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Submitted by Holly Scott, Photo by Jack Williams
Wilma Maples of Loudon County, Tenn.
“In 1943, Wilma Maples of Loudon County, Tenn., pictured with Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson, was one of the first female employees of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She was a clerical assistant to then Chief Ranger John Needham, as well as other park departments. Following her appointment with the National Park Service, Wilma worked at the Gatlinburg Inn and Oak Ridge National Laboratory before a proposal of marriage arrived in letter form from Gatlinburg Inn owner Rel Maples. They married in 1954 and ran the Gatlinburg Inn together until Rel’s passing in 1985. Wilma lovingly-preserved the Inn’s 450-bush rose garden and rooms and furnishings just as Rel would have wanted it until the day of her passing on December 30, 2011. Room 388 looks just as it did in 1967 when Felice and Boudreaux Bryant penned “Rocky Top,” Tennessee’s state song, there. The tourist draw of Great Smoky Mountains National Park was never lost on Mrs. Maples. In her lifetime, she was the single largest individual contributor to Friends of the Smokies, and she gave 150 acres of land adjacent to Cove Mountain to the Park in 2009. She invested in the preservation of the mountains that meant so much to her life and livelihood.”
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Submitted by Grace Deal, Family photos donated by Grace Deal
Bina Miller Kerley
“My grandmother Bina Miller Kerley, whom I loved dearly, was born in the Aho community of Watauga County, right down the road from Laurel Fork Baptist Church, on March 14, 1899. She had a hard life. At the age of seven she developed polio, which left her with a crippled foot. Her mother died when she was ten. She married when she was fourteen and had 10 children (two of whom died in infancy). She moved many times, living in Watauga County, Caldwell County, Wilkes County, and Alexander County, even homesteading for a few years near Moorcroft, Wyoming. Her marriage did not survive the Depression. Two of her children were deaf. She lost her oldest child at the Battle of Tarawa, and four years passed before his body was returned for burial. She lived for many years with her deaf mute son, making do on very little, spending her free time quilting and crocheting after the chores were done. She died at the age of 92 and is buried at Laurel Fork Church in Aho, just up the hill from where she was born.”
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Submitted by Sherry Shook, Photo by Sherry Shook
Joyce Ridenhour
“When Joyce Ridenhour first saw the miniature donkeys, she fell in love with them. There are other animals on the farm—cattle, a horse, dogs and cats—but there is just something different about her little donkeys. Joyce loves to be outside working with them. She even built the barn for them and travels to get hay for the animals. I don't know many women that love the farm life and the animals like Joyce does. She recently bought two new miniature donkeys along with a wagon that they pull. She can't wait for me to come make pictures of them with the wagon. She even travels to county fairs to see the miniature donkey shows.”
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Submitted by Holly Scott, Photo by Jack Williams
Danny Bernstein
“Danny Bernstein, pictured with her husband Lenny, has walked all over the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. She is a 900-Miler in the Smokies, meaning that she has hiked all of the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She leads a monthly hike for Friends of the Smokies, interpreting the natural and cultural history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park for a small group of participants. Danny maintains a section of the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina, and when she’s not trekking in the mountains, she’s blogging about them at hikertohiker.com or writing hiking books.”
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Submitted by Yvette McClure, Family photos donated by Yvette McClure
Josie Davis
“The woman with the chickens and the cow was my great-grandmother Josie Davis. She was born in the coal mining country of Coalfield, Tenn., in 1870 and was the daughter of a Baptist minister who was also a tailor. Josie was an excellent seamstress and quilt maker and made all the family’s clothes. She worked with her husband as a share cropper on a big farm in Tennessee before moving by wagon to Blount County, Tenn. She raised her own chickens and cows and did her own preserves, canning, butter, everything. She was educated and spoke Cherokee and use to call my grandfather Tsula Osdi, meaning Little Fox, because he had a pet fox that would kill her chickens. She smoked a corn cob pipe and rode her horse side saddle.”
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Submitted by Gail Lunsford Muse, Family photos donated by Gail Lunsford Muse
Bertie Sneed Poteat
“Bertie Sneed Poteat was one of the truest mountain women. There could not have been many who knew more about these mountains. Part Cherokee, she had a deep love and respect for the mountains God gave us and she could name every tree, bush and flower, plus tell you what they were good for medicinally or the ones to stay away from. As a young girl, used to being in Florida flatlands, I would come spend time in the summer and she would hike me all over the backwoods. My poor legs would be begging Mother (as the grandchildren called her) to let me rest. She was a tough lady, but also the sweetest and kindest person you would ever want to meet. I adored her and only wish I had listened closer when she was telling me what all the plants were good for, and written down her stories. The couple is her parents, Shelby and Laura Payne Sneed. They were true stewards of the land.”
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Submitted by Amanda Singletary, family photos donated by Amanda Singletary
Jane Singletary
“My grandmother Jane Singletary wasn’t a born and raised mountain woman. In fact, if it weren’t for love and marriage she probably would never have stepped foot in Haywood County, North Carolina. But love has a way of leading folks in new and unexpected directions. As a South Dakota flatlander, the move to western North Carolina in the early 1950s was quite a transition. It didn’t take long for the realization to set in that not only would she be living on the tip top of a mountain, but that she was also going to be a farmer’s wife. She would declare, ‘I swear if I had known what I was getting myself into, I would’ve thought twice about saying ‘I do’.’ Yet over time she came around to enjoying life in the Smokies; embracing the culture, the people and their traditions. I remember fondly her appreciation for ‘God’s air conditioning;’ the term she used for the naturally cooler temperatures up on the mountain top. She even took up canning and making strawberry preserves in adherence to her new role as a farmer’s wife. In addition to her responsibilities on the farm, she worked nights as a Nursing Supervisor at Haywood County Hospital and helped birth babies from all over the county. Jane came to view the mountains as a nice place to live and an even better place to raise a growing family. In fact, my great-grandmother, Emma Picton, followed her lead, making the trek from South Dakota to Haywood County. Both women called western North Carolina ‘home’ until their deaths. Jane was proof that being a mountain woman isn’t about one’s place of birth but is about respecting and living up to the culture and values found only in the Smoky Mountains.”
Who is a mountain woman? What does she look like? What characteristics does she embody? Smoky Mountain Living’s readers shared their stories and images of mountain woman including family and friends—strong and independent women who were born in the Southern Appalachians or grew to love the mountains as their home.