Wilma Dykeman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469629148
- eISBN:
- 9781469629162
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629148.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Family History
Discovered as a typewritten manuscript only after her death in 2006, Family of Earth allows us to see into the young mind of author and Appalachian native Wilma Dykeman (1920–2006), who would become ...
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Discovered as a typewritten manuscript only after her death in 2006, Family of Earth allows us to see into the young mind of author and Appalachian native Wilma Dykeman (1920–2006), who would become one of the American South’s most prolific and storied writers. Focusing on her childhood in Buncombe County, Dykeman reveals a perceptive and sophisticated understanding of human nature, the environment, and social justice. And yet, for her words’ remarkable polish, her voice still resonates as raw and vital. Against the backdrop of early twentieth-century life in Asheville, she chronicles the touching, at times harrowing, story of her family’s fortunes, plotting their rise and fall in uncertain economic times and ending with her father’s sudden death in 1934 when she was fourteen years old.Less
Discovered as a typewritten manuscript only after her death in 2006, Family of Earth allows us to see into the young mind of author and Appalachian native Wilma Dykeman (1920–2006), who would become one of the American South’s most prolific and storied writers. Focusing on her childhood in Buncombe County, Dykeman reveals a perceptive and sophisticated understanding of human nature, the environment, and social justice. And yet, for her words’ remarkable polish, her voice still resonates as raw and vital. Against the backdrop of early twentieth-century life in Asheville, she chronicles the touching, at times harrowing, story of her family’s fortunes, plotting their rise and fall in uncertain economic times and ending with her father’s sudden death in 1934 when she was fourteen years old.
Lisa Yarger
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469630052
- eISBN:
- 9781469630076
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469630052.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Family History
From 1950 until 2001, nurse-midwife Lovie Beard Shelton worked in eastern North Carolina homes, delivering some 4,000 babies to black, white, Mennonite, and hippie women, to those too poor to afford ...
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From 1950 until 2001, nurse-midwife Lovie Beard Shelton worked in eastern North Carolina homes, delivering some 4,000 babies to black, white, Mennonite, and hippie women, to those too poor to afford a hospital birth, and to a few rich enough to have any kind of delivery they pleased. Her life, which was about giving life, was conspicuously marked by loss, including the untimely death of her husband and the murder of her son. Lovie is a provocative chronicle of Shelton’s life and work, which spanned enormous changes in midwifery and in the ways women give birth. In this exploration of documentary fieldwork, Lisa Yarger confronts the choices involved in producing an authentic portrait of a woman who is at once loner and self-styled folk hero. Fully embracing the difficulties of telling a true story, Yarger gets at the story of telling the story. Woven throughout the book is an account of the relationship between Lovie and Yarger as they attempt to bridge the dramatically separate worlds they inhabit. As Lovie describes her calling, the reader meets a woman who sees herself working in partnership with God and who must grapple with the question of what happens when a woman who has devoted her life to service ages out of usefulness: when I'm no longer a midwife, who am I? Facing retirement and a host of health issues, Lovie attempts to fit together the jagged pieces of her life as she prepares for one final home birth.Less
From 1950 until 2001, nurse-midwife Lovie Beard Shelton worked in eastern North Carolina homes, delivering some 4,000 babies to black, white, Mennonite, and hippie women, to those too poor to afford a hospital birth, and to a few rich enough to have any kind of delivery they pleased. Her life, which was about giving life, was conspicuously marked by loss, including the untimely death of her husband and the murder of her son. Lovie is a provocative chronicle of Shelton’s life and work, which spanned enormous changes in midwifery and in the ways women give birth. In this exploration of documentary fieldwork, Lisa Yarger confronts the choices involved in producing an authentic portrait of a woman who is at once loner and self-styled folk hero. Fully embracing the difficulties of telling a true story, Yarger gets at the story of telling the story. Woven throughout the book is an account of the relationship between Lovie and Yarger as they attempt to bridge the dramatically separate worlds they inhabit. As Lovie describes her calling, the reader meets a woman who sees herself working in partnership with God and who must grapple with the question of what happens when a woman who has devoted her life to service ages out of usefulness: when I'm no longer a midwife, who am I? Facing retirement and a host of health issues, Lovie attempts to fit together the jagged pieces of her life as she prepares for one final home birth.
