Brianna Claxon

“The people [here] all have a certain character about them, and they all care for each other. We have a certain way of life that other people don’t.” 

Brianna Claxon, Age 17, High School Senior; Greenup, Kentucky:

“I just used to play outside, but now that I’m older I don’t really stay in town a lot. If I go somewhere, I go to Ashland or over in Portsmouth. There’s nothing to do downtown, so you have to go either in Ohio, or up in Ashland.

I want to go to college. [Maybe] Lexington, to major in Psychology. I’ll probably move away after college, but I think when I’m older, I’ll come back.

The people [here], they all have a certain character about them, and they all care for each other. But I think there’s definitely more to that. We have a certain way of life that other people don’t. 

Every area has a certain stereotype about them, and ours is just that we’re hillbillies, or rednecks, or whatever. Most everyone that lives here is not that way at all. We’re just normal, average people. We go to school. We drive nice cars. It’s not this super backwoods way of life that everyone seems to think. 

Most of my friends want to go away, but if they actually have the guts to go out on their own, I don’t know. Our class is divided into two. They have kind of like the rednecks, and most of them want to go work at AK Steel, Marathon, and stuff like that. But to get an education, you have to go somewhere else. There are no colleges around here that have programs to go through for stuff like that. 

I’m really, really close to my grandma. She always let me help her cook, and then we would paint and stuff. Just talk. Watch TV. [She’s a good cook, but] my Papaw’s better. He’ll make a regular beef stew, and he’ll put like all these random spices in it. It makes it spicy, and my aunt and me love it. My Grandma hates it, and she won’t eat anything he cooks because he makes it so spicy. 

My Grandma and Mom both, they like to dress up, and just be stupid. They’ll put on dumb wigs, just act like certain people. They do that a lot. They’ll just do it around the house. Mom tries to [go out] but we have to stop her. (Laughs) I think everyone likes my Mom better than me. All my friends are like, ‘How’s your Mom? Where’s your Mom? How come you didn’t bring your Mom with you?’

The past few years, I feel like it’s been really hard on her with the divorce and all that. She pushed through it, and you can’t even really tell it bothered her. From the outside point of view, you just thought everything was fine. She stayed strong through it all, especially for my little brothers and me. 

Every day is a funny brother story. One time they were outside the house, and we have sliding doors. I was walking by the door and they’re outside shooting bows and arrows. I walked by and a bow and arrow hit the glass, and it shattered the whole door. One of them did it with a bow and arrow [and] two months later, the other one did it with a BB gun. They’re twins [and] they’re totally different. Trace acts like he’s an old man, and he knows everything about history, and war, and all that. Most of the time in public, Chase is super quiet, but then when we’re at home he’s more of the troublemaker. They gang up on me all the time. Most of the time, I can get one of them to be one my side, but once the other one realizes that one’s on my side, he gets mad, and so they both gang up on me. That’s just an everyday thing. It’s always me against them.

I was four when they were born, but I guess it didn’t really hit me because they couldn’t talk or anything. For all those years, it had always been me, and then the boys got all the attention and I hated it. I don’t ever remember us having a bond until I was in the fourth or fifth grade, and they were starting Kindergarten or first grade. We started becoming closer, but now I feel like we’re super, super close. 

My parents’ divorce was [the most difficult time in my life], because it’s just like everything happened at once. My Dad was in a motorcycle wreck two months before they got divorced, and he was life-flighted. It was terrible, and then at the same time, all this stuff started coming out, and they got a divorce. It was just a lot to take in at once. Plus, school at that time was super hard, we were taking the ACT and it was just all happening.

[Happiest time?] This summer was fun. My friends and me went kayaking, canoeing, hiking, that kind of stuff. I love reading. Reading’s my favorite. I like the John Green books, and then everyone was like, ‘you have to read ‘Harry Potter,’ it’s the best. And I was like, ‘No, that’s not my thing. I don’t want to read about dumb wizards and stuff.’ I read all seven books in a week and a half, and I loved it. 

I love being outside, unless it’s like super, super hot. I like hanging out with my friends. When I go with my friends, we always go over in Ohio, and go laser tagging. 

I like going to car shows. [My favorite car is a] ‘67 Fastback Mustang. I like fast cars. [Getting my own Mustang] was like a dream come true. I got it for my birthday last year. It used to be one of my friend’s, and my Mom and Dad, I was like, ‘Please go look at it.’ They looked at it and they came home, and they were like, ‘No. No. I didn’t like it.’ I was like; ‘Well I don’t need a car anyway, since I can’t drive all by myself for another six months after I get my permit.’

It was two days before the Fourth of July. My birthday’s on the seventh, and my little brothers came home that night, ‘Brianna, listen! You’re having a surprise birthday party on the fourth.’ I was like, ‘What? Why’d you tell me?” They’re like, ‘You can’t tell Mom that we told you.’ And so I was like, okay. Surprise. Then, the boys were like, ‘Brianna, we got to tell you something else. They got you that Mustang.’ I was like, ‘Why did you tell me that?’ (Laughs) But they told me, [and for] two days, I had to do a big fake thing. When the car pulled up I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ I didn’t tell Mom I knew about it until about a month ago. It’s a regular 2006 Mustang. I hope when I go to college I can get a GT, or something. 

I play volleyball, and I would just love to win a District Championship and a Regional Championship to leave behind a legacy for everyone else to follow. My three best friends, we’re all seniors, and we’ve been together since sixth grade, so I would love to go out with a big bang. Our volleyball team, we’ve never done anything huge, so I’d like to see it happen this year. 

I hope people remember that I love to laugh, and I like other people to laugh. So I hope everybody is like, ‘Oh wow, she was really funny,’ or ‘Oh, she always loved to laugh.’ 

I’ve been to a lot of places. I’ve been to Canada. Last summer we went to Iowa, and I was dreading it. I was like, ‘What is in Iowa?’ It was a thirteen, fourteen hour drive, and then you get to a spot where there’s absolutely nothing, and you start seeing big windmills that you’d seen on TV, and you don’t ever think they’re that huge, and I loved it. We went to Des Moines, and it was absolutely beautiful. It was one of my favorite places I’ve ever been. Flat, but it was gorgeous. Charlotte, North Carolina’s my favorite. [We went to the] NASCAR Hall of Fame. My Mamaw and Grandpa took me to my first NASCAR race in Charlotte, and I think we’ve gone like three times. [My driver is] Jimmy Johnson. (Laughs).

I always love coming back home. I don’t think there’s anything like sleeping in your own bed.”

Preston Lacy

“The connection he had with the earth and with the farm showed me that the land is more than just soil.”

Preston Lacy, Forest Steward Director, Kentucky Natural Lands Trust (KNLT); Shares his time between Pine Mountain, Kentucky, Harlan County and Louisville, Kentucky:

“I grew up in Scott County, just north of Lexington; first generation born outside of the foothills. My family settled in Wolfe County in 1783 on Lacy Creek and farmed sustainably for many years and then, the family bought some land in Scott County and moved out. My grandfather auger mined coal. He lived in Pineville, and then they lived in Jellico for a while. [They] moved around, and then got out of the coal business after one of the busts, and started farming. My great-grandfather bought the farm in Georgetown in the fifties. My dad moved there as an elementary school kid, and that’s where I was born. 

As a kid, we would go to family reunions in Wolfe County near the Hazel Green area, near the New River Gorge. A natural interest in my family’s past was instilled in me, and not in a forceful way. A lot of it came from my grandfather. He wasn’t an emotional person, but you could tell the joy he gained by seeing the foothills driving back on the Mountain Parkway. We would go back every Memorial Day and decorate the graves, go to gravesites all throughout that area of the county that I’d never been to before, and some sites were actually on the old homestead farm. 

I started gaining a real appreciation for this culture that I didn’t grow up with in Scott County, but yet I was so geographically closer than I ever thought. It was in my blood and I started realizing that, not necessarily being able to communicate it as well as a child and adolescent, but [I] started to feel it and understand it much more, which is what has driven my passion to become much more active in the mountains with this position.

I’d [was] maybe eight or nine [when] I started to get a feel for [Appalachian culture] from the trips we would take to Wolfe County, and watching my grandparents [who] I was very close to. I grew up in a rural subdivision north of Georgetown [and] the family farm is about a mile away. I would spend a lot of my time there as I got old enough to be able to help out. As a child, I always thought my grandfather was a very quiet and stern man and I never really connected with him well early on. My grandmother was the nicest person I could ever imagine on earth, and she cared for everybody, no matter what. We lost her when I was twelve or thirteen, and that was a very emotional thing for me, as it is for any child. 

As I continued to see the progression in age of my grandfather and help him out, take him to church every Sunday, and take him to Hazel Green Academy reunions and family reunions, I developed a bond that I never really [had] with him earlier in my life when we just didn’t really talk very much. I had opportunities to have conversations with him as he proceeded to get older that I don’t think he could have had a decade before. He was able to open up a lot more to me one-on-one, even without my dad being involved in the conversation at all.

I think [my grandfather] is somebody that was just so dedicated to what he was doing, no matter what it was. He was doing contract auger mining. I can only imagine back in his younger years he was always doing something that was providing for his family, and that was the most important thing for him. They started out on the old homestead he started out as a kid, and as he aged and started to reflect more, he would talk about having dreams of plowing the field with the horse and the mule down in the bottoms. The connection he had with the earth and with the farm showed me that the land is more than just soil. That was what brought me back to Kentucky after I moved away.

I majored in Natural Resource Conservation Management with a minor in Geography at the University of Kentucky. Then, I went on to the University of Louisville where I got a joint Masters in Masters of Urban Planning with a focus on Environmental Land Use Planning and the other Masters was a Master of Public Administration with a focus on Non-profit Management and Policy. 

I was one of the lucky few that had no time in between my first job and finishing up my last [college] paper. I had two days, and I moved to Illinois and got a job as an Environmental Planner for a small land trust near the St. Louis Metro, but on the Metro East side, an area that is breaking from the glacial till into a rugged area in southern Illinois. I did that for almost three years. Then, I moved about five miles across the river into the heart of St. Louis. I was working for another land trust and had the opportunity to travel a much larger geographical area; the whole Ozark Mountain bioregion. In the Ozarks, I found a closer connection because there was a lot of movement from Central Appalachian families that were moving west to the Ozarks. I started to see and feel that. 

I came back to Kentucky in May 2013. [I came back because] I missed it. I realized that there was nothing like moving away for me, personally. I gained a deeper respect for the state, for the region I grew up in, for the region my family’s from that I didn’t fully appreciate when I lived here, and didn’t see the full potential and the full value of.

Now I work for another land trust [which] is the third land trust I’ve worked for. They are all small non-profits that primarily focus on land conservation and land preservation. I work for Kentucky Natural Lands Trust (KNLT), and our main focus for twenty years now has been protection of land on Pine Mountain. Pine Mountain is a 125-mile long linear ridgeline running from near Jellico, Tennessee, all the way up to the Breaks Interstate Park [which] straddles the Virginia and Kentucky State line. [It is the second highest mountain in Kentucky.] The highest elevation on Pine Mountain is a little over 3300 feet in elevation and of course it goes lower. In Whitley County, it’s 2300 feet. 

Pine Mountain has essentially over one hundred rare species plants and animals. It’s a biodiversity hot spot for the state, particularly for terrestrial, but there are also aquatic species, which are federally listed species. Twenty years ago, the KNLT was called Blanton Forest Trust. It was a group of like-minded environmentalists [and] conservationists that wanted to see this large uncut, old growth forest protected. At the time, it was in private ownership and as I understand, the landowners were in negotiations about selling the property to them. The main issue was raising the funds to be able to do that [and] the organization essentially started as a rally of support to protect this treasure that the state had, that a lot of people hadn’t seen. It is protected now.

After we protected the heart of the old growth forest, the organization decided, ‘we should go ahead and start buying some lands, if they’re available for sale, surrounding that old growth forest to help buffer it, just in case.’ We proceeded to do that, and not long after that the organization said, “why don’t we just work on the whole mountain?’ That’s when the name changed from the Blanton Forest Trust to Kentucky Natural Lands Trust [which] gave it much broader goals even beyond Pine Mountain, to some degree. We have a focus area between Bearhind Forest and Fort Knox as well, but Pine Mountain has and will always be the number one priority for KNLT.

The Indiana bat is listed as endangered and there’s hibernacula, there’s swarming areas and certain areas throughout the mountain range that are very high priority. There are several caves on the north face of Pine Mountain that are habitat for the bats as well. 

There is the one extreme of purely a wildlife corridor, for resiliency to climate change as the climate continues to shift. There is this corridor that will be intact hundreds of years from now, for plants and animals to be able to migrate north/south hundreds of miles. The other side of the coin is the more direct human benefit. For folks in the area, there is a lot of tourism potential that has already started with Blanton Forest, but I think that opportunity will continue to grow over time with the Pine Mountain Trail, which has started on the north end. 

Over forty miles are complete, and the Pine Mountain State Scenic Trail Organization has done a tremendous job of getting that section completed. We’re purchasing land along the ridgeline that will allow that trail to continue on all the way down to Pineville, to The Narrows and on down to Cumberland Gap National Park. [In the] grander scheme, it’s actually a part of a concept called the Grand Eastern Trail, which is going to run all the way to Alabama, connect up to the trail system in Florida, and all the way to the finger lakes of New York, so it will rival the Appalachian Trail. It will tie into Pine Mountain, and will provide some good options for diversifying the economy for some of the communities along the base of the mountain.

[Trail volunteers] meet on a monthly basis and continue to update maps, update markings, build shelters, and provide opportunities for people to use the trail fully [and] fully benefit from it. There are parts [of the trail] that are open for horseback riding, there are parts that I hiked on that are used by ATVs as well, and [parts of it you can put your automobile on]. 

I feel a very deep connection between [the Appalachian] people and the culture. It’s hard for me to really put it in words because I am still trying to figure it out. There’s something that I see in the culture as I experience it more in depth now than I ever have in the past. No more just going on a day trip or an overnight trip, but actually spending days and weeks at a time immersed in the culture. It’s something that I feel like would have been really great to have been a part of as a kid. I had a great childhood, but there is some level of community that I lacked. Luckily, I had my grandparents and the farm nearby that [gave me] bit of a taste of it. That was my connection.

I was always sensitive to [stereotyping] before, and I became even more sensitive to it after moving away. I feel like after moving away, when you do hear stereotypes, it’s focused on the entire state of Kentucky. It’s just fascinating, people’s stereotypes; fascinating in a very negative way, of course. I think it might be part of the reason why a lot of Kentuckians who move away might be moving back. It’s very confusing to have to hear those kinds of things and not really know why. When I moved back and got this job and started spending more time in the mountains it also intensified my sensitivity to that not only as a statewide perspective, but also for the culture for the mountains.

I feel like it’s human nature to point the finger and find a way to degrade somebody and as it becomes less and less politically correct to do so for other cultures or people with other colors of their skin. People will find a group of folks that they still feel comfortable doing that with. I don’t know when the cultural shift will actually occur for that to change, [but] my biggest fear is when that does happen, who does it narrow in on next? There will always be somebody else. That might just be one of the worst parts of human nature.

(It’s Good 2 Be Young In The Mountains Conference) It’s the first time I’ve seen an event like this, and to have it here in Harlan is really a powerful thing. Culturally, Harlan, in my opinion, is a hotbed of uniqueness and a hot bed of a lot of empowerment for our generation. 

After seeing the West End Poetry Opera from West Louisville [perform], that really hit the heart of something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I am so glad that group was able to come and be at this event, because there are so many overlapping commonalities between urban black youth and rural white youth in Appalachia. It transects the urban rural divide, which a lot of things don’t, at least in pop culture. It transects the color of your skin, and it shows at a human level how similar we really are. To see that connection, and to see the positive involvement of the audience the entire time was a very moving and powerful thing to see.

(What will be your legacy? Just to do some good stuff for the environment, and ideally, have some positive impact on social change at some level. At whatever small level I can do, if there is some positive outcome from my time on earth, then I have done something good. Even if it’s not something that’s ever shown on TV or in the newspapers, that’s just fine with me.”

Rhonda Kretzer

“Don’t ever look down on anybody, because everybody’s been through something.”

Rhonda Kretzer, Artist, Disabled; Xenia, Ohio, Originally From Ashland, Kentucky (Photo & Interview By Jennifer Molley Wilson):

“I grew up in Ashland, West Wood, Kentucky, and I went to Fairview High School. I lived in Kentucky thirty-three years. I’ve lived in Ohio for twenty-three years. [Due to] my husband’s job, we had to move, and it was a heart-breaking move, but it’s not so far, so I can come back. He works for a company that runs malls.

I was a wild child. I loved playing in the woods, climbing trees. I was a quiet kid, believe it or not, and I wrote stories and poems when I was a kid. Everything was a story and a fantasy for me. I was terrible in school. I never paid attention. (Laughs) 

I’m an only child. I was raised in a big house, and with the only child imagination, it was part of my little stories. I had three [imaginary friends. (Laughs) Their names [were] Keenrus, Konrus, and Konkees. I could see them, and they were redheaded little girls with little pigtails. I didn’t even know any redheaded kids at that age, but they had to be included in everything. I always would get up when I’d hear Dad get up to leave for work, and I’d say, ‘But you got to kiss…,’ and I would go through [all the names] and Dad would have to kiss my imaginary friends, and he was looking at my Mom, and going, ‘This kid needs help.’ They did everything with me. When I was a little bit older, I didn’t see them anymore, but I wrote a story of my three imaginary friends, and it was actually horror. They were never scary when I was little. 

My Mom stayed at home. Dad was self-employed, and she kept the books. She had a little office in the house, and I would have a lot of just me time in that big house. [Dad] did everything, and I think I’m like him. I’m more into the arts part, but Dad was a jack-of-all-trades, and he was a master of each one, which I haven’t made that part yet. He did cleaning services, and he had a cleaning supply store, and he was also a heavy equipment operator. He got tired of the public, and he went back in his later years to heavy equipment, and then he retired. He passed away at fifty-seven, right after he retired, so we didn’t get to see what all else he had in mind. 

One of my great aunts loved photography. I never got to know her, but she took most of the photos that we still have. My grandmother wasn’t as much into preserving the past, but my Mom and me, we loved where we came from [and] we wanted to hold on to these people. Mamaw said, ‘Do you want this tin of pictures? If you don’t, I’m just going to throw them out.’ Mom and me took them [and] framed them. My great uncle had these two old family Bibles, and [we] had no knowledge of them. I looked in them, and [our family history] went all the way back to 1700. I have them in a cedar box.

We’re Scots-Irish, and my Mom’s great grandfather on her dad’s side was from Northern Ireland, and we’ve always had a bond to our ancestry. He came over here with his brother. I think it was the Lady Washington he sailed on to come over here, and was up in Elliot County, Kentucky. That’s where my Mom’s dad was raised, and then Mom and Dad, when they decided, ‘We’ve had enough of city life,’ [and] they packed up and moved [back] to Elliott County, close to where her own dad was raised.

From the dates, I figure the potato famine had a whole lot to do [with ancestors coming to America]. His [great-great-grandfather’s] name was Caldwell. His wife was English. She came over through the Civil War and she was in Virginia. She said, ‘if the south looks like they’re going to win, I’ll just keep pushing north.’ She traveled at nighttime, alone, on horseback. With the Civil War and Morgan’s Raiders, and all this going on, she traveled at night, through all those canyons, and all that stuff to Elliott County. That’s a strong woman! Apparently, she was some kind of a sympathizer because an Englishman married a Northern Irishman, and it’s wonderful that we have that [information].

My Mom’s mother was my best friend. We did everything. There was an old house in Greenup County. It was a Civil War era home, but it had been abandoned, and it was running down. Well, they had the best pear trees that were still living and produced fruit. Nobody ever said anything if they’d see you over there. We’d just park the car and go through the gate, and we’d pick pears and walnuts, and we’d just have the best time. 

We were down there, and we took my grandmother’s cousin and one of her friends to go show them this place. There’s still an old piano in there, just what people hadn’t stolen or destroyed. My cousin and me went upstairs. I was showing her up there, and all of a sudden, you could hear this piano plinking away. We always called my cousin, Sis, and she grabs me by the arm, and [hollers downstairs} Dophie, (everybody called Mamaw, Dophie) is that you? That better be you!’ She blasted down that hall [and] Mamaw’s friend had already ran to the car. She was gone. Mamaw was down there dying laughing. We got into everything. She was a very fun woman, but she was raised in a rough life, worked hard, and so when we had our times out, we made the best of it.

She loved to crack walnuts. She had a big table outside, and she’d dry then. I’d go over and help her bust them open, and she’d pick them clean. She’d either give bags away, or she would bake something with them, and oh, I hated walnuts. I couldn’t stand the smell of them, but she loved doing that, and I would always help her. 

Colonel Sanders has nothing on her fried chicken. Her fried chicken was my favorite thing in the world. I never learned her secret. She said, ‘I fix it just like everybody else.’ I was pregnant, and I didn’t know it yet, and I felt so bad. I was at work, I used to work at a print shop, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to have to go home. I’m not feeling good. Then I started thinking, ‘I want Mamaw’s fried chicken.’ I said, ‘Mamaw, are you frying chicken, by any chance?’ She said, ‘Well, I am now. I’ll have it ready for you.’ She could fry it so fast. I went over there, and she had chicken, biscuits and gravy. That tasted like pure heaven to me. I felt a hundred percent better. 

When she was in the nursing home I would sit with her all night, and we’d just talk. We were watching Animal Planet, of all things. It was about elephants, and she had tears in her eyes. She said, ‘you know, watching them big animals, they’re so human, but a little better.’ She was an awesome woman, and her mother was, too. My mother’s a strong woman. She didn’t have anything when Dad passed away, and she pulled up, built her own house, and she’s still going on all on her own. If something happens and I’m left in the world alone, I hope I can carry on like that.

[Lessons learned from Mamaw] I think embracing everybody; don’t ever look down on anybody because everybody’s been through something. I learn that more and more, and I could remember how she treated people so good, and knowing what she had been through in her life, and she was so good to people. She said, ‘It don’t matter. There’s no color or nothing to people. People are people.’ 

(Appalachian culture) I believe in Appalachia there’s spirits. They’re always there, and it’s us. I’ve lived in Ohio for almost twenty-five years, and I’m still me, I’m still Appalachia. I can live fine there, but that’s not me. (Laughs) This is. As soon as I’m driving down through Ohio, and I start seeing the hills forming, and then they get higher, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m almost home.’

Appalachia is very creative. [Again] it’s that spirit in these hills, and I think that’s where all of our inspiration comes from. When I first moved to Ohio I couldn’t even think of art. I’m like, ‘I can’t do anything in this flat place. There’s no landscape. There’s nothing here.’ It took me a while to get used to it. I would look at old pictures I had taken, and I’d think, ‘Just bring it with you, Rhonda. It’s in your soul. It’s like God. It’s not a thing, it’s you.’ That’s how I did it, and I went right back to being an artist. 

I have had a firsthand encounter [with stereotyping]. My daughter’s twenty-six now so it’s been a lot of years ago. She was in school, and out of the University of Cincinnati, one of their editors wrote an article in the newspaper about Appalachian children that’s uprooted into Ohio, and how their grades fell, or [were] not as up on things because they do the 23 southbound travel every weekend, and it takes away from their study time. 

I fired off a letter to him. I said, ‘Sir, I do not know what Appalachian children you are speaking of, but this is my Appalachian daughter. She’s on the honor roll. She’s very intelligent, and she even has an award signed by President Bush for her achievements. We make that 23 south trip, sir.’ 

I live in Ohio, and I get talked down to because I still have my accent, thick as all get-out. They all talk down to me like I may not understand. I’ve met so many very old ladies that are bitter against their husbands that have passed away. [They] went up there [Ohio] to work, and they got stuck. They say, ‘I just want to go home.’ 

The hardest thing [I’ve ever gone through] was within six months time, my husband lost his oldest sister. She’d been very ill forever. She passed away, and then I lost my best friend, my grandmother, in October. In November, we found out my husband’s second oldest sister had inoperable lung cancer, and right after that, my grandfather had a stroke and fell. He was ninety-six years old. We’re getting around to February, and my grandfather is taking his last breaths, and it was just me and Mom, and the pastor standing there. I get a phone call, and I thought, ‘I have to take this.’ I went outside, and I answered it. It was my husband. My sister-in-law and my grandpa died the same morning. I think I kind of broke down. All I remember was nurses. I got home, and that’s when I started being pretty sick myself, and I got a phone call again. My cousin’s husband dropped dead of a massive heart attack at fifty-two years old, at the breakfast table. That was a lot to get through. 

I didn’t grieve my grandmother because I said, ‘If I grieve, I will hold part of her here, and it’s time for her to fly.’ She said, ‘ I know where I’m going,’ and she couldn’t wait. She was a very spiritual woman, and sometimes so spiritual it was scary. It was like she had this big connection from somewhere.

I’ve been disabled for a long time. It’s a lot of arthritis, a lot of wear and tear, and then I was diagnosed with lung problems and a heart condition. It runs in my Dad’s family. He passed at fifty-seven, his brother passed at fifty-seven, and his sister passed at fifty-seven. Mom always told me, ‘don’t think about anything, when you turn fifty-seven. Put that out of your head.’ You can’t help but think of that. 

Obviously, it wasn’t the same year, but they were all fifty-seven, and it gets weirder. It was the very same day, May 24, all three of them. My Dad’s baby sister, which was the last to go, she was fifty-seven, May 24, and she died in a really bad car accident, but the brothers died of heart problems. We say we’re not superstitious, but I think it’s that Celtic root thing. It’s very creepy. 

My daughter being born [was my most triumphant time]. I had a C-section with her, and when they pulled her out, she had the prettiest little red curl on the back of her little head. I said, ‘Oh, that’s my little Irish baby.’ Her name is Katherine Elizabeth. We gave her a big, queenly name. I said, “’She will be another strong person out of this family,’ and she is. 

I’ve lived a colorful life, but what I’m grateful for is I was raised knowing the richest of the rich, and the poorest of the poor, and there’s no difference, as long as you’re a human being. I’m very grateful for that kind of upbringing.

I want [people] to remember me as just a good, friendly person. Somebody they could come to if they needed a friend. I’ve learned a lot of lessons in life, and I’ve been through a lot. It made me stronger.”

Brittany Boggs

“There may have been times in my life that I fell, but I always got back up. I always kept fighting and I always tried to do right and raise my babies the best way that I could.” 

Brittany Boggs, Registered Nurse; Cumberland, Kentucky, Harlan County:

“There’s nothing like [growing up in the mountains]. We stayed outside. We might have crammed a bowl of Fruity Pebbles down our throats, and then out the door we went. We were in the mountains, the creeks from daylight until dark. That was life. We shot BB guns, we fished, we went hunting, and we tried to hunt our own animals with our own weapons. I’ve got a twin brother [Brandon], so I was one of the boys. If I had friends over, we would be hog tied and left beside the road. And then their mom or dad would pull up and we’re lying beside the road hog tied and they’re like, ‘Okay, I don’t know if you’re coming back here or not!’ [Hog tying] is where he’d lay us on our stomachs and tie our legs to our hands behind our backs.

[On growing up as a twin] I was never bored. To this day, he’s my best friend. We would pretty much beat the crap out of each other, but if you let somebody else mess with us, they was going to get double. 

We loved the go-kart, except I had really long hair down to my butt and if I went real fast and wore my hair down and hit the brake, it would slap my head backwards and my hair would get stuck in the brakes. That wasn’t cool. Mom would get mad, have to cut some hair off.

I have the most wonderful parents ever. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t make it. I’m your typical coal miner’s daughter. My dad, he’s a pretty smart guy. He helps take care of us. My mom, she’s my babysitter, she’s my go to for advice. He [father] works in mining engineering. He worked underground when I was younger. My mom, she’s had some jobs as we were growing up, but she was pretty much the homemaker. She kept the house up, fed us, helped us with our homework and now she does the same thing for my children when I work. 

[After high school] I went to college. I knew right out of high school I wanted to be a nurse, so I got my basics over with and went straight through the program. I knew I wanted to be a nurse whenever I was in second grade. I loved to take care of people. There’s nothing like it. 

I've been a nurse at a local hospital for seven and a half years. The most rewarding part is saving lives and working to help my community; the most heart breaking is death and abuse. The most memorable is smiles on peoples faces and thank you's.

[My] happiest times? Well I can think of three right off! Of course, that was the birth of my babies.

My kids are all three very intelligent [kids] but they’re very different. You have to tell them plain out what you want them to do because in their little minds, if I say ‘get this stuff out of the floor now,’ you would expect most kids to go put it where it’s supposed to go. They hang it from the ceiling fans, from the windows; it’s out of the floor so they’re good. They did exactly what I told them to. 

Kaden, he’s my boy, he’s the oldest. He’s very intelligent [and] very hyper. Sometimes, I make him run around the house just to burn energy off—he’ll jump up and down and say ‘how many times, mom? How many times?’ He’s a perfectionist, so his nickname is Little Dennis [after my father]. And little Angel, my middle one, who is going to be eight soon, she’s my sweet child. Dad always said, ‘don’t you name that baby Angel. She’s going to spend her whole life proving to you why she ain’t one.’ So far, she’s not done that so we’re good. But she’s carefree, she’s laid back, she don’t care what’s going on, she don’t care who’s around, she just does her own thing. Lexi, she’s my terror. She’s just like her momma. She’s four. She puts that hand on her hip and tells you how it is. The other day, we were outside and it seems like bugs attack her, and her request for the day was a flea collar. She wanted a flea collar, an orange one, she picked the color out. I said, ‘why?’ and she said, ‘to keep these dang bugs off of me when we’re outside!’ Okay, that makes sense, I guess, for a four year old!

Whenever my husband and me separated, I had a five year old, a four year old and a 13 month old. [I was a] single mother [with a] full time job, so I was overwhelmed. When I started potty training my youngest baby, she was around two at the time and you never know what my kids are going to do or say, they don't care who they’re in front of. If the good Lord above was standing here, they’d tell him exactly what they thought. Angel came running and she said, ‘mommy, Lexi’s on the potty and she’s crying.’ I said, ‘why is she crying?’ She said, ‘I don’t know, come here.’ I go in there and I’m like, ‘Lexi, what’s wrong?’ And big crocodile tears was coming out of her eyes, she says ‘I’ve got a hole in my butt!’ I said, ‘yeah….’ and she said, ‘well I didn’t know, nobody never told me I had a hole in my butt!’ I said, ‘Lexi we all have holes in our butt. That’s how we go to the bathroom.’ She said ‘well you should have told me before now!’ 

Kaden decided he wanted to play Pee-wee Football last year. He brings his equipment in and it has these snaps in the pants and you can snap the pads to it, that’s how they kept it all together. I’m sitting there praying that dad comes home from work, because I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’d pretty much figured the pads out where there’s this strap. I said, ‘well the only thing I can think of with this is that your bird goes in it, son!’ He said, ‘how?’ I said ‘well it’s buckled to these pants so I’m assuming we are going to have to buckle it, I don’t know which way to buckle it, but we’ll try it.’ I tried every way in the world. It didn’t work. He said, ‘mom, I know what this is.’ I said, ‘what is it?’ He said, ‘it’s a chin strap!’ Well, he was 20 minutes late for his first football practice. They said ‘where have you been?’ I said ‘this thing should come with instructions, you don’t know where I tried to put this chin strap!’ 

[Difficult time in life, outside of work] The most difficult time for me was probably, of course, loss of family. I lost my grandma and grandpa when I was in high school, and I was really, really close to them. I called them gran-gran and peepaw. I could call peepaw right up and say ‘dad’s going to kill me when he gets home, I need you to come here and smooth things over.’ And he would do it. I remember one particular day it was homecoming day. The parade was about to start, and I rear-ended a car. I thought he’s [father] going to kill me, he’s going to kill me dead.’ I called papaw and I said, ‘I’ve hit a car.’ He said, ‘Oh are you ok?’ I said, ‘I’m fine, but I won’t be when dad gets home.’ Well honey, I want you to know papaw was waiting in the driveway when Dennis pulled up. 

My grandparents, [were] Mack and Jean. They were amazing people. The first job I applied for was at Lonesome Pine in Virginia. I walked in the room, and the Director of Nursing said, ‘oh my God, you’re Jean Wilson’s granddaughter!’ just by looking at me. My interview was pretty much her telling me stories about granny and papaw and she said ‘when can you start?’ at the end. I was like ‘yes! I didn’t know it was going to be that easy!’ They played a big part of our community. 

They took us to the park, they taught us about keeping things clean, that one day we would have children that would want to use the park. They taught us it was important to make something out of ourselves. They taught me that it was important to be independent. 

My twin brother was mean when we were little, but then I outgrew him for a while and I paid him back. We were at the park one day, and we were with granny and he kept coming down the slide and kicking me in the back. He wouldn’t let me get off the slide. She said, ‘if you do that one more time I’m going to spank your butt.’ Well, granny spanking was just a pat. She gave him his little pat and we went back to her house, and the next thing I know, there was a cop knocking on the door. Brandon called the police on her for spanking his butt! It was a woman cop who come to the door and asked if everything was ok. Of course, granny didn’t say much, but when old daddy got there he got a real spanking! It was more than a pat.

My other grandfather passed away when I was about five, but I can remember a couple things about him. Like I said, my brother was mean when we were little. He and my cousins would always be doing this stuff and I was the good kid back then and I would sit there and be like, ‘you’re not supposed to be doing that. One day, they were jumping off the chair arm. Two of them would get under the cover, and the other would jump off the chair arm and smack them, just dive right on top of them. I said, ‘y’all are going to break something.’ They'd call me chicken, and call me names and then I’d end up getting up there. Well, here come my Papaw Glenn. I was always the one that got caught. They would do it 30 times, and I would try it once and I was busted. 

My Granny Grace, she’s one of the strongest women I’ve ever met in my life. My mom says I’m just like her. That makes me proud, because she’s a tough lady. She has suffered so much loss in her life; I don’t know how she keeps going. She lost her husband to throat cancer, and then she lost her son and daughter both in less than a year. She’s 75 years old, and weed-eats, mows the grass, has a big old garden. She’s granny to everybody. 

Another thing that was tough was [the] divorce. My ex-husband was a coal miner, he’s a fire boss in the mines, and I’m a registered nurse, so of course we had good income. The change from him being gone and all of the bills placed on me and having a five year old and a four year old and a 13 month old, there was times I felt like giving up. My babies’ little smiles on their faces; they kept me going. I made mistakes and I learned along the way, though. 

We are [tough in a sweet way]. Mountains make us tough. We were raised that way. A lot of people can’t handle it. I think God put special people here in these mountains. I believe another thing here is we work together. Not just the family, but the community. Everybody pitches in, and we’re taught at young ages to work. We’re in the gardens hoeing and digging potatoes when we’re five years old. 

My bear kit [is] in the door of my car. [It] consists of some firecrackers and some matches. I have my bear kit because I have a bear, which we’ve named Yogi, he’s eased up now since we got the dog, he used to come every morning and he’d sit right there and look at us. I don’t care where I put [the garbage], I tried to put it on the porch one day and Yogi climbed the porch and tore everything down and got in the garbage. One day, me and my youngest daughter and my son were standing on the porch, and Angel and them went to the car. We were going to school, and she was in the car and she jumps out. Well I locked the door, and I turned around and Yogi was standing right there. He’s in between Angel and me. She’s clueless he’s even there. I started screaming, oh my goodness, I screamed, screamed screamed. He took off around the swimming pool and actually ran through the kids’ trampoline. One time, I pulled up from work and he was in the pool getting him a drink of water. 

We used to have [a dog and] her name was Drill Bit; she was kind of ditzy. She got her name because my dad was up here fixing my steps and he talked about how that was the dumbest dog he’d ever seen. ‘Why do you have such a stupid dog?’ He dropped a drill bit down in between the steps and that dog went down underneath the porch and got it out and brought it to him. So therefore, her name was Drill Bit. 

We got all kinds of critters. We got a turkey right now, her name is Missy. We’ve got two ducks, Quacky and Splashy. We got a couple of hens [and roosters]. Our hens don’t have names, they’re just hens. We got a rabbit named Big Foot. 

[On dad playing practical jokes] Oh my goodness. He’s the master, he’s the king. It was April Fools, and I’d tried to get him. Telling him I got pregnant was getting pretty old, he started believing it after three kids in five years. So, a couple years ago I snuck down to his office and I made me a big old sign that said ‘honk if you love fat bottomed girls.’ I wrote it in big letters and I taped it to the back of his car. I didn’t tell my brother about it because he works with him. I didn’t say anything, but I did take a picture of it and put it on Facebook. I didn’t think anything of it, I forgot about it. I call mom and I’m like, ‘where’s dad?’ Well, he went to meet his boss up on the strip road. I said, ‘oh god,’ she said ‘why?’ and I said ‘well the back of his car says ‘honk if you love fat bottomed girls,’ and he’s going to meet the main guy of the mines! He called me laughing and I was worried because I thought he might get mad over this one. He is a prankster. 

I love the mountains. It’s home. They're beautiful. This is where I was born and raised. You go to the cities, and they automatically know that I’m from Kentucky. I really don’t have any neighbors up here, but just for instance, at mom and dad’s house, they go out of town, they don’t have to worry about their house. When they come back their neighbors can tell them everybody who knocked on the door, get their mail for them without being asked. If there’s a death in the family, you know, people come and help you clean your house [and bring food so] you have enough food to live a month off of. 

(On the economy) It breaks my heart, and I think a big part of it is coalmines. This part of the country survives by coalmines, and when the mines close down that takes miners’ jobs away. They can’t afford to go to the small businesses, they can’t afford to live here, they have to move away to find more jobs. It scares me. I’m almost afraid it’s so far gone there’s nothing that’ll be done. I would want to see more things for kids to do. There’s a drug problem here. There’s drug problems all over the world, but we’re such a small community that I guess people look at it more, they focus on it more because it affects so many people. 

I want people to remember that there may have been times in my life that I fell, but I always got back up. I always kept fighting and I always tried to do right and raise my babies the best way that I could. I’m not a quitter, and I don’t want to give up, ever.”