“Wildly funny and deeply tragic . . . these tales chronicle each sheriff’s journey from youth to election to office and, occasionally, into retirement.” —Wayne County Outlook Following the success of his collections of stories from funeral directors, schoolteachers, doctors, and lawyers, folklorist William Lynwood Montell presents a new volume of tales from Kentucky sheriffs. Montell collected stories from all areas of the state to represent the diversity of social and economic backgrounds in the various communities the officers serve. Tales from Kentucky Sheriffs covers elections, criminal behavior, and sheriff’s mistakes in a lighthearted and often humorous manner. The book includes accounts of a drunk driver who thought he was in a different state, a sheriff running a sting operation with the US Marshals, and a woman reporting a tomato thief in her garden. Other accounts involve procedural errors with serious consequences, such as the tale of a sheriff who mistakenly informs a man that his son has committed suicide. Together, these firsthand narratives preserve important aspects of Kentucky’s history not likely to be recorded elsewhere. “The stories Montell collected fill up nearly 300 pages and range from humorous mishaps during incidents and interesting criminal behavior to the more somber topic of death in the line of duty.” —Central Kentucky News-Journal “The numerous experiences shared by the people interviewed cover several decades and provide a very enlightening look into the world of Kentucky county-level law enforcement.” —Kentucky Ancestors “[Montell] has once again mined an important element of the state’s culture with utter transparency, and has—once again—done the state proud.” —Kentucky Monthly
In Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes, William Lynwood Montell has collected stories and reminiscences from funeral home directors and embalmers across the state. These accounts provide a record of the business of death as it has been practiced in Kentucky over the past fifty years. The collection ranges from tales of old-time burial practices, to stories about funeral customs unique to the African American community, to tales of premonitions, mistakes, and even humorous occurrences. Other stories involve such unusual aspects of the business as snake-handling funerals, mistaken identities, and in-home embalming. Taken together, these firsthand narratives preserve an important aspect of Kentucky social life not likely to be collected elsewhere. Most of these funeral home stories involve the recent history of Kentucky funeral practices, but some descriptive accounts go back to the era when funeral directors used horse-drawn wagons to reach secluded areas. These accounts, including stories about fainting relatives, long-winded preachers, and pallbearers falling into graves, provide significant insights into the pivotal role morticians have played in local life and culture over the years.
This book provides descriptive accounts of what the one-room school era was like for teachers, students, and the wider community, encompassing school infrastructure, school events both typical and unusual, teacher-student relationships, and other factors relative to the culture of an educational system that began in pioneer times and ended during the 1950s to the 1970s, primarily in the 1960s"--P. [1].
A woman was sitting on the witness stand, and the lawyer asked her, 'Did you, or did you not, on the night of June 23rd have sex with a hippie on the back of a motorcycle in a peach orchard?' She thought for a few minutes, then said, 'What was that date again?'"—from the book Lawyers have long been known as master storytellers, and those from Kentucky are certainly no exception. Veteran oral historian and folklorist Lynwood Montell has collected tales from dozens of lawyers and judges from throughout the Bluegrass State, ranging from the story about the tough Jackson County judge who fined himself for being late to court to unwelcome dogs in the courtroom. Recorded just as they have been told for generations, these stories are sometimes funny, sometimes sad or frightening, sometimes raw and harrowing, but always remarkable. Far more than collection of lawyer jokes, Tales from Kentucky Lawyers recounts the most insightful, entertaining, and occasionally heartbreaking stories ever told by and about Kentucky lawyers and their clients, covering the spectrum from arson to homicide, domestic disagreements to sexual abuse, and everything in between. Tales from Kentucky Lawyers is a valuable resource for folklorists as well as an entertaining and vivid account of the often-surprising legal world.
Vernon and Irene Castle popularized ragtime dancing in the years just before World War I and made dancing a respectable pastime in America. The whisper-thin, elegant Castles were trendsetters in many ways: they traveled with a black orchestra, had an openly lesbian manager, and were animal-rights advocates decades before it became a public issue. Irene was also a fashion innovator, bobbing her hair ten years before the flapper look of the 1920s became popular. From their marriage in 1911 until 1916, the Castles were the most famous and influential dance team in the world. Their dancing schools and nightclubs were packed with society figures and white-collar workers alike. After their peak of white-hot fame, Vernon enlisted in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, served at the front lines, and was killed in a 1918 airplane crash. Irene became a movie star and appeared in more than a dozen films between 1917 and 1922. The Castles were depicted in the Fred Astaire–Ginger Rogers movie The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), but the film omitted most of the interesting and controversial aspects of their lives. They were more complex than posterity would have it: Vernon was charming but irresponsible, Irene was strong-minded but self-centered, and the couple had filed for divorce before Vernon’s death (information that has never before been made public). Vernon and Irene Castle’s Ragtime Revolution is the fascinating story of a couple who reinvented dance and its place in twentieth-century culture.
Few black groups in the United States carry with them the romance, the gripping history, the pathos, the indestructible spirit of the Coe Ridge colony during the ninety years of its existence. ". . . a new and long needed departure in American historiography. . . . This is in every way an impressive book. It contains detailed accounts of the informants, tables of folklore motifs, genealogical charts, a prologue and epilogue explaining authoritatively the hypotheses of oral traditional history, and handsome photographs of the Coe Ridge area." --Richard M. Dorson, Journal of American History. "Lynwood Montell has written an invaluable book for all those interested in the use of oral tradition as a tool in the reconstruction of history. . . . This is a book worthy of being on any folklorist's shelf." --Richaed A. Reuss, Journal of American Folklore.
The editors, William J. Devlin and Shai Biderman, have compiled an impressive list of contributors to explore the philosophy at the core of David Lynch's work. Lynch is examined as a postmodern artist and the themes of darkness, logic and time are discussed in depth.
Lynwood Montell has collected ghost tales all over the state of Kentucky, from coal mining settlements to river landings, from highways to battlefields. He presents these suspense-filled stories just as he first heard or read them: as bona fide personal experiences or as events witnessed by family members or friends. There are over 250 stories in Ghosts across Kentucky that are set in specific places and times. They include tales of graveyards, haunted dormitories, animal ghosts, and vanishing hitchhikers. Montell describes weird lights, unexplained sounds, felt presences, and disappearing apparitions. Phantom workmen, fallen soldiers, young lovers, and executed criminals appear in these pages, along with the living who chance upon them. Though the focus is on the stories themselves, Montell also includes a chapter explaining our fascination with the supernatural and the deep truths these storytelling traditions reveal about our lives and our pasts.William Lynwood Montell, emeritus professor of folk studies at Western Kentucky University, is the author of several books, including Killings.
Headless visions -- howls and moans -- ghostly ladies dressed in black and white -- a fiddling spirit dancing on the road. Such are the sights and sounds that inhabit the pages of Lynwood Montell's Kentucky Ghosts. This collection is representative of the rich tradition of ghost or "haint" tales passed on through the ages and across cultures as a way of dealing with death and the lore of the spirit world. In retelling the tales, Montell has included details about architecture, geography, and local culture. Each tale is told in the voice of the narrator who believe the story to be true. And, who knows... ?
“The book lets us see the human side of physicians—the humorous, the heartwarming—the tradition of health care in Kentucky.” —The Harrodsburg Herald From the laughable to the laudable, Tales from Kentucky Doctors present illuminating portraits of doctors and patients, drawing stories from physicians with lifetimes of experience serving Kentucky families. Doctors recall the successes and failures that shaped their early careers. For Dr. Baretta R. Casey of Hazard, becoming a doctor was a difficult journey. Already married and with a child, Casey enrolled in college at age thirty, later completed medical school, and began a successful career as a family practitioner in the 1990s. Though patient visitations and doctors’ prescriptions are recorded on account ledgers, personal relationships and memories are not part of medical records. The section “Personal Practice” gives a glimpse of the intimate connection that doctors form with their communities. For many towns, family physicians were heroes. Dr. James S. Brashear relates the challenges of practicing in Central City, a coal mining town, recalling an incident in which he saved the lives of two miners. Handed down to Montell in the oral tradition, the tales presented in this collection represent every part of the state. Personal experiences, humorous anecdotes, and local legends make it a fascinating panorama of Kentucky physicians and of the communities they served. “Abounds with interesting and amusing anecdotes about life in rural Kentucky. For those of us who grew up during these times, it brings back fond memories of good times and bad.” —Bowling Green Daily News
Perhaps no one has keener insight into human nature than the small-town trial lawyer. All but lost in an era of corporate law firms and specialized practice, this charismatic figure was once at the political center of a community and was the holder of its many secrets. A small town attorney's only specialization was the town itself. Serving as both defender and accuser, these lawyers witnessed communities and individuals at their best and worst. Men and women of the legal profession often exert influence in seemingly small realms, but they play an important role in the lives of many people and help shape the American legal system. Veteran oral historian and folklorist William Lynwood Montell has brought together a fascinating collection of tales gathered from lawyers and judges throughout the Volunteer State. Montell searched small towns and cities across Tennessee for the law's older and middle age practitioners, and he shares the wealth of their experience in Tales from Tennessee Lawyers. These stories are recorded exactly as told by the lawyers themselves, and they reveal candid and unusual snapshots of the legal system -- both past and present. With a tape recorder and an ear for detail, Montell uncovers events and lives ranging from the commonplace to the extraordinary. A man resorts to prostitution to alleviate the debt brought about by divorce proceedings. Identical twins are tried for a string of murders. A convict flees his trial by stealing the judge's car. A prosecutor tries the nation's first school-shooting case. Judge George Balitsaris, a former University of Tennessee football player, escorts a special prosecutor out of a notorious rape trial as a precaution after the defendant's family issues threats. These and similar stories illustrate the strange, complex cases argued daily from Tennessee's largest cities to its smallest towns. Far more than just a collection of lawyer jokes, these recollections shed light on the tense and often dangerous lives of those who work to see that all receive fair representation and treatment in court.
The "State Line Country" of this book is a rugged area of small farms on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Historically the area has had a homicide rate more than ten times the national average. In this gripping and penetrating study of violence and death in the State Line Country, Lynwood Montell examines the local historical and social conditions, as well as the prevailing attitudes and values, that gave rise and support to rowdy behavior and homicidal acts from the Civil War to the 1930s. The area fostered, he thinks, a culture of violence. Drawing from vivid oral accounts, which he recorded from present-day residents, Montell describes more than fifty killings that took place in the area, locating them against a background of farming, moonshining, and sawmilling activities common in that country. In addition to reconstructing the homicides, he analyzes their key features, including the circumstances under which they took place, the relationships of the persons involved, the presence of precipitating factors (such as deadly weapons and alcohol) in the culture, and attitudes toward law enforcement officers and the courts. This close examination of homicide in the State Line Country, which views the tradition from regional and national perspectives, adds a significant dimension to the study of homicide in the South.
From frontier times to the present day, Kentucky nurses have served with intelligence and energy, always ensuring that their patients received the best available care. Noted folklorist and oral historian William Lynwood Montell collects nearly two hundred stories from these hard-working men and women in Tales from Kentucky Nurses. From humorous anecdotes to spine-chilling coincidences, tragic circumstances, and heartwarming encounters, the tales in this lively volume are recorded exactly as they were told to Montell. Covering medical practice in the state from the early twentieth century through contemporary times, the episodes related in Tales from Kentucky Nurses reveal the significance of the nursing profession to the Bluegrass state's local life and culture. They include funny tales -- such as the story of an injured stripper who swore her pole had been sabotaged and an anecdote about a surgeon racing between hospitals who paid his speeding ticket twice, knowing he would have to hurry the other way in a few hours. Montell also presents moving stories like the recollections of a nurse who helped a frail cancer patient achieve his last wish of being baptized. This valuable collection also features anecdotes from the famous Frontier Nursing Service, which provided essential care to families in remote areas of the state and whose leader, Mary Breckinridge, is remembered fondly for her wit and kindness. In addition, Montell's interviewees share ghost stories and describe folk remedies like the practice of placing an axe under a woman's pillow during labor to cut the pain. These firsthand accounts not only pay homage to an underappreciated profession but also preserve important aspects of Kentucky's history not likely to be recorded elsewhere.
A fascinating collection of ghost stories, tales of the supernatural, death beliefs and death sayings that remain as a vestige of the part in south central Kentucky's "Pennyrile" region. "This unique and extremely valuable book adds considerably to the area of folklore studies in the United States. The material which Montell obtained in his field work is superb." --Don Yoder. "This book is to be recommended to both folklorists and those non-folklorists who read folklore for enjoyment alone. It makes an important contribution to the study of deathlore and, it is to be hoped, will draw added attention to this multi-generic subject area." --David J. Hufford, Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin. "Professor Montell's book can well be viewed as a standard of excellence: a direct, articulate and cataloged approach for future study and implementation in the fields of folklore and oral history." --Joan Perkal, Oral History Association Newsletter. "The book gives fascinating accounts of death beliefs, death omens, folk beliefs associated with the dead, and in the major section, ghosts narratives. A fine combination of scholarship and chilling narration to be relished by firelight in an old deserted house in the hills." --Book Forum. "Professor Montell has arranged beliefs and experiences about death of a particular group of people in such a way that a whole new aspect of the people's lives comes to focus." --Loyal Jones, The Filson Club HIstory Quarterly.
Don't Go Up Kettle Creek is a historical portrayal of a river and the people who made their living along its banks and tributaries. Drawing upon the personal recollections and oral traditions of longtime residents, William Lynwood Montell describes a century and a half of life in the Upper Cumberland. Montell organized his material according to the topics that dominated his tape-recorded conversations with residents of the area-farming, logging and rafting, steamboating, the Civil War-topics that the people themselves saw as important in their history. In reconstructing the past, the author also illuminates the relationship between geographic and economic factors in the region; the prolonged affects of a cataclysmic event, the Civil War, on the isolated area; and the impact of modernization, in the form of "hard" roads and cheap, TVA-supplied electricity, on the traditional ways of people. First published in 1983, this book is now available in paperback for the first time. Included with this edition is a new foreword in which Montell and Mary Robbins, executive director of the Tennessee Upper Cumberland Tourism Association, describe changes in the area that have occured since the book's initial appearance. The Author: William Lynwood Montell, now retired, was coordinator of programs in folk and interculturual studies at Western Kentucky University. His numerous books include Ghosts along the Cumberland and The Saga of Coe Ridge.
A concise and amply illustrated introduction to Kentucky folk structures—log cabins, houses, cribs, and barns—that should be treasured as irreplaceable expressions of the cultural values of the Commonwealth's past.
Kentucky has a rich legacy of ghostly visitations. Lynwood Montell has harvested dozens of tales of haunted houses and family ghosts from all over the Bluegrass state. Many of the stories were collected from elders by young people and are recounted exactly as they were gathered. Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky includes chilling tales such as that of the Tan Man of Pike County, who trudges invisibly through a house accompanied by the smell of roses, and the famed Gray Lady of Liberty Hall in Frankfort, a houseguest who never left. Montell tells the story of a stormy night, shortly before Henry Clay's death, when the ghost of the statesman's old friend Daniel Boone calls upon him, and then recounts the more modern story of the ghouls that haunt the rehearsal house of the band The Kentucky Headhunters. Included are accounts of haunted libraries, mansions, bedrooms, log cabins, bathrooms, college campuses, apartments, furniture, hotels, and distilleries, as well as reports of eerie visitations from ghostly grandmothers, husbands, daughters, uncles, cousins, babies, slaves, Civil War soldiers, dogs, sheep, and even wildcats. Almost all of Kentucky's 120 counties are represented. Though the book emphasizes the stories themselves, Montell offers an introduction discussing how local history, local character, and local flavor are communicated across the generations in these colorful stories.
Don't Go Up Kettle Creek is a historical portrayal of a river and the people who made their living along its banks and tributaries. Drawing upon the personal recollections and oral traditions of longtime residents, William Lynwood Montell describes a century and a half of life in the Upper Cumberland. Montell organized his material according to the topics that dominated his tape-recorded conversations with residents of the area-farming, logging and rafting, steamboating, the Civil War-topics that the people themselves saw as important in their history. In reconstructing the past, the author also illuminates the relationship between geographic and economic factors in the region; the prolonged affects of a cataclysmic event, the Civil War, on the isolated area; and the impact of modernization, in the form of "hard" roads and cheap, TVA-supplied electricity, on the traditional ways of people. First published in 1983, this book is now available in paperback for the first time. Included with this edition is a new foreword in which Montell and Mary Robbins, executive director of the Tennessee Upper Cumberland Tourism Association, describe changes in the area that have occured since the book's initial appearance. The Author: William Lynwood Montell, now retired, was coordinator of programs in folk and interculturual studies at Western Kentucky University. His numerous books include Ghosts along the Cumberland and The Saga of Coe Ridge.
In an educational era defined by large school campuses and overcrowded classrooms, it is easy to overlook the era of one-room schools, when teachers filled every role, including janitor, and provided a familylike atmosphere in which children also learned from one another. In Tales from Kentucky One-Room School Teachers, William Lynwood Montell reclaims an important part of Kentucky's social, cultural, and educational heritage, assembling a fun and fascinating collection of schoolroom stories that chronicle a golden era in Kentucky. The firsthand narratives and anecdotes in this collection cover topics such as teacher-student relationships, day-to-day activities, lunchtime foods, students' personal relationships, and, of course, the challenges of teaching in a one-room school. Montell includes tales about fund-raising pie suppers, pranks, outrageous student behavior (such as the quiet little boy whose first "sharing" involved profanity), and variety of other topics. Montell even includes some of his own memories from his days as a pupil in a one-room school. Tales from Kentucky One-Room School Teachers is a delightful glimpse of the history of education.
Lynwood Montell has collected ghost tales all over the state of Kentucky, from coal mining settlements to river landings, from highways to battlefields. He presents these suspense-filled stories just as he first heard or read them: as bona fide personal experiences or as events witnessed by family members or friends. There are over 250 stories in Ghosts across Kentucky that are set in specific places and times. They include tales of graveyards, haunted dormitories, animal ghosts, and vanishing hitchhikers. Montell describes weird lights, unexplained sounds, felt presences, and disappearing apparitions. Phantom workmen, fallen soldiers, young lovers, and executed criminals appear in these pages, along with the living who chance upon them. Though the focus is on the stories themselves, Montell also includes a chapter explaining our fascination with the supernatural and the deep truths these storytelling traditions reveal about our lives and our pasts.William Lynwood Montell, emeritus professor of folk studies at Western Kentucky University, is the author of several books, including Killings.
A woman was sitting on the witness stand, and the lawyer asked her, 'Did you, or did you not, on the night of June 23rd have sex with a hippie on the back of a motorcycle in a peach orchard?' She thought for a few minutes, then said, 'What was that date again?'"—from the book Lawyers have long been known as master storytellers, and those from Kentucky are certainly no exception. Veteran oral historian and folklorist Lynwood Montell has collected tales from dozens of lawyers and judges from throughout the Bluegrass State, ranging from the story about the tough Jackson County judge who fined himself for being late to court to unwelcome dogs in the courtroom. Recorded just as they have been told for generations, these stories are sometimes funny, sometimes sad or frightening, sometimes raw and harrowing, but always remarkable. Far more than collection of lawyer jokes, Tales from Kentucky Lawyers recounts the most insightful, entertaining, and occasionally heartbreaking stories ever told by and about Kentucky lawyers and their clients, covering the spectrum from arson to homicide, domestic disagreements to sexual abuse, and everything in between. Tales from Kentucky Lawyers is a valuable resource for folklorists as well as an entertaining and vivid account of the often-surprising legal world.
Perhaps no one has keener insight into human nature than the small-town trial lawyer. All but lost in an era of corporate law firms and specialized practice, this charismatic figure was once at the political center of a community and was the holder of its many secrets. A small town attorney’s only specialization was the town itself. Serving as both defender and accuser, these lawyers witnessed communities and individuals at their best and worst. Men and women of the legal profession often exert influence in seemingly small realms, but they play an important role in the lives of many people and help shape the American legal system. Veteran oral historian and folklorist William Lynwood Montell has brought together a fascinating collection of tales gathered from lawyers and judges throughout the Volunteer State. Montell searched small towns and cities across Tennessee for the law’s older and middle age practitioners, and he shares the wealth of their experience in Tales from Tennessee Lawyers. These stories are recorded exactly as told by the lawyers themselves, and they reveal candid and unusual snapshots of the legal system—both past and present. With a tape recorder and an ear for detail, Montell uncovers events and lives ranging from the commonplace to the extraordinary. A man resorts to prostitution to alleviate the debt brought about by divorce proceedings. Identical twins are tried for a string of murders. A convict flees his trial by stealing the judge’s car. A prosecutor tries the nation’s first school-shooting case. Judge George Balitsaris, a former University of Tennessee football player, escorts a special prosecutor out of a notorious rape trial as a precaution after the defendant’s family issues threats. These and similar stories illustrate the strange, complex cases argued daily from Tennessee’s largest cities to its smallest towns. Far more than just a collection of lawyer jokes, these recollections shed light on the tense and often dangerous lives of those who work to see that all receive fair representation and treatment in court.
The purpose of this study about the Civil War in the Kentucky-Tennessee Upper Cumberland is to examine and portray the special character of the devastating war time activities, including the war's impact on local residents and their tradition-based culture throughout the war years and during the subsequent decades, even down to the present time. The Upper Cumberland included in this book is located in south central Kentucky and north central Tennessee, and includes Adair, Clinton, Cumberland, Metcalfe, Monroe, Pulaski, Russell, and Wayne counties in Kentucky, and Clay, Cumberland, DeKalb, Fentress, Jackson, Macon, Overton, Pickett, Putnam, Smith, and White counties in Tennessee. This portion of the Upper South has a distinct socio-cultural entity as viewed by those persons who have lived and worked within its boundaries across the years, and to recent retirees from other counties and states that chose to move to the Upper Cumberland. Before the coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority's electric power-producing dams, the topography of the land generally ranged from fairly well-developed flood plains, located along the Cumberland, Wolf, Obey, and Roaring rivers, and smaller tributary streams in the drainage basin, to rugged hills, low mountains, secluded coves, and deep, narrow valleys.
A fascinating collection of ghost stories, tales of the supernatural, death beliefs and death sayings that remain as a vestige of the part in south central Kentucky's "Pennyrile" region. "This unique and extremely valuable book adds considerably to the area of folklore studies in the United States. The material which Montell obtained in his field work is superb." --Don Yoder. "This book is to be recommended to both folklorists and those non-folklorists who read folklore for enjoyment alone. It makes an important contribution to the study of deathlore and, it is to be hoped, will draw added attention to this multi-generic subject area." --David J. Hufford, Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin. "Professor Montell's book can well be viewed as a standard of excellence: a direct, articulate and cataloged approach for future study and implementation in the fields of folklore and oral history." --Joan Perkal, Oral History Association Newsletter. "The book gives fascinating accounts of death beliefs, death omens, folk beliefs associated with the dead, and in the major section, ghosts narratives. A fine combination of scholarship and chilling narration to be relished by firelight in an old deserted house in the hills." --Book Forum. "Professor Montell has arranged beliefs and experiences about death of a particular group of people in such a way that a whole new aspect of the people's lives comes to focus." --Loyal Jones, The Filson Club HIstory Quarterly.
Volume I. Quilts and textiles, Ceramics, Silver, Weaponry, Furniture, Vernacular architecture, Native American art -- volume II. Photography, Fine art.
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