by Amanda Adams (Author)
Told in family stories, poetry, drawings and photos by two sisters and a brother, this book is about an impoverished Kentucky Mountain family, eight children and a widowed mother, and what became of them. When things were darkest, they heard an angel sing and the 'sweet song filled the house until the rafters rang.' The older children's love for the younger ones, their labors to support and sustain them until they could make their own way inspired the author, the seventh child, to bring together their stories with a short biography of each. She also includes a compilation of their ancestral history in the second part of the book. Many pioneered the Kentucky Mountains. Surnames included are: Adams, Franklin, Bentley, Craft, Whitaker, Polly, Mullins, Yonts, Hale, Honeycutt, Stamper, Amburgey, Reynolds, Ashley, Smith, Garland, Cox, Grizzle, Hamons, Reeves, Blevins and Phipps.
Author Biography
Amanda Adams lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she took early retirement in 2000, was divorced from her second husband and resumed her maiden name. While rearing her four children she attended Writers Workshops and had an essay published in the Good Old Days magazine. She later attended Coe College, where she had a couple of essays appear in college publications, and also won a prize for another essay, The Fertile Field, later published in The Appalachian Log. As a child she had a dream in which she had written a book, and feels this book about her family, including her brother's and sister's writings, is the fulfillment of that childhood dream. About The Fertile Field essay, she says "What I didn't include in the essay was the thought that came to me that day that I had to remember this place because one day I would write about it."