Judy Bussey's Appalachian Memoirs: Digging into my Roots to Discover my Truths: Past and Present Merge, Somehow

"Awfully difficult to keep the line between the past and the present". Edie Beale, Gray Gardens

Welcome Dear Reader

I come to this site to post materials and memoirs relevant to my life in the coal camp. We always had 6-10 people living in our house, depending on who had left for college, who had married, or who came back home with children. Most of my youth there were 8 of us, Mother, Daddy, me, and my 5 siblings.

On May 1, 1941 my parents and their three small children (ages 4, 2, and newborn) moved into a company house in David, Kentucky. David is an East Kentucky coal camp owned by the Princess Elkhorn Coal Company Organization(PECCO) and named for its president, David L. Francis. I was the fourth child and the first to be born in a hospital--the Paintsville Hospital in neighboring Johnson County.

There were two other babies born to Nova and Dawson Bussey before 1949. Sister Peggy was only four at the time but remembered Mother sweeping sawdust out of the new camp house--one of several recently built along the base of the hillside to accommodate the newly hired miners and their families.

Here, I write of my mother, Nova, daughter of East Kentucky pioneers and of my father, Dawson Ellard Bussey, who was a Great Depression immigrant from Alabama. I talk about how the depression brought them together to live an often harsh life bound by the double-edged sword of coal camp life. We children had freedom and many company amenities; our parents were trapped--probably because of the wonderful amenities offered the children.

I post samples of my mother's primitive art and some photographs--look for the one of my father lying in the underground #1 mine at David. The height of this coal seam ranged from 30"-36" high. The miners had to lie down to work--or crawl on their knees. Consistent crawling or extended work from a kneeling position caused "miner's knee", a painful swelling condition that had to be drained by the company doctor from time to time. Fortunately, Daddy never had to miss work with his chronic "miner's knee" because the Company had Doc John Archer from Prestonsburg come to the camp at least once a week to do home treatments and drain the miners' knees, as needed. I wonder today how many of us would go to work in such a painful condition, but Daddy never missed a day of work that any of us can remember.

I also post creative non-fiction vignettes and am trying to learn to write fiction. I hope you enjoy my drafts.

In thinking about my life's influences, I realize there were at least three 3 concentric circles of Appalachian Kentucky culture that overlapped to forge my identity, color my self-esteem and create my youthful attitudes.

At the center was David, Kentucky, the company-owned coal camp, encircled by rural communities, and so far away from "town". My world was small.

These are my memories--my interpretations of how the influences of past generations continue to paint my world today.

For better or worse, we are, each of us products of our ancestors' social, economic, spiritual, and political environments.

We only begin to understand ourselves when we begin to understand those who came before and the impact they have, even today, on our attitudes, beliefs, and values. Each new encounter touches us so we must also explore the meaning of new experiences, validations and contradictions.

Sorry, but my Elvis "photo of the day" disappeared and I miss seeing them. In researching my past, it has proven true--I really was in love with Elvis.

Thanks for this visit to my site and taking time to read of my journey.

Peace,

Judy

PS: Friends, also look for me at http://www.facebook.com

All content on this site is the copyrighted material of Judy Bussey and Nova's Project (TM) unless otherwise noted. Please do not use art or text without permission unless you are using the photos to feature or showcase Nova's Primitive Art or the writing of Judy Bussey.

In that case, please provide a link or links to this site. I retain all right to Nova's Primitives and Judy's Creative Non-Fiction and Fiction writings--including the right to reproduce such works. It is illegal to copy or reproduce these ltems or make derivative works.
Judith S. Bussey
May 10, 2009.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Past and Present Merge, Somehow

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David, Kentucky

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Dawson and Nova Hicks Bussey @1940

Inside Mine # 1 (30"-36" Coal) David, Kentucky

Lizabeth Gunnels Hicks--Mrs. John A. Hicks@1950

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