Beth Durham's Blog, page 29

In the Sweet By and By

Now you may be in a more modern church that has done away with paper hymnals but I like my song book in hand.  I play at the piano and my meager skills have been used from time to time in various churches from which I’ve collected a number of books.  It’s funny the difference in songs from one edition to another and I’m often saddened by missing favorites.

Well as you know this blog largely springs from research for my fiction-writing and I’m very serious about historical accuracy – which was...

The Flu

From VeryWell.com: https://www.verywell.com/deaths-from-...

 

I have the flu. Ugh. Growl. Moan.  Let me just first say that I don’t have time for the flu.  I am so angry at my body for harboring this bug and letting it get the best of me.  I don’t like to be sick.  I pray my children don’t get it- the flu is much harder on little ones.  What if my husband gets it?  He’ll have to miss work - I’ll have totake care of him!  Okay, I’m done with that pity party – well sort of.

I awoke in th...

Rock Walls

Rock Wall at The Henry Home in Sequatchie Valley

I recently had occasion to drive down I-40 from the Plateau into Nashville.  A book I’d read had me thinking about the land around Nashville as it would have been in the 1800’s so I guess I was a little more aware of the farms and scenery than normal.  Couple that with my Daddy in the passenger seat evaluating every farm we passed and mourning the cleared land that “they’ve let grow up” in scrub woods and you can see why I would notice a low r...

Mel and Belle – a Muddy Pond Family Memory

I recently made a virtual friend in Mr. Bill Sisco. I discovered him while researching on Ancestry.com. I don’t know that I can exactly call him kin yet but you know the branches of family trees among mountain families are so inter-twined that I’m fascinated by all the region’s families.

Bill shared some memories from his early years growing up in Muddy Pond. It’s a very familiar story and one I thought you might enjoy as much as I did:

Mel and Belle Phillips

Mel and Bell [Phillips] farmed ju...

If Clothes make the Man, what do Shoes do?

I overheard someone recently comment on a grown man going barefoot and how that must have brought shame on his family. It got me to thinking about our changing opinions because it wasn’t too many years ago that shoes on the mountain were only considered a necessity in the wintertime.

But then I remembered the story about Gladys Pell and how the first time she saw her future husband he was barefoot in church. We pondered why that embarrassed her because her own family was anything but wealthy....

Under the Bluff

We have these phrases that we use all the time and I have a hard time knowing what’s our mountain vernacular and what’s common English. So if you told me there was a spring “under the bluff” I wouldn’t think twice about it and unless I was unfamiliar with the particular piece of land I could go right to that spring.

After the recent article about water, I was talking with a cousin who hasn’t lived on the mountain in nearly seventy years. He made that very statement about our grandparents' ol...

Engagements, Rings and Weddings

Over the Christmas holiday my niece, Anna Grace Lane, accepted a marriage proposal and a ring from Mr. Cody Hull. So you can imagine the big topic of conversation these days is wedding plans. As usual, I’ve found myself comparing what seems to be the norm today with the approach my grandparents’ generation, and those before, took to weddings.

I had already been thinking along these lines after the proof-readers of my latest novel asked for more details of the protagonist’s wedding. Each one o...

See, here is water

You don’t need me to tell you that water is essential to life. Our bodies are almost three-fourths water and failure to drink will kill you in just three days. The Bible mentions water 396 times; we all know the analogy of washing away our sins and water baptism is given as the image of that supernatural cleansing.

I’ve mentioned here before that running water is probably my favorite modern convenience and I might reiterate that now. But a story from a friend recently got me to thinking abou...

Gingerbread houses and other Christmas Decorations

Christmas time is a great opportunity for crafting and creating homemade treasures. My children made a gingerbread house this week. Now, it was just from a kit and was super easy because the actual gingerbread was already made and perfectly formed with right angles and everything. But it did get me to wondering what is the history of making and decorating gingerbread in the shape of houses and such?

Turns out this tradition of adorning gingerbread houses is very old and comes from the same co...

Molassy Bread

Christmas season is in full swing and with it all the sweet treats that we remember and crave. I recently had friends over and needed to whip up a last minute dessert. Having a fresh jar of mountain made sorghum molasses sitting on the shelf an old standard came to mind – Molassy Bread.

Now my Grandpa Livesay (who got us calling this soft gingerbread “molassy bread”) remembered this was about the only cake or dessert he had while growing up. Accordingly he was pretty burned out on it and when...