Path Was Steep, The: A Memoir of Appalachian Coal Camps During the Great Depression

by Suzanne Pickett, Norman McMillan (Foreword)

Sue Pickett was a coal miner’s daughter who became a coal miner’s wife and witnessed and lived through the turbulent years of the Great Depression and the sometimes violent struggles between labor unions and coal mine bosses throughout the Appalachian South―especially her native Alabama. The dramatic central episode in her account is a March 1934 standoff between striking miners and the mine owners.

Pickett’s story is peopled with memorable characters, including her irrepressible husband David and an almost Biblical cast of other family members; a roaring, fire-belching automobile nicknamed Thunderbolt; Irene, a fiercely proud ten-year-old mountain girl left homeless by the hard times; and many others. The memoir is a saga of determined working-class people making do and getting by, but equally of their love of family and land.

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2013

Reviews

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read, for the most part, though Pickett seems to be one of those people who is always wishing they were somewhere else. When she's in Alabama, she misses the cool mountain air of Virginia, and when she's there she just can't wait to get back to Alabama. The Picketts lived through the worst of the Depression and yet somehow led a charmed life: her husband apparently never had trouble getting work, and ended up in management. Whenever anything terrible happens, something always comes along to save the day. They even end up owning a car in the midst of the darkest times, though not always the gas to run it. Later we learn that her husband bought land and at least two houses, only telling her after the fact.

What struck me forcibly was her ambivalence toward Roosevelt. At first he is "the golden voice", and he certainly gave the people more hope than other presidents, but even though he allowed unions in the mining industry, she seemed to turn against him for some reason that is never clarified. The memoir is chopped short just after the crisis at the mine, and a little Epilogue tells how they reached the managerial post and she filled her house with antiques. Somehow that Epilogue took some of the shine off the rest of the book for me, though why that should be so I cannot tell you.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not being native to West Virginia I love to explore the culture of the mountains. I enjoyed this and am always seeking more West Virginia culture

[LuVerne Hoover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the author's ability to see the beauty in people and make the best of what life offered while living through the depression. It was interesting to hear a first hand account of what a mining family went through in Alabama and West Virginia in the 1930's. She seemed to have an unquenchable spirit as she looked for reading material and I loved it that she was able to provide some income for her family through her verse for a newspaper.