Beth Durham's Blog, page 14

The Inspiration for Gracie’s Babies

aunt Gracie, PICTURED WITH HER HUSBAND, Stephen, AND HER FATHER

The Inspiration for Gracie’s Babies

If you’ve been reading Tennessee Mountain Stories for long at all, you will know that the novels I write are inspired by local characters – and we’ve had some real characters to choose from!

Because these stories are fictional, I do change the names and don’t often say a whole lot about where the inspiration originates. However, the inspiration for Gracie Ingle in my latest book, Gracie’s...

Announcing Gracie's Babies

I don’t think I can ever explain to you how much it moves and honors me when I meet readers or receive email from you saying that you enjoyed one of my books. When you ask if there’s another one coming it’s especially exciting. Honestly, when I wrote Margaret’s Faith I don’t think I imagined I’d ever write another one. Then there was Replacing Ann, followed by Plans for Emma, and I am so thrilled to tell you that Gracie’s Babies is now available!

In the next few weeks I’ll tell you a little...

Revival Meetings

Revival MeetingsMy church has been in revival this week and coincidentally there’s also a revival meeting in the early chapters of Gracie’s Babies.  So, as we met an evangelist and prayed for the Spirit to move, my mind had already been on a “protracted meeting” and I couldn’t help but make a mental comparison.

You may recall in some of the writings by Callie Melton that I shared here last year, she talked about preachers coming into the neighborhood to hold “protracted meetings” – I like that term.  I gu...

Pausing for Gracie

Tennessee Mountain Stories will pause for a few weeks as I work to complete Gracie’s Babies.

I’ll be telling you more about this story in the coming weeks but right now let me just say I hope to have it in your hands in time for Christmas shopping!

In the meantime, I’ve got a few visits on my calendar and I’d love to see you at one of them.

Saturday October 26th I’ll be at the Cumberland County Community Complex 9 a.m. - 5 p.m..

Then November 9th 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. at the Art Circle...

Old School Angling

Hunting and fishing are great sports and are widely enjoyed around the world today.  Yet we know that in days gone by hunting and fishing were much more about feeding a family and the forests and waterways have well provided for the people of Tennessee through the years. 

Fishery biologist Justin Spaulding wrote an article for the Tennessee Wildlife Magazine (Spring 2019, pp12-15) that talked about Old School Angling and I found the practices so fascinating that I wanted to share some of the...

Treating the Sick

Here’s a major spoiler for my upcoming book:  Someone will suffer from a life changing illness.  So I have to research such a thing and try to understand not how it would be treated in the 21st century, but what medicines and procedures would have been employed in 1890.  That leads me to making some pretty strange internet searches and if you’re a conspiracy theorist who thinks the government is looking at my searches, well you won’t be surprised if spooks show up at my door one day.

Most of...

Plowing the Corn

I can’t see a crop growing here but this appears to be a cultivator that Uncle Lester Key is using.

I sent my daddy a note that I needed to talk to him to learn how to raise corn.  Now when I send out a request like that I often get chastised with, “Ain’t I taught you nothing?”

Well I have been listening and watching – I’ve even written down some notes on how best to plant a garden and when things ought to be planted or harvested.  However, I’ve seen only demonstrations of horse-drawn-farming...

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Did your Mama or Grandma ever use that phrase, “Cleanliness is next to godliness” to guilt you into taking the bath that children universally balk at?  Well let me just start off by saying that while that phrase is not in the Bible, the essence of it surely is.  Ritual washing is part of the Mosaic law and bathing is often mentioned as a common practice – remember Pharoah’s daughter found baby Moses while visiting the river to bathe.

There are things we take for granted these days and I guess...

Songs of the Mountain by a man from the Mountain

A couple of weeks ago I set out exploring what we can learn from musical lyrics.  Well you  might not think the culture and history of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau has been set to music but I’m here to tell you it has indeed. 

Mr. Leonard Anderson is native to Jamestown, Tennessee and has written numerous songs about subjects close to our hearts, he writes about regional issues and concerns and if you are from the mountain or descended from the mountain you will identify with much of his m...

A couple of weeks ago I set out exploring what we can le...

A couple of weeks ago I set out exploring what we can learn from musical lyrics.  Well you  might not think the culture and history of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau has been set to music but I’m here to tell you it has indeed. 

Mr. Leonard Anderson is native to Jamestown, Tennessee and has written numerous songs about subjects close to our hearts, he writes about regional issues and concerns and if you are from the mountain or descended from the mountain you will identify with much of his m...