Sarah Belle Dutton

I am Sarah Dutton

I was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky on a farm in the foothills of Appalachia.

Let’s start with the word: Appalachia 

Ap-pa-la-chia 

A-pe-lā-che

So many times I been corrected by people reared thousands of miles away from Ky as to the proper pronunciation..

Webster seems to think we can choose.

And that brings me to why I am speaking with you today. What does Appalachia mean? 

We had no electricity, or running water in our little cabin. Actually, no conveniences of any kind. Mom told me she loved that little cabin in the woods. Dad was raised in the big farmhouse on the hill above our little cabin. The old farmhouse had electric light bulbs which endlessly fascinated me. 

I went to a one room school 1-8. Caney Fork School was near our old homeplace. My eighth grade graduating class was 4 boys and myself. My grandmother Sarah (Miss Sally) Dutton taught at the same school many years before I entered school there in 1954. My first experience with the outside world came from the Save the Children Federation. This kindly organization was meant to assist the less fortunate of the world. Bear in my our school had a water bucket and dipper for all 28 or so kids to share. Our only warmth came from a big pot bellied stove located in the center of the school room. Seems these well meaning folks felt we would be best served with a phonographic record player. The RECC bequeathed us with an electric plug. All the kids gathered around the record player, watching and waiting... And our listening pleasure was John Phillip Sousa marches. The tinny sounds filled up the small room. I suppose that was an introduction to a more sophisticated life. However, I am still, after all these years, pondering if they saved us. Back to my little school. It was the finest experience. Lovely cursive letters scrolled across the top of the blackboard. If one (me) was especially good copying letters, you would be rewarded with standing in front of the class making words with letters. If you were a naughty child, you would have to erase my letters. I still puzzle over the fairness of that method. 

We lived on a tobacco farm. My parents had no outside jobs. My father loved livestock, raising beef cattle and hogs. He took so such pride in straight rows across a field as the young shoots burst through the ground. 

My mother had two fine Jersey milk cows. I learned to milk before I started school. Mom could milk so fast. I was slow and day dreamy, so my mother assigned me another milking chore: churning. Perfectly suited to a day dreaming kid. 

We had to rely on what we could produce, trade for or forage to get by. We picked wild blackberries and sold the them for 50 cents a gallon. 50 cents. A gallon. We had two acres of strawberries. More picking. 

My parents were uniquely Appalachian. My father’s family came through the Cumberland Gap on the Wilderness Rd. from Virginia in 1803 and settled on a fairly large land grant near Somerset, Kentucky in Pulaski County.

We were homesteaders. Hard working, independent and honest. Our days were filled with work. Our nights were filled with robust card games, bingo, checkers and songs. 

Our family cemetery on Dutton Hill tells the story of our family headstone by headstone. Daniel, John, William, Sarah, Lucy, 1806, 1811, 1820, 40, 60, 80. Turn of the century graves. 1934 my grandfather, Daniel Dutton. 1954 my grandmother Sarah Belle Dutton. 1999 my dad, 2007 my brother, 2010 my mother. Another row will soon fill with my siblings and me. 

My mother was a relentless worker and through her own determination learned how to manage a large family with no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbling . She did have a good spring for water, a good plot for a garden, a reliable milk cow, lots of chickens and an abundance of wood for the cookstove. My mother could identify almost every plant, tree and bird by sight or sound. She was also a very funny woman. Her favorite thing was to fool her kids on April Fool’s Day. Each year she would fool us with, “come see where the cat just had her kittens.”

My dad had an artist soul and a kind heart. He loved his livestock. His team of horses, Pat and Peg were his prized possessions. He quoted Shakespeare & the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner as he plowed. Both of my parents loved to sing the old Appalachian ballads and old timey gospel songs. I personally loved the new sounds of rock and roll, listening to WLS out of Chicago on an old battery radio. When I was about 14, my older sister gave me a transistor radio. It was red and I could hold it near my ear. A new and vibrant world latched onto my psyche. I fear it never let go. 

This was the world I grew up in and learned how to survive. Hard work was daily but singing, game playing , dancing and art filled our nights by the Warm Morning coal stove. This was not the poor, simple minded life portrayed in national publications. It was a rich and joyful world, where the keenest imagination was the winner. And the boldest singer would garner high praise. The competitive spirit between my siblings proved be of great benefit throughout our lives. 

I have often thought about that life as I was exploring the world. I wanted to leave the world of rural Kentucky behind. I wanted to travel, be sophisticated. I wanted to Iearn a new, hip language, I wanted to scrub every vestige of rural Appalachia from my life and my mind. First and foremost was my accent. I cannot name the number of times I was embarrassed, humiliated or scorned by my pronunciation of common words. 

Far/fire

Lite/nite/fite

Warehouse/wearhouse

oil/oul 

Pore/poor

Peel/pill

Deel/dill

Warsh and rinsh

It took many many years for me to embrace our language. It also took many, many years to erase and many more to find peace with our dialect. When I go “home” and I hear the sweet honey sounds of my people, I stop and pause. What beautiful voices and such kindness . The lesson I have learned from extensive travel is:

Our unique language is just that: unique. Our challenge is to embrace our lovely heritage.. as Bostonians or New Yorkers do. 

As a barefoot girl in a homemade dress with my siblings lined up in a black & white photo, I can see how the world might see us as poor, uneducated, pitiful people. Nothing can be farther from the truth. We are resourceful, we are proud, we are fortunate. We must not squander our possibilities . We must not equate wealth with what is available through mass media. 

Growing up poor, growing up female, growing up as a meaningless middle child formed this aging woman. I have been imbued with resilience and determination that I find to be my most valuable asset. The hills of Kentucky forged my resilience daily as I traversed from house to barn, to the henhouse, the hog pen and to the spring house to bring back sweet spring drinking water. Or a jar of fresh buttermilk. My daydreams were fertile as the soil beneath my feet as I crossed the holler to my Grandma’s house, a world much different from our small home. There were books and fancy stuff on shelves we were not allowed to touch. When I read Dickens Great Expectations, I felt a kinship with Pip and Miss Haversham, it was there I got my first glimpse of class differences. The cold, hard realities of life were beautifully described page after page by Dickens. The Carnegie Library in town opened the greater world to me, geographically and intellectually. 

Folks in the hills and on the farms of rural KY had little comparison, everyone was poor. The prosperous folks all seemed to live in town. 

As I look back on the girl that could not wait to get away, the thread that holds true for my life is the only place on the planet that is my home is the spot on Dutton Hill where I was born. It was there I learned to be humble, to be inquisitive, to love words, art and music. The place I learned the practical skills that have served me well: cooking, canning, sewing, cleaning fish, milking cows, plucking chickens, searching for wild mushrooms, making medicines from roots and berries, help in raising my younger brothers, butchering hogs, searching box traps for rabbits, finding a hidden nest of eggs and learning to make do with what we had. Every single day. Making do. 

Appalachia gave me balance, perspective, courage, confidence and capability. I could not have succeeded without a formal education had I not been imbued with those valuable skills. The community of Appalachia honors its past. I had to learn that and now, the sweet and kind language of my youth beckons me to be as good as my preparatory beginnings. 

How I wish I could go back, just one more time to a Sunday after church to my Grandma’s house. The big house. We would have chicken and dumplings, green beans canned from the summer, yeast rolls as light as a cloud, sweet potatoes straight from the ground, loaded with freshly churned butter. And my mom would have baked an angel food cake with fresh laid eggs. We would gather around the big table, men eating first, kids eating last! The women folk would bustle around the the table making sure there was plenty of food to go around. 

My family would be boisterous, talking farm news and kid accomplishment. The old iron grate fireplace in the parlor would have a warm coal fire. After dinner (the noonday meal) men would doze off, kids would read or play with homemade wooden blocks by the fire. The afternoon would pass in magical harmony. Doesn’t that sound might near perfect?

In summary, what does this talk of a much different time have to do with you? I think and hope that a wee bit of our region’s history and a personal view of the incredible fortitude of our ancestors, the hard scrabble attitude and the vision of these hard working, proud people will guide us to appreciate and celebrate Appalachia. I encourage you, unlike me at an early age, to embrace our heritage. Please do not turn a blind eye to the wreckage of our beloved mountains; acknowledge the scourge of unemployment and opioids that take away our dignity. I hope you will pause for a second and let the beauty, the richness AND our quirky language envelope you with pride. And with my permission, you may bristle at those who demean us and our way of life.