Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the

Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains

After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong â€œhill womenâ€ who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region.

â€œDestined to be compared toÂ Hillbilly Elegy and Educated.â€â€”BookPage (starred review)
â€œPoverty is enmeshed with pride in these stories of survival.â€â€”Associated Press

Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County is one of the poorest counties in both Kentucky and the country. Buildings are crumbling and fields sit vacant, as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women are finding creative ways to subsist in their hollers in the hills.

Cassie Chambers grew up in these hollers and, through the women who raised her, she traces her own path out of and back into the Kentucky mountains. Chambersâ€™s Granny was a child bride who rose before dawn every morning to raise seven children. Despite her poverty, she wouldnâ€™t hesitate to give the last bite of pie or vegetables from her garden to a struggling neighbor. Her two daughters took very different paths: strong-willed Ruthâ€”the hardest-working tobacco farmer in the countyâ€”stayed on the family farm, while spirited Wilmaâ€”the sixth childâ€”became the first in the family to graduate from high school, then moved an hour away for college. Married at nineteen and pregnant with Cassie a few months later, Wilma beat the odds to finish school. She raised her daughter to think she could move mountains, like the ones that kept her safe but also isolated her from the larger world.

Cassie would spend much of her childhood with Granny and Ruth in the hills of Owsley County, both while Wilma was in college and after. With her â€œhill womenâ€ values guiding her, Cassie went on to graduate from Harvard Law. But while the Ivy League gave her knowledge and opportunities, its privileged world felt far from her reality, and she moved back home to help her fellow rural Kentucky women by providing free legal services.

Appalachian women face issues that are all too common: domestic violence, the opioid crisis, a world that seems more divided by the day. But they are also community leaders, keeping their towns together in the face of a system that continually fails them. With nuance and heart, Chambers uses these womenâ€™s stories paired with her own journey to break down the myth of the hillbilly and illuminate a region whose poor communities, especially women, can lead it into the future.
Country USA
Manufacturer Ballantine Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2020-01-07
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Ballantine Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2020-01-07
Format	Kindle eBook

Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains

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