The heartbeat of The Gulch Jumpers is music and family. I was lucky to be raised in a home where reading, books, and ideas were valued, and my parents gave my brothers and I the gift of music. My father would spin records on the big turntable in our living room: Glen Campbell, Herb Alpert, Grand Ole Opry. My mother loved classical music, WCLV, the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Metropolitan Opera. With this combination, my brothers and I grew up in a rich musical home. Our music lessons included bassoon, violin, drums, and more. And often, we took our instruments “down to the farm” for mini-family concerts in the parlor of my mother’s family home in southern Ohio.
The region known as Appalachia (defined as all of West Virginia and a handful of counties in neighboring states) includes Jackson County in southern Ohio. Millions migrated from Appalachia in the 1950’s to look for jobs and better opportunities. My mother was one of them. She remained fiercely bonded to her Jackson roots, and I remember her crying every time our car pulled away for the long drive north following a visit down on the farm. Many of her stories found their way into the character Ray. Like Ray’s father, my Grandpa Willard mined coal. As a child, Mom was bussed to a one-room country school where the teacher stood by the window to read poetry to the children by the waning afternoon light. My uncle Floyd played rhythm guitar in the 1940’s with a band called the Rhythm Rangers. They played shows throughout Ohio and Indiana, and at the Wheeling Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia. Though I met him only a handful of times, his stories came to me through our family historian, Aunt Emma, who has original sheet music from the Rhythm Rangers. Aunt Emma’s gift of storytelling and southern hospitality, and the rhythm of her speech, comes to life through the character Dottie.
I wrote The Gulch Jumpers in 2013 and 2014, during the last months of my mother’s life. As she struggled with dementia and hearing loss, no longer able to read, music remained one of her last pleasures. We sat together on the porch and listened to Bill Monroe, Alison Kraus and others as I typed. Ironically, toward the end, she returned to her appreciation of the mountain music, yet never lost her reverence for classical. Mom knew she was losing her memory. Once, as we listened to one of her favorite pieces – Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Princess” – she confided: “I cannot remember so many important things, but when I listen to this I remember every note, every phrase, every movement. I remember it all.”
Later, a few weeks prior to her death, she looked at me once in a rare moment of clarity: “You are writing a book,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied, amazed that she knew and remembered.
“I want to read it,” she said.
I hope she would be proud.
Thank you for reading The Gulch Jumpers.
Never give up hope and never let someone else define you.
Catherine