insurance, he doesn’t have the money for the copayments. Each day that he works puts him closer to a health crisis he can’t afford. He drained his savings last year to pay for a back surgery out of pocket.

  But Dale can’t afford to leave his job. His family depends on his income to make ends meet. He knows the disability process can take years, and he doesn’t have short-term disability insurance to help him get by in the interim. So each day he faces a Catch-22: He can keep working, which damages his body and undermines his claim that he is unable to work, or he can leave his job, which would make it impossible for him to provide for his family.

  We talk about all of this as we sit on his front porch, the sounds of wind chimes and birds filling the pauses in our conversation. “It’s not that I’ve had a bad life,” he tells me, looking earnestly into my eyes. “It’s just that I keep thinking at some point life has to get easier.”

  Dale wants to use the disability system for respite from a life of hard work. Many people in Owsley County do the same. But you don’t hear about those stories as often as you hear about the people who use the disability system to avoid work. Such abuse certainly does occur—my cousin Billy wouldn’t think of growing up to be on the draw as a legitimate career option if it didn’t.

  And disability isn’t the only program people abuse. Once, before I went to the store, my aunt Ruth reminded me not to buy milk from a stranger in the parking lot. The federal government’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program provides milk to many low-income families for free, and some families need the money from selling that milk more than they need the milk itself. Sometimes they use the proceeds from these sales to buy drugs, and sometimes people just need the money because there are no jobs and they don’t know what else to do.

  My family received WIC for as long as we were eligible, and we were on food stamps for part of my childhood. At some point, my mother chose to stop getting food stamps even though we still qualified for them. She wanted to be able to provide for her family herself, even if it was a struggle. Susie, too, grew up on food stamps. These programs help families in need.

  One of my New York friends recently informed me, “You know, there’s no reason for people in Eastern Kentucky to work. They can exploit the social programs to make a living that’s better than a minimum wage job!” I’m not denying that there is some truth in her statement—that some people in Eastern Kentucky do purposefully and intentionally work the system.

  But, as I reminded my friend, children in Eastern Kentucky aren’t born wanting a life of fraud and deception. There’s not some insidious “fraud gene” in our DNA. Most people, if given the opportunity to engage in meaningful work that pays a living wage, want to work. It’s who we are, what our families have taught us to value. The woman standing in the parking lot, sweating on the hot concrete, trying to sell a gallon of milk for a dollar or two may—if you look at her in the right light—be evidence of that.

  In 2018, my mother went on long-term disability. Her doctors told her she should quit working. The nerves in her body were dying, and she was in pain. On bad days, the pain was exhausting. Her current job was demanding, and she needed more rest than it allowed. She hid her condition well—always putting on a smile and summoning energy to get things done—but the disease kept progressing.

  My mother loved her work. That was part of the reason she was reluctant to leave it. She had worked her way up at the Child Development Lab, eventually becoming its director. She was good at it. People called her the baby whisperer because she could so naturally and easily calm an upset child. She supervised the Berea College students who worked there, and she encouraged the struggling ones to finish their education. She once bought a young mother’s textbooks for her, since the woman couldn’t afford to buy them herself.

  My mother was affectionately known by families and children at the Lab as “Miss Wilma,” the woman who always had a kind word and an encouraging smile. All of the kids at the Lab were “her kids.” She put in long hours to make sure the Lab—and its families—had everything they needed.

  I tried to have conversations with her about taking care of herself, her health. She responded by saying, “I’ve been working since I was a child. I can’t imagine not working. I’m not ready to not work yet.” I would get frustrated with her, telling her that she needed to take it easy. She resisted leaving her job not just because she loved doing the work she was doing, but also because she valued work itself.

  Part of this attitude comes from within the mountains. Where hard work is important, and good people work even when they can’t. Where sickness and illness and disability don’t stop you from doing what it takes to make ends meet.

  But part of it also comes from outside the mountains—from the stereotype that mountain people are nothing but lazy hillbillies. This stereotype makes us feel ashamed: ashamed of our roots and our culture; ashamed that what we’ve contributed maybe hasn’t been valuable enough. I think this
shame is at least part of the reason that my mother continued to work for so long. She wanted to avoid falling into someone else’s concept of a person “on the draw.”

  * * *

  —

  I was sitting with Aunt Ruth in her kitchen, telling her that people across America were becoming interested in these parts of the Appalachian Mountains. I told her about the books and the articles and the national debate about mountain communities like hers. One book, a New York Times bestseller, was set just one county over, I said. I doubt she’s ever read The New York Times or knows what its bestseller list is. But she seemed to get the sentiment.

  The first expression to flash across her face was pride: She was proud to have the spotlight shine on her community. She often feels like the rest of the world doesn’t notice that she exists. That flash was quickly replaced by something akin to annoyance. “I bet they just call us a bunch of old hillbillies,” she said.

  I confirmed that she is right, that the term hillbilly is thrown around loosely and descriptively. I asked her what she thinks about it. “Well, a lot of people ’round here use it,” she said thoughtfully, “and I don’t mind it when people in these parts use it.”

  She paused and pursed her lips. “But I don’t like them Hollywood types and New Yorkers usin’ it,” she said. “All they do is look down on hill people and make fun of us. I’m tired of being judged by ’em.” She ended this thought with three emphatic shakes of her head.

  She’s right, I thought. Much of the coverage of Appalachia has portrayed the area as lazy, violent, incapable of contributing to its own rescue. But I’m not going to tell her that. She already feels marginalized enough.