It Happened in Silence
Page 34
Then Georgia’s (and other southern states’) chain gang was born. Not much changed for the prisoners. The convicts on county-run chain gangs often slept in cages and were subject to brutal corporal punishment. They suffered from a host of debilitating ailments, including malnutrition, heatstroke, frostbite, contagious diseases, and shackle poisoning (infections caused by the constant rubbing of iron against the skin). These conditions caused high death rates among the prison population. Many wardens buried workers wherever they dropped, never documenting what happened to them.
A 1930s book and movie entitled I am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang by Robert Burns brought national attention to the Georgia penal system and eventually helped to bring reform by Governor Ellis Arnall. If you’d like to read more about the other southern states’ policies and their treatment of convicts, One Dies, Get Another by Matthew J. Mancini (University of South Carolina Press 1996) is a detailed history of the convict-leasing program from 1866-1928.
County Prison Camp in Cartersville as described in the story is an example of all of the working chain-gang camps at the time in the South. Chain Gang Hill in Cartersville wasn’t built until the early 1940’s, but I used my literary license to move it twenty years earlier.
An interesting aside: Hitler stated that he learned a lot about rounding up “unwanted persons” and using them as expendable labor by studying the chain gangs in the South during the early twentieth century.
Hobos:
I’ve always been fascinated by hobos, the hobos’ honor code, and their signs left on gates and walls. A surprise for me was that women took to the rails, escaping bad marriages or seeking their individualism. Sisters of the Road, The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (The Macauley Company 1937) follows the life of a girl named Bertha who was raised by a wandering mother, and boxcars were her playground. The book is loaded with stories of other women full of wanderlust who joined the “motley sorority,” traveling the country by the thousands.
A good overall book on the human nature and character of the hobo is The Hobo, The Sociology of the Homeless Man by Nels Anderson (The University of Chicago 1923). It has hundreds of interviews with hobos from the 1920s.
Missouri Pacific Train Crash:
The crash in the book is based on a real crash that happened in Sulphur Springs, MO, except not in May of 1921 but on August 5th, 1922. MP No. 32 was taking water at Sulphur Springs and was standing on the main line. They had no orders against the fast train, except they were to let it pass them at the same place they let No. 1, a fast southbound train, pass. The bigger train, MP No. 4 had no orders against No. 32. It is supposed that engineer Matthew Glenn on No. 4 failed to see the block signals set against his train and did not see the halted train until too late to stop to prevent the terrible crash.
The rear end of the local train was standing on the bridge over Glaize Creek when the accident happened, and the cars were telescoped and hurled into the deep creek bed, from where many bodies were later recovered.
Death Cap mushrooms:
The deadly mushroom matures in July and August of each year, not in May. This fact was altered to conveniently fit the storyline.
Railway lines:
I did my best to study old railway maps to lay out travel for Briar and Willow. I take full credit for any mistakes made concerning train depots or which train went where.
Acknowledgements
I’ve had an Appalachian story running around in my head for twenty years and it finally broke free. It’s changed over time, and I wasn’t sure what this version would birth, but I knew it should involve strong family ties, injustice and wrongdoing, and survival. And the beautiful embrace of nature would paint the backdrop for the story, even as events turned ugly.
Thank you to my early readers, those brave souls, venturing into an unknown world, just as my characters often found themselves. Here’s to Kristy Pappas, Kate Beckerman, Bill and Kate Chabala, Lynda Smart-Brown, Robert Dean, Jeff Lowder, Brittani Jay, and Linda Orvis for making this a better story.
Thank you to my editors, Ann Riza and Ann Suhs for their keen eye and expertise—in particular, their knowledge of Georgia’s geography.
Thank you to my critique group for your enthusiasm about this story’s theme.
As with my other books, thank you to Emma F. Mayo for your amazing creative skills, for your eagle eye during the very first and last versions, and for your friendship and sisterhood.
Thank you to Robert Dean for the title suggestion. For those who know me, I will fret over a title for days and days. This time the worrying ran the course of a year. Dean, you saved me.
And to my husband, John Hardy, who brainstormed with me for hours when the plot grew murky or derailed. Thank you. You’ve been my greatest cheerleader all these years.
Author Page
Karla M. Jay lives in Salt Lake City with her husband, niece, and one large gray dog. When she’s not writing or reading, she’s gardening or planning a trip, hoping to discover another story that needs to be told.
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