I was pleased that the author included a note on her slight change of medical research dates to fit the story, but it all worked so well. This takes her out of her word to exotic Lexington, Kentucky. How wonderful to make the idea so easily transported.Īlong the way, Cussy Mary agrees to be tested to see if a cure can be found for the blue skin problem. A cake that teaches a child her Bible verses while she also learns to bake would be a good thing! What a great resource those scrapbooks would have been! In those days a Vertical File (file cabinet) at the library would have housed those. Perhaps she included her Mama’s recipe for Scripture Cake–I love the sound of that.

I loved the idea of the scrapbooks–collections of local recipes, household and health tips, sewing patterns and all manner of little items, tucked into books made by the librarians themselves.

Unions for miners are in their infancy.Īs Cussy Mary and her mule Junia, deliver the donated books and magazines to her widely scattered patrons, she sees first-hand what education, entertainment, and broader horizons can do for people. He and his fellow miners are kept in debt by the company store and the script miners are paid in to keep them from going elsewhere. Daily Cussy May sees the unfairness of life–of children dying of pellagra, “The Kentucky Disease.” Her father, a coal miner, works in unsafe, unhealthy conditions, and is dying of black lung disease. Her life in the area of Troublesome Creek illustrates why the New Deal wasn’t just the boondoggle its critics labeled it.

Cussy Mary is one of the great horse-riding book women of this program. FDR’s New Deal brought a lot of new thinking and new programs to this area, among them the Packhorse Librarians. In Appalachian Kentucky in the 1930’s such a person was seen as “colored” or “Negro,” and subject to the former border state’s segregation laws. The Appalachian counties are in the eastern end of Kentucky, boardering Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee The StoryĬussy Mary Carter is a “Blue,” a person with a rare condition that turns her skin blue. Well, let’s see–horses and books, horses and libraries, a librarian on horseback–take your pick! Add to it, the WPA, injustice, and the hollers of Kentucky, and well, I’m in!

The book troublesome creek