Born on January 5, 1907, Zetta Hamby spent much of her life in the northwestern mountains of North Carolina, keenly watching the changes in her community of Grassy Creek and in the world. Families, homes, weddings and funerals, politics, health, world war, race relations, the telephone--those are among the topics touched on in this firsthand look at rural Appalachia in the early decades of the present century. Sometimes poignant, often humorous, and surely authentic, these stories are yet another reminder of recent history that is all too quickly being lost.
This account of hardscrabble life on the NC-VA border in the early 1900s is filled with details of everyday life. If that sort of thing intrigues you, this memoir by a career teacher well worth your time.
I used this book in reasearching the history of the area and time for my novel, Cry of My Heart. The true to life stories and firsthand accounts were priceless in understanding the way people lived then. An important record of history that is worth reading!