The Quare Women

The Quare WomenWhen Katherine Pettit and May Stone arrived in the rural Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky to engage in social settlement work in the late 1800s, they were unmarried outsiders, living in pitched tents on the side of a hill, and perceived as odd, peculiar and "quare" (the local pronunciation of "queer"). Yet these strong, capable educators wanted to "learn all we can and teach all we can," and in doing so would persevere to establish the

Chinaberry

They've traveled through sunshine

often harrowing and always revelatory

Anthology of Appalachian Writers

When you can't get down to your favorite place

and From the Mountain

families were faced with frantic and desperate situations as the water rose around them

as well as those of countless other forgotten women who braved the frontier

Deesha Philyaw

are invisibly woven into the fabric of America's early years and the story of this country's westward expansion

Revealed in the personal narratives are the diverse interpretations of the practice

Still joined the life of the scattered community