Wilma Dykeman Presentation by James R. 'Jim' Stokely III

Partial Transcript: Jim Stokely, Wilma Dykeman’s son, talks about looking through his mother’s papers. He found an ad his mother had cut out. Jim shares a slide of his mother’s teeth.

Jim outlines what he will be talking about in this presentation.

Keywords: Mother

Subjects: Presentation introduction

Partial Transcript: Jim introduces a 20-minute DVD about his mother.

Wilma was born in 1920 in the Beaver Dam Valley and died in December of 2006. Jim calls this the full nine-yarder presentation.

Keywords: Beaver Dam Valley; December 2006; 1920

Subjects: A little bit about Wilma

Partial Transcript: Jim gives a little bit about Wilma’s background. (Some slides go along with the presentation).

Her paternal grandfather was William Alfred Cole, a timberman. From 1800 to the1900s he did what most people did, timbering. He and his wife Loretta went to Waynesville to help haul timber out of the Smokies. His brother was a Marshall in Madison County and supervised the last public hanging. Jim shares a slide of the hanging. He describes the slide.

On her maternal side her mother was the granddaughter of a man pretty well known, Rev. John Henry Ballard. He was 16 when the Civil War broke out. He and his dad were Union Loyalists. Jim discusses the Loyalist point of view. He was drafted at age 18 into the Confederacy. When asked to take the oath of the Confederacy he refused. Jim talks about his escape, with a friend, from the camp. They walked into Kentucky where they joined Kirk’s Raiders. He was more a Preacher than a soldier. He married Mattie Honeycutt.

Keywords: Civil War; Confederacy; Kirk’s Raisers; Marshal Madison; Mattie Honeycutt; Rev. John Henry Ballard; Union Loyalists; Waynesville; William Alfred Cole; maternal side; public hanging; Paternal grandfather

Subjects: Wilma’s family history

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about her father’s side. Her father came down from NY at 17 just for an adventure. He had read The Great South by Edward King. He heard the sheep on top of Elk Mountain and never forgot it. He went back home, farmed, and raised a family. After his wife died he returned to the mountains, met Mrs. Bonnie, and married her. She was 20 and he was 60.

Keywords: Edward King; Elk Mountain; Mrs. Bonnie; “The Great South”; New York

Subjects: Wilma’s parents meet and married

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about Wilma’s early life. She was born May 20, 1920, and grew up at the head of the Beaver Dam. Her first words were water coming down. Jim talks about where Wilma grew up, a beautiful cove.

Wilma attended Grace School, now called, Ira B. Jones School.

Keywords: Blue Ridge Parkway; Elk Mountain; Ira B. Jones; Iron Ridge; Rice Knob; Beaver Dam

Subjects: early life

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about the water cycle. Not many people were talking about the water cycle in 1929. Wilma’s parents were. They would take her to the creek and describe the water’s journey to the French Broad and on to the Gulf of Mexico. In the Gulf, some water would evaporate, form clouds and return over the Rice Knob.

Wilma was an only child growing up on 11 acres of open land, frog ponds, and creeks. This is where Wilma came to environmental consciousness.

Keywords: French Broad; Gulf of Mexico; Holston River; Mississippi; Ohio; Rice Knob; Tennessee River; clouds; evaporation; Water cycle

Subjects: water cycle

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about her dad’s connection to NY and his ritual with Wilma. Whenever the New York Herald Tribune came he would cut out the article by Thornton Burgess, a very popular children’s author. Every column had a contraption Reddy Fox used to try and capture Peter Rabbit, but he never quite caught him. Wilma read these articles.

Keywords: Peter Rabbit; Reddy Fox; Thornton Burgess; New York Herald Times

Subjects: Early reading

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about the fact that Wilma was an only child and didn’t have a lot of people to play with. Jim describes how Wilma would play in the stream and woods for hours. She looked at the animals and plants around her.

Keywords: Only child

Subjects: Wilma entertained herself

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about the economic crash in 1929 that wiped out her college savings. Her dad had sold his place in NY and that was a nest egg. It was wiped out. Five years later on when she was 14 her dad died. She and her mother were left alone. They had to think about what to eat the next day every day.

Keywords: Economic crash 1929

Subjects: Crash of 1929

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about the three good things that happened. Wilma graduated first in her class from Grace High; she was always marked down on her report card for talking unnecessarily.

She wanted to be an actress. Wilma outlined the plans she had for herself to all her friends. She wanted to study at Northwestern School of Speech, an acting school. She got a scholarship and studied under Alvina Krause. Jim talks about Alvina Krause’s background. She auditioned for a scene from “Gone with the Wind" before it became a movie, and Alvina was very impressed.

Keywords: Alvina Krause; “Gone with the Wind”; Northwestern School of Speech

Subjects: Wilma makes a plan

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about Wilma’s next plan. She interviewed with Miss Finch’s Junior College located in Manhattan. They were hiring for the first professor for their broadcasting department. Wilma was all set to go. But she met Jim’s dad in mid-August and married on October 12th. It was the closest thing to a perfect marriage.

Keywords: Grace Slick; Jefferson Airplane; broadcasting department; Miss Finch’s Junior College

Subjects: Wilma meets Jim’s dad.

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about James proposing marriage but also proposing a book, “The French Broad”. They decided to write the 49th in the series if the publisher would have them.
The idea of people interviewing old-timers and treating it like history was unheard of. The Cherokee word for tributaries of the French Broad is chattering children. They named one of the chapters The Chattering Children. Oral history is the motif that runs through the book.

Keywords: Cherokee word; chattering children; oral history; tributaries; “The French Broad”

Subjects: The marriage and the book

Partial Transcript: James talks about the second trailblaze in the book, water pollution. Wilma had a problem with the publisher; he did not want to include it. The publisher, Rinehart Publishing in New York had a cash machine. The series was about the rivers across America, the Potomac, the Susquehanna, the Hudson, and the Columbian, people wanted all the books in the series. But some were waiting for a particular river. Pollution sullied the reputation of the river. Jim explains how introducing pollution could upset the readers of the book. He uses the Harry Potter series as an example. There is an image you have to uphold.

Wilma had a choice. The publisher would publish the book without the part on pollution or not publish if she kept it in. She argued and didn’t back down. She called one chapter Who Killed the French Broad.

Keywords: Columbian; Harry Potter; Hudson; New York; Potomac; Rinehart Publishing; Susquehanna; Who Killed the French Broad.; reputation, Rowling; rivers across America; water pollution; Trailblaze

Subjects: Water pollution

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about Champion paper being the worst single point of pollution. Jim describes Champion. Wilma could have pointed a finger at Champion but instead, she said we all needed to shoulder our share in the killing. It took a few years to pass but the Clean Water Act 1977 was passed over Richard Nixon’s veto.

Keywords: Clean Water Act 1977.; Nixon; Champion paper

Subjects: The Clean Water Act 1977

Partial Transcript: Jim outlines Wilma’s arguments in this chapter of the book. He calls them the past, the present, and the future.
The past was the first of the progressives in the early 20th century. Jim talks about the National Parks series by Ken Burns. The progressives, Teddy Roosevelt and others were behind the National Parks because setting aside these magnificent instances of nature would be good for the economy. They would attract tourists. Jim explains how Wilma went beyond that. She felt it should not be nature vs. economy. Clean water will get you more new industries. Businesses are people. People will come into the area. In this area, the clean water brought the breweries. This is the present.

Keywords: Ken Burns; National Parks; Teddy Roosevelt; nature vs. economy; Progressives

Subjects: The past and the present

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about Wilma just mistiming her argument. She was about 50 years too early. The future is drinking water from the municipalities. We are already seeing it in the West and the Midwest with the depletion of the aquifers. We are blessed to have all this water.

Keywords: aquifers

Subjects: The future

Partial Transcript: Jim describes the route they went on in the south with what they had done for the French Broad Watershed. They piled in a Buick Special and drove from Charleston to Houston. They won the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for the best book of the year. Jim mentions John Kenneth Galbraith and his book “The Affluent Society”. They wrote for the New York Times and other publications. They did not write about sit-ins at lunch counters or marches in Selma. They wrote about how integration was going in the South.

Keywords: Buick Special; Charleston; Houston; John Kenneth Galbraith; Selma; Sidney Hillman Foundation Award; The Affluent Society, New York Times; integration; lunch counters; Watershed

Subjects: Book tour and writings

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about his mother getting upset with the continued stereotype of Appalachia. Jim describes how this comes in waves. An early wave was the local colorists and it coincided with the coal and timber extraction. But the worst stereotyping was during the Depression. New comics were coming out, the Lil Abner and Snuffy Smith. Jim loved Snuffy Smith he saw him from a different perspective, and he had figured out a way to not work. He also watched the Beverly Hillbillies so he could laugh at the Drysdales and Miss. Hathaway.

Keywords: Appalachia; Beverly Hillbillies; Drysdales; Lil Abner; Miss. Hathaway; Snuffy Smith; coal and timber extraction; Stereotype

Subjects: The stereotyping of Appalachia

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about and outlines her thoughts about the book and the characters. “The Tall Woman” became a classic of Appalachian literature and a best seller. She wrote a sequel “The Far Family” that brought that family from Civil War days up to the 20th century. The Baltimore Sun said Lydia McQueen was a genuine hero. Clay Thurston was modeled after Jim’s great Uncle Andrew. Lillian Smith, an early progressive woman living in Georgia, said Clay Thurston was one of the most complex characters in contemporary literature. Carl Sandburg also wrote a review of the book.

Keywords: Baltimore Sun; Carl Sandburg; Civil War; Clay Thurston; Lillian Smith; Lydia McQueen; bestseller, “The Far Family”; classic of Appalachian literature; contemporary literature; “The Tall Woman”

Subjects: “The Tall Woman” and “The Far Family”.

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about his mother continuing to blaze a lot of trails. She published a book on modified food and a book about birth control. She was the first woman to do a lot of things. Wilma was the first Woman Tennessee Historian, the first woman trustee of Berea College; she was on the board for 30 years fighting to retain traditional conservative principles. She was the first woman on the board of the local Merchants and Planters bank in Newport.

Keywords: Brea College; Merchants and Planters Bank; Tennessee Historian; book on birth control; Blaze trails

Subjects: Trail blazer

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about Wilma’s legacy. She was an excellent teacher; she was a world-class speaker. People in Tennessee asked her to run for Senator. She fashioned a rich and integral life. Her dad died, and she married out of a career and had to think of a new one. Jim reads one of her great quotes “This is the true joy in life. Being used for a purpose is recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Keywords: Legacy

Subjects: Wilma’s legacy.

Partial Transcript: Jim talks about when he and Anne, his wife, moved back here in 2011. They found that the people who knew Wilma in the 70s and 80s are in assisted living or have moved on. The people who have moved in did not know Wilma. Jim and Anne thought it was not right that Wilma wasn’t well known internationally, so they formed a non-profit called The Wilma Dykeman Legacy. They want to sustain and promote her core values. Jim describes Wilma’s core values.

Keywords: African American; Latinos; Legacy; poor white southern mountaineers; social justice; Environmental integrity

Subjects: The Wilma Dykeman Legacy

Partial Transcript: Jim explains that he and Anne put on programs in the Asheville area. They have also just published their first book. It was written by a Holocaust survivor who survived eight concentration camps, he will turn 90 on March 5th. Jim tells the audience the author will be speaking at Agudas Israel Synagogue in Hendersonville.

Keywords: Agudas Israel Synagogue.; concentration camps; Holocaust survivor

Subjects: Upcoming programs

Partial Transcript: Jim reads excerpts from some of Wilma’s books. Jim explains a little about the first book he will read from. The book is “The Family of Earth”.

Jim talks about the theme of the second book, “The French Broad”.

The third book Jim read form is “Neither Black Nor White”.

Keywords: “Neither Black Nor White”.; “The French Broad”; “The Family of Earth”

Subjects: Jim reads from three of Wilma’s books.

Partial Transcript: David talks about what he finds so touching about Wilma’s writing. His question to Jim is, what are the lessons of Wilma Dykeman’s legacy that we need to apply today? Jim responds, there have to be some guiding principles. Jim explains what these principles are for the organization called The Legacy. Jim outlines the process the Legacy goes through to solve a problem.

(Unable to hear the question) Jim says that respecting the other person is the answer.

How do you get a copy of the DVD? A contribution to The Legacy at a certain level will get a DVD. The brochure outlines how to get a DVD.

Who were Wilma's friends? Jim lists Senator Estes Kefauver who refused to sign the Southern Manifesto written by Sam Ervin. Wilma babysat for Al Gore Jr. Al Gore Sr. did not sign the Southern Manifesto. Jim explained the manifesto.

(Unable to hear the question) Jim talks about Wilma’s work ethic “The Tall Woman” book and Wilma’s mother. Jim talks about Wilma’s early writing career.

(Unable to hear the question) Jim talks about “Silent Spring”. Wilma gave it a rave review.

Keywords: Al Gore Sr.; Rachel Carson.; Sam Ervin; Senator Estes Kefauver; Southern Manifesto; social justice; “Silent Spring”; stake holder

Subjects: Questions