Marla Jean Selvidge

Life Everlasting and the Twelve Mile Blues: Remembering Mccreary County in the Early 20th Century Marla Jean Selvidge

Publisher Marketing: Take a trek back in time with Selvidge, as she explores what it was like to live in McCreary County, Kentucky before, during, and after the Great Depression. Meet Mary Gilreath Selvidge who left the mountains to find a good job in Detroit during WWII. Explore the life of Myrtle Gilreath Baird who makes a choice to stay in the mountains. Living apart, their love for each other never faded. Several family members allowed Selvidge to tape interviews with them. She also discovered scores of other oral accounts in the McCreary County Library that were taped during the mid-twentieth century. There were church-goers, miners, midwives, casket makers, hunters, and people who worked for the WPA and the CCC. during the depression. Selvidge describes the hundred year old homestead that all the family descended upon during the first week of July every year. One of the most important traditions of the family was to visit the graveyards of those who passed on. One by one, as they explored the grave stones, stories of ancient ancestors were relived and appreciated. Walk with her as he examines iron horses, mines, one-room school houses, mountain churches, free blacks and coloreds, moonshine, violence, and sex on the mountain. Discover the secret of life everlasting in the valley and on the mountain top in McCreary County from a girl who had the Twelve Mile blues.