Close to the Land

This week the nation of Israel commemorated 72 years of independence.  They declared their independence on May 14, 1948 according to our 12-month Gregorian calendar; however Israel schedules on the 13-month Hebrew calendar.

So maybe you’re thinking, Israel is a long, long way from Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau and what would a mountain girl know about it anyway.  Well, you’re right of course, but I’ve got friends – and more importantly, I’ve got a Bible.

Really, I’ve been thinking about land and I’ve praised the Lord repeatedly over the last few weeks of quarantine that we are on a little spot where my kids can run and play and not bump into neighbors, where we can put out a garden and spend our evenings sitting on the porch.

At the same time, I’ve been researching and plotting out my next book.  Anytime you write historical fiction set on the mountain, the land is really at the center of it, isn’t it?  And in one sense, that’s true of both the Bible and Israel’s modern history.

Just as a recap – and y’uns know this better than me, I’m sure – Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees because he was called to a land he did not know.  God promised to make him the father of many nations and promised a vast home-land.  All of these stories are preserved for us for lots of reasons, the chiefest of which is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as our savior, and our pathway to our eternal home in Heaven. (If, in fact, you did not know any of that, please comment below and I or one of my far more intelligent readers would be thrilled to explain in much greater detail!)

These people were looking for the land, they were dreaming of a home of their own – you didn’t think that was just the American dream, did you?  Enslaved, embattled, led astray from the Father who had given the promises, the Children of Israel suffered and searched throughout the centuries.  They occupied the Promised Land, then lost it.  Finally, after The Holocaust, when so many of God’s chosen people had been massacred and their homes destroyed, after they’d seen their Gentile neighbors turn their backs on them as they suffered, the world knew we must return to this people their homeland, and the modern nation of Israel was established.

Israel today has big cities with skyscrapers and traffic.  They have a little over 1,000 people per square mile compared to Tennessee’s 159 and Texas’ 105 people per square mile.  Still, they are farming over 1 million acres.  By contrast, ancient Israel was an agrarian society.  Sure, they had their walled cities which were necessary for defense in those days, and there were tradesmen who dealt in silver, cloth and pottery.  However, the vast majority of the people worked in some form of agriculture, including fishing.  They really needed the land.

 In fact, if you remember back in the early days in Egypt, when Joseph’s father and brothers first moved to Egypt, “Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land” (Genesis 47:22). 

Of course, people around the world see value in land, and I hope we are patriotic Americans and appreciate the blood that was spilled to establish and protect our country.  My friend Allen Lord has spent a lifetime studying, loving and working among the Jewish people and he summed up the country’s persepective so well, “Probably no other people in the world can truly appreciate the value of a 'Homeland' like the Israelis. The Jewish people are aware of the many times, throughout history, that God uprooted them from the 'Promised Land' because of sin. For almost 2000 years, since their dispersion in 70 AD, Jews have wandered throughout the world, exiled from the 'Land of Promise'. However on May 14, 1948, God began to fulfill the promise that He made to Jeremiah concerning the regathering of His people to Israel in Jeremiah 32:37 when He said; 'Behold, I will gather them out of all countries whither I have driven them in mine anger and in my fury, and I will bring them again into this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely.”

Allen and his wife, Hagit, sent me a video she took from her window of the beginning of the Independence Celebration.  Sirens sounded for one full minute and everyone stood at attention – even drivers stopped their cars and stood in the middle of the roadway. It moved me to tears.

We’ll talk a little more about the land in the coming weeks, and maybe you’ll remember these blogs when you read Lottie’s Letters in a few months.

A Good Place for Green Beans

It’s spring and I’m wanting to plant things, loving seeing the green trees and getting ambitious.  This often happens to me in the spring and I sometimes bite off more than I can chew.

We’ve been working hard to clean up a field we let get to close to overgrown and now with some dead trees down and scrub brush cut back, I suggested to my husband, “We could do something with this.  Why, we could grow a crop of green beans here!”

Of course for a girl raised in the bean field, that’s the first thing that comes to mind, isn’t it?  Well, it reminded me of a 4 part blog series I wrote way back in 2013 and I wanted to share that with you this week.  Below is the first part and at the end are links to the next 3 sections. 

I’d love to hear YOUR Green Bean stories!

The Green Bean Phenomenon

November 14, 2013 Beth Durham

                The shadows lengthened as the summer sun lazily began his trek over the horizon.  Coal oil lights burned in the homes as supper was finished, prayers were said and children tucked into their beds.  Sleep was welcomed, for the people of the plateau had worked hard this day.

                Today was not unusual; it was summertime and the green bean harvest was upon us.  Early in the morning, men, women and children alike streamed into the bean fields to pull from the vines little emerald sticks of wealth… or at least livelihood.

                The green bean phenomenon began its sweep across the plateau in 1933 and lasted until the 1980’s.  In the wake of this sensation we find a community transformed, and lots and lots of stories! 

                As the story goes, in 1933 work was scarce and money short.  Well that’s just history – U.S. history.  We all know that with the stock market crash of ’29 the nation was plunged into The Great Depression.  I’ve heard stories of farm families who had no stake in the stock market, little money in the 20’s and therefore felt the depression years only mildly.  Perhaps that would be the case on the plateau as well – for there was no industry here before the depression years, no great companies closed their doors in that time, no breadwinners dismissed from good jobs. 

                Needing work and unafraid of hard work, Dempse Cooper spotted a truck loaded with green beans headed south through Fentress County and wanted to know what that was all about.  He fell in behind him and followed him till he could stop and question the driver.

                It seems the load had originated in Kentucky where farmers were growing green beans for public sale. Mr. Cooper saw an opportunity. He planted a single acre of beans.  By 1954, 6,000 acres of plateau farmland was planted in green beans and income from the crop had topped 1 million dollars.

                Green beans are somehow legendary in our community.  So, the telling will take several chapters – or weeks in the blog world.  Next week, we’ll visit The Bean Shed!  Now you know you won’t want to miss that do you?

Part 2: The Bean Shed

Part 3: First Diesel Truck ‘Round Here

Part 4: The Mechanical Pickers

The Demise of William Riley Hatfield

The following blog is re-posted from Backwood’s Adventure’s blog by Scott Phillips.

As a backcountry guide I love researching the rich history “some happy and some not so happy” of this area and sharing it with my clients. I’m going to pass along this story as it was told to me.

My 9th cousin William Riley Hatfield also known as WR Hatfield. Born 1824- died from a gunshot wound January 22, 1892. He passed away on the banks of Station Camp Creek in what is now inside the boundary of the Big South Fork NRRA.

On January 22,1892 at age 68 WR Hatfield was on horseback near the banks of the Big South Fork River and Station Camp Creek when he got into a heated argument with a guy on foot near the trail. As the tempers flared between the two WR spun his horse around in the attempt to trample the man that was on foot. The guy then raised, aimed, and fired a 45-70 caliber rifle striking WR in the abdomen. The large caliber bullet traveled up the body cavity exiting near the face of WR Hatfield. Even with such a devastating and deadly wound WR managed to hang on to life for a few hours before passing away.

He is buried in a small cemetery near Station Camp what is now known as Charit Creek Lodge.

Ironically WR Hatfield’s son William Claiborne Hatfield known as WC was also shot and killed at the age of 51 in 1924. He was killed by a man named Newton Blevins who served one year for the killing of WC.

Newton Blevins was later shot and killed as he rounded up cattle with his wife.

I have been asked several times if WR Hatfield and his family that lived near Station Camp were related to the Hatfield’s from the well known “Hatfield and McCoy feud”.

To the best of my knowledge I would have to say yes. I have traced his family originally coming from Virginia into Kentucky and then down south on the Big South Fork River into Tennessee and then to the banks of Station Camp Creek where he lays at rest today.

WR Hatfield would be my 9th cousin and the Captain William Anderson Hatfield better known as “Devil Anse Hatfield” would be my 8th cousin. Devil Anse is known as the patriarch of the Hatfield family during the Hatfield and McCoy feud.

My research also shows Devil Anse Hatfield’s Great Grandfather is a brother to WR Hatfield’s Great Grandfather.

I have often wondered if WR moved here to get away from the original Hatfield and McCoy feud and it’s violence just to be killed in an unrelated circumstance.

Bounty from the Fields, Woods, Hollers and Hills

We’ve been talking for the last couple of weeks about foods the land offers us like fresh greens.  How opportune that it’s open season on Dry Land Fish.  Okay, technically you can gather these wild mushrooms anytime of year, but the early spring  is the only time they pop out.  So the delicacy must at least be gathered at this time, if not enjoyed.

I kind of assumed that only mountain folk would even know about this delicacy – at least by that name – but surprisingly a Google search found a page full of results.  There are even songs entitled “Dry Land Fish” - The Kentucky Headhunters  assert “If a genie gave me a bottle , there’d be three things I’d wish Corn, greens and taters, and dry-land fish”.  John McCutcheon’s version even directs us to, “Midst the ash and elm and sycamore, Cast your sights to the forest floor, Where the old trees die and the roots are rotten, That’s where the dry land fish are gotten.”

The song says you can find the fish from March to May but I’ve never seen them after April. 

About a year ago I happened to meet Mr. Ralph Story of Spring City, Tennessee.  He is an avid mycophagist and shared the pictures I’m including today.  I’ll confess I had to look up that name – and I might not call many of my plateau neighbors by it because it might just get me in trouble.  Still, I admire those that can find this wild food in abundance and as you can see from the pictures, Mr. Story certainly can.

So are you wondering just what it is?  Dry Land Fish are formally known as Morel Mushrooms.  They are a famous delicacy that can sell in 2020 for about $80 per pound, if you can find them.  Did I mention they are rare, hard to find, grow in inaccessible places and defy cultivation?  The steep price begins to make sense, doesn’t it?

I would like to know why we call them fish – and can only imagine the name comes from either (or both) their texture and our method of cooking.

Like many of the more substantial mushrooms, Dry Land Fish have a firm and almost-creamy texture.  And we cooke ‘em just like fish.

Rolled in cornmeal, fried in a deep skillet of hot oil – they look like typical Southern food, in fact, they look like a mess of fish on the plate.  And they are a rich, filling food that certainly replaces meat in a meal.  You’ve gotta’ cook them good and done so that makes for a crunchy bite.  Seasoned only with salt and pepper, you can truly appreciate this gift from God.

Now this is probably not a food that will sustain you for long, if only because of its scarcity.  But if you can get it you’ll surely enjoy the experience.

Huntin’ and Cookin’ Creases

Spring is such a wonderful time of the year.  As the trees set on new leaves, early flowers bloom and grasses break through the ground, there is promise in the air.  After long, cold winter days the sun stays up longer, warming the soil as we make the first preparations for planting.

Creasy Plant - It may not be the prettiest picture, but things have been pretty muddy this spring.

A couple of years ago, I shared with you an article here which Callie Melton had written about sallet huntin’.  This is not a skill I possess, but one that I greatly admire.  I have long wanted to know which wild plants are edible – how much could you survive on just the fruits of the land?  Today, we have access to fresh fruits and vegetables from around the world through the whole year.  That wasn’t true on the mountain a few years back and Mrs. Melton said everyone was ready for something fresh and green when the first plants broke through.

Well, the Sallet mixture she talked about contained lots of different greens and as I said, I’m not skilled at finding all of that.  But there was one plant she named that I am familiar with – Creases.  She called them “creasy” and that seems to be the generally accepted name.  

When I saw some of them out along the fence row last week, I snatched them up.  Now I may have mentioned before that I don’t care for greens, although I’m very careful not to say I won’t  eat them, I just thank the good Lord that I don’t have to eat them.  However, as I said last week, I’m prepared to eat whatever that same Lord provides – especially in these uncertain times.  So I tried my hand at cooking these creases.

Turns out they were really good.

I might’ve expected the same, strong taste of mustard or turnip greens.  But that’s not what I got.  Cooked with a piece of smoked ham, parboiled then cooked in fresh water, they were fresh-tasting but not strong.  I didn’t cook them till they were mushy but they were certainly soft.

Overall, this is a wild green that I can really recommend – hmm, Grandma and Mama would’ve told me that if I’d listened.