Fields Of Heather: The History that Inspired The Book Woman Of Troublesome Creek

I'm reading The Book Woman Of Troublesome Creek this week, and although it is fiction, it is inspired by history. Both the history of the Pack Horse Librarians, and the history of the blue people of Kentucky. I do love a book that teaches me history! As often is the case with books like this, I wanted to do some research on my own. This is what I found on the Pack Horse Librarians. (JoJo Moyes new book, due to be released this October, is also about a Pack Horse Librarian The Giver Of The Stars.)

The Pack Horse Library Project

After the great depression, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Work Progress Administration, librarians on horseback took books and periodicals to the remote hollows and hills of eastern Kentucky. More about the Works Progress Administration

"I remember standing with my mother on the porch of a long-gone rural Kentucky school when I was a child and she was a school teacher" said Bill Elam. "She tried to explain to me the Pack Horse Library. She summed it up in words that I do remember: They brought us books" Some places were so remote that book women often had to go part of the way on foot. One carrier traveled a section of her route by rowboat. The Courier Journal, Nov 5 1995

The Courier-Journal

Louisville, Kentucky

05 Nov 1995, Sun • Page 21

a 1995 article in the Courier -Journal includes an interview with 83 year old former pack horse librarian Grace Caudill Lucas.

"Son, (times) was so hard you couldn't hardly crack 'em" she said. "It wasn't only one; it was about everybody. The only work there was around here besides grubbing and making moonshine was railroading, and there was only a few pensioners. They was the only ones that had a dollar. We had enough to eat, We had our own hogs, and our own cow. But many of a night my children and me went to bed with just milk and bread for supper, and its still good enough for me."

Before becoming a Pack Horse Librarian, Grace worked for the Works Progress Administration Sewing Project. Around 1934, at age 22, she switched to the Pack Horse Library project. "I got paid $28 a month and worked three days a week. I had to hire my horse. I paid 50 cents a day for the horse and fed it."

She recalls riding around cliffs, and through deep water, and sometimes her feet froze to the stirrups.

(Try clicking on the photo to enlarge and read it, or right click and save as, then you should be able to enlarge it to read it)

The Courier-Journal

Louisville, Kentucky

17 Dec 1995, Sun • Page 3

Did you wonder if the librarians really did bind and repair the books? I did. And I found this article in a 1939 Kentucky newspaper:

The Owensboro Messenger

January 22 1939

St. Cloud Times

Saint Cloud, Minnesota

13 Nov 1936, Fri • Page 9

And what about those Pack Horse Librarian Scrapbooks?

Before there were bloggers sharing recipes and crafts and tips, there were Pack Horse Librarian Scrapbooks - full of magazine articles, recipes, quilt patterns and more. Some of them still exist today!

“The librarians would go through these ragged magazines and dilapidated books and they would cannibalize them, deconstruct them, remix them and create these new scrapbooks.” -Jason Vance