This month marks five years since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world and caused 11,000 deaths in North Carolina. BPR is taking a look back at the effects of the pandemic in Western North Carolina through our COVID in Appalachia Oral History project.
In 2021, Blue Ridge Public Radio partnered with Foxfire Mountain Heritage Museum to collect oral histories about the COVID-19 pandemic in Appalachia. The goal of the project was to record the experiences of communities in Western North Carolina and North Georgia during the isolation of the pandemic.
Through the partnership, BPR’s Lilly Knoepp worked with Kami Ahren of Foxfire to speak with community members about their experiences and to document those stories into Foxfire’s oral history archive. The work became part of the museum’s archive, which has been active for more than 50 years.
The archive contains stories of people sharing Appalachian skills, culture and experiences including stories from the Influenza Pandemic of 1918.
More than 100 people shared their experiences with Foxfire and BPR through the project including the COVID In Appalachia series which aired on BPR News. Here are some of their stories:
Virtual classrooms
Foxfire student Zain Harding interviewed his former Rabun County middle school teachers John and Alicia Kilby about how the pandemic started.
“We were at school regular on Friday and then *snaps* that next Tuesday we were in a virtual classroom, so not only did the teachers have to rise to the occasion, but you know, most the students in our classes were totally on it…,” Alicia said. “I think everyone compensated within the community and pulled together really strong and made the best of a really, really, really bad situation.”
COVID in Appalachia: Teachers share their pandemic journey
Endangered language
Dakota Brown, education director at the Museum of the Cherokee, shared what it was like when the Qualla Boundary, the sovereign nation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, closed its borders to non-resident and she had to see her mother who was not allowed on the Boundary. Her mother lived in Graham County, which also closed its borders to non-residents, so the pair had to meet in the middle.
“I don’t think at any point in time my family was like angry about that. We were just glad that they were doing that, I guess,” Brown said. She explained that in Cherokee it especially important to protect the elders because the language is endangered.
“Our language is held right now with our elders, with our older population. So if something were to happen to them, our language would die,” she said.
COVID in Appalachia: Family, Connection and Culture
Family time during quarantine
Asheville resident Ann Goosmann’s son George interviewed her while he was home from UNC-Chapel Hill during the pandemic. Goosmann said that having her family home was challenging but that it was "found time" that she never expected to have with them.
“I would say just the opportunity for our family to have whole family time together that we didn’t expect to have is the most beneficial aspect of it,” Goosmann said.
COVID In Appalachia: A Son Interviews His Mom About Pandemic Lessons
‘Nowhere is perfect’
International student Anh Pham was unable to return home to her native Vietnam during the pandemic.
“I basically have less time with them. I get my duty: to protect their safety and my safety, and other people as well. That’s why I’m OK with staying,” Pham said. “I learned that America has its problems like anywhere else, and I don’t regret my choice at all because I got to learn a lot from this place. I learned that nowhere is perfect. I learned to love my country more. And I learned to value what it was like back home - and here.”
COVID In Appalachia: When Borders Closed, This Student Couldn’t Go Home
Carrying the loss
Irene Smoker-Jackson spoke with BPR about her work at the New Kituwah Academy, a Cherokee immersion school. She grew up in a home where her parents spoke only Cherokee. Her mother, Amy Teesateskie Smoker, was one of the last people in the Snowbird community who spoke only Cherokee. In October, her mother passed away due to COVID-19 at the age of 91.
“She left a lot of memory with me and a lot of words with me that are in my heart that I can still carry on,” said Smoker-Jackson.
COVID-19 Has Made Teaching The Cherokee Language Even Harder
Growing something beautiful
Mignon Durham, former board chair at Penland School of Craft, created a garden of over 500 native and nonnative plants during the pandemic at her environmentally conscious LEED certified home near Biltmore Forest. She chronicled the process of building her garden in her self-published book,” Devotion: Diary of an Appalachian Garden” and showed BPR her garden in 2022.
“I had friends live with me much of the summer of 2020…we would hear the creek, see the wildflowers that were blooming and the hummingbirds that are coming by. Nature happens here - there goes a red tailed hawk. He just flew out of his tree, “ Durham said. “I feel the greatest privilege to be at a place in my life where I could do this both from a physical point of view as well as a financial point of view but I feel a great responsibility to share what I have learned.”
COVID-19 In Appalachia: A Gardener's Devotion
Pandemic inspires poetry
Jackson County poet Louise Morgan Runyon has had family in the mountains for generations. She shared how this history as well her life as a steelworker and dancer inspires her poems. She shared this one about the pandemic titled, “Where Is Our Prague Spring?”
“Where is the tango? The close embrace so far gone now? Where is the walz traveling in tandem? The cajun two step. It’s complicated wrapping of arms around each other’s waists. Where is the rolling on the floor with other dancers? The full taking of someone’s weight on your back. The puppy pile of dancers. Where is my 25-year marriage? When was the last time I was touched?”
COVID-19 In Appalachia: Poetry And Legacy In WNC
The project also included oral history training for the community including a virtual training at the Macon County Public Library and a training that is still available on YouTube. Find out more about the project here.
