My Appalachian Grandmother

My father’s death in 1992 set off a chain reaction of events. My mother suddenly became a widow at 54. She found herself with time on her hands and often convinced her mother — my Grandmother Ona Jarrard Jarriel — to spend a few days with her in our family home in Bonaire.

I dealt with Daddy’s death differently. I dove into genealogy and tracing both sides of my family tree to stay connected to him and his people. I spent a lot of weekends at Macon’s Washington Library, combing through old books and reels of microfiche containing census records and other documents beneficial to a family researcher with roots in Georgia.

I’d work at the Air Force Base in Warner Robins during the day, then stop by and spend a couple hours with Mom and Grandmother before heading home to make dinner. I knew and loved my grandmother before my father’s death, but I didn’t really know her until that time. I was in my 20s — sitting beside her on a loveseat and hurling question aer question her way and listening to her answer them with a dialect and accent slightly different than my other Southeast Georgia relatives. She was born in 1901 in Dahlonega, Georgia — Gold City — and often talked about her days growing up in the Northeast Georgia mountains. Her father, Cicero Jason Jarrard, had been a teacher and a rural mail carrier who delivered mail from a motorcycle with a sidecar that carried his letter bag. Her mother, Mary Adelaine Cain, once ran a candy shop in the town square. My grandmother's grandmother, Lucinda Smith (they called her Lou Sidney), had died of appendicitis a few years before my grandmother’s birth.

“The doctor tried to save her by performing emergency surgery on the dining room table, but she died there,” Grandmother remembered. “And then, Granddaddy [Presley Willis “Wid” Jarrard] married Lou Sidney’s sister, Pauline. They called her Plyner.”

According to Grandmother and the census records I found, my people had been in Northeast Georgia mountains for at least three generations before my grandmother was born. There were Jarrards, Cains, Smiths, Turners, Jones, and Nixes — and even a few moonshiners — in Grandmother’s line.

Grandmother Jarriel pulled out old stories from her memory bank, dusted them off and served them to me. She remembered the day a neighbor, William Fry, shot himself in the woods near her family’s home on Park Street. She told me about sneaking out of the house with her sisters and attending a Pentecostal tent revival and watching “holy rollers” speaking in tongues and rolling around on the ground in a frenzied state of “the spirit.” She shared that her sister, Inez, dated and eventually married a young man who ran alcohol in the days of Prohibition, and how that brought great shame to the family.

“It was like having a drug dealer in the family back then,” she said.

I soaked up her stories like a sponge, taking notes and asking lots of follow up questions. I particularly loved stories she recalled hearing about the Civil War, and she often talked of taking a horse-drawn surrey (kind of a wagon and kind of a carriage) to her grandparents’ house in the mountains during the holidays. I can’t remember if the house was in Porter Springs or Suches in Lumpkin County, but it was up there in the hills.“ It was cold in December, and we’d heat a big stone in the fireplace, and then we’d wrap it up and put it in the wagon to help keep us warm on the trip,” she said. continued from page

My imagination would explode with visions of what life was like before automobiles, electricity, and other modern conveniences. The stories of her family had been passed down to her from her people — folks who were smart, capable and had helped settle the wild hills of Appalachia. I hung on her every word.

Fast forward to last month.

I interviewed Todd Faircloth, the Executive Director of the Foxfire Village Museum and Mercantile in Mountain City, Georgia, a few miles north of Dahlonega. Todd is a keeper of a time capsule, of sorts — an outdoor village situated on eight wooded acres with over 20 historic log buildings filled with artifacts capturing the daily lives of North Georgia mountain people from 1820 to present day. Foxfire is committed to preserving the soul of the mountains and offering up the stories and wisdom of yesteryear to the many visitors who wander through.

I enjoyed talking to Todd.

“There’s magic up here,” he told me. “If you close your eyes and stand here for a minute, you can almost see the people who settled in Southern Appalachia all those years ago — people with grit and ingenuity.”

“My mom’s mother grew up in that area,” I proudly told him that day.

“Well then, you under- stand this place. You have Appalachian roots.” And that’s when it hit me. I had never thought of myself having Appalachian roots until Todd made the connection for me. One- quarter of my DNA was transferred to me through my grandmother, which makes me one-quarter Ap palachian.

"Yes, I suppose I do," I finally uttered. Thoughts flooded my mind — my affinity for antiques and my desire to learn to cook perfect cornbread, crochet rugs from rags, grow gardens, preserve food, and make things like butter, soap and wine when I could easily go to a grocery store and buy them. I suddenly realized why I am drawn to the mountains and music by Gillian Welch, a singer/ songwriter who performs Appalachian-style music, and why folk remedies and moonshine intrigue me so.

Why have I never made the connection before?

My Grandmother Ona Jarrard Jarriel — smart, tough as nails and a kind, loving force in my life — was a mountain woman who relocated from Lumpkin County to Tattnall County to teach school in 1918, and through her, I am one-quarter Appa lachian. Twenty-five percent! That’s a lot! And so today and every day for the rest of my life, I will celebrate my deep Appalachian roots. I will wear that heritage with pride — a realization that has deepened my connection to the strength and resilience of my grandmother’s legacy and made me even prouder of who I am. One-quarter Appala chian!