Majestic Appalachia

MAJESTIC APPALACHIA – While going through boxes of old papers during our time at home due to covid, I ran across a research paper my daughter had written while in elementary school. I am so happy that I kept it. She shares about Appalachia language, quilting, and education.

Majestic Appalachia
By Starla Wilson
Oh, how majestic Appalachia? I think it’s wonderful place and at the least of attention it looks like your home is just sitting on top of the mountains just awaitin’ for you. Well while your daydreamin about that I am going to tell you all about these mountains and their language, quilts, and the way they go to school. Did you know that I used 2 words of the Appalachia language? Can you guess what they were? If you guessed awaitin’ and daydreamin’, you are correct. Anyway, the Appalachian Mountains is the oldest mountain range, and runs through 13 states. New York to Alabama and its over a billion years old. Since it is that old, Native Americans must have lived there, and they did. The Cherokee tribe were the first to discover and wander these beautiful majestic mountains. Also, they played a big role for the early settlers and taught them how to sew quilts, make baskets, and how to farm crops, plant seeds and plenty more. I think the corn is one of the most valuable crops on the mile-long list that they taught them. But here in a minute I am going to teach you a mile-long list about Appalachia.
Hey, fix that picture it is ahangincatawhompus. Ahangincatawhompus just means it is crooked in Appalachia talk. The Scottish, English, German, and Irish all mixed together made their language. What you do is drop the -g in -ing, replace w’s with r’s. and put an “a” in front of some words like ahangincatawhompus, some words like that have two rules in them. An example for the second rule on our list (replace the w’s with an r) would be like “yeller” or “taters” and some other examples like “get-r-done” or “slop’n the pig.” Another one is “nervous as a cat in a house of arockin chairs.” Some people still talk like this, others don’t, either way it doesn’t matter, the Appalachian shared a unique language of dirty, country talk of laughter and fun and music to my ears and best of all it didn’t matter how you talk, it’s how you use it and don’t use to tease and call people names with it. About 3 out of 10 people in Kentucky use Appalachian language. When people have that language, don’t think they’re weird, it’s their heritage, Appalachia used it more people today and guess what, if you were born by parents in Kentucky your ancestors did it too.

Do you know what I mean by patterns, stitches, and beauty? Well, if you guessed quilts you are absolutely correct. Quilts were mainly used to keep the family warm. They were made by using outgrown clothes and scrap material, and other things like that. Quilts played an important role in the underground railroad, because sometimes it is was not safe to travel to the next station, so one pattern would mean “stop” and another pattern would show “come.” Some even showed “bad weather.”

Also, there were these things called quilting bees were women would come together and quilt while they talk and make each other laugh and sing to make the time go by. There are many types and patterns of quilts. Different patterns meant different things. Different types like 9- patch quilts, or even a 15-patch quilt. When they have no scrap material, they will use sheep wool and spin it on a spinning wheel turning it into thread and making it into a brand-new spun thread quilt. But it also takes a lot of patience on quilting it together. Remember you cannot get it done in one day.
School in the mountains! Can you believe that on that long, high, mountain range there was an educational house for the kids? Did you know that they only had two and half seasons of school and we get three seasons? The terms were spring and fall. They didn’t have a winter term much because they had to walk to school. They don’t get to ride a school bus like we get to today. Why didn’t they go to school in the summer? It was because they had to help their parents with farming. Anyway, did you know that they had to cram Kindergarten-8th grade scholars in one room? That is right smaller kids in front, bigger kids in back. They had to use slates and slate pencils. Slates are just like a chalk boards, but they had to have special pencils. Another thing, they had wells and outhouses (bathrooms outside) there lunch included the following: walnuts, berries, and leftovers from dinner. There School day had different subjects. Like, arithmetic, writing, reading, and spelling. They also had to recite (to say and memorize without books) the lesson. After school they had spelling bees.

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You can stop daydreamn’ now! Do you know now that their language is so unique and guilting is so important to Appalachia and the citizens and what school was like for kids in the Appalachian Mountains? I bet you know. Also, I bet you could tell me a little bit of Appalachia culture and how deeply they care about their children, family, friends, community, and their culture, like their way of language, making quilts, and their way of getting a quality education. Like ahangincatawhaompas or the beautiful quilts and patterns, and also their way of learning all bring back memories of all these majestic, beautiful mountains of wonderous caring eyes of the people of these majestic mountains. Do you know anyone from Appalachia back ago? You probably could ask your grandparents if they were form Appalachia, if they were from the bluegrass they probably were from this range of lovely mountains. A lot of people came from these mountains and from the gorgeous mountains that we now call the Appalachian Mountain Range. There are now trails up and through the Appalachia so you can see what life was like long ago in the range and peaks of Appalachia. That is all I can tell you of Majestic Appalachia.