The Persistence of Place in Appalachia: The Phenomena of Post-Death Migration, 1930-1970

98 Pages·2016·21.51 MB·English

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Online Theses and Dissertations Student Scholarship
January 2015
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Marjorie Fey Farris
Eastern Kentucky University
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Farris, Marjorie Fey, "The Persistence of Place in Appalachia: The Phenomena of Post-Death Migration,
1930-1970" (2015). Online Theses and Dissertations. 257.
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THE PERSISTENCE OF PLACE IN APPALACHIA:
THE PHENOMENA OF POST-DEATH MIGRATION, 1930-1970

By
MARJORIE FEY FARRIS
Bachelor of Arts
Wayne State Teachers College
Wayne, Nebraska
1963

Master of Arts
Eastern Kentucky University
Richmond, Kentucky
1989

Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
Eastern Kentucky University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
May 2015
Copyright © Marjorie Fey Farris, 2015
All Rights Reserved
ii
DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my daughter,
Ashley Wilson Farris-Trimble
and to my
son-in-law
Michael Joseph Trimble
with deep appreciation and love
for their encouragement
and outspoken belief that this was
a valuable endeavor for their mom
to undertake.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the chair of my committee, Dr. Thomas Appleton,
for his unswerving encouragement, apt suggestions, and enduring patience as I
began this journey. The members of my committee, Dr. Christiane Taylor and
Dr. Todd Hartch, generously gave of their time and support, not only for this
thesis, but also in the classes they taught. The lectures and feedback by every
member of the history department whom I had the privilege of knowing brought
together a rich background of information that has served me well: Dr. Ogechi
Anyanwu, Dr. John Bowes, Dr. Jackie Jay, Dr. Timothy Smit, Dr. Catherine
Stearn, Dr. Brad Wood, and Dr. Mina Yazdani as well as Dr. Appleton, Dr.
Hartch, and Dr. Taylor. Only as I neared the end of my graduate studies did I
fully realize the expertise that those combined classes manifested in providing me
with a growing body of knowledge.

The research for this thesis as well as research for each of my academic
classes was made enjoyable and efficient by the library staff of Eastern Kentucky
University. They ably led me to resources that I would not have found on my
own. I want to thank, also, the library staff at the University of Kentucky who,
although on a more limited basis, extended a professional hand to me as I
researched archival newspapers for obituaries.

The world of the Internet and of computers [new to me in many instances]
was made clear and accessible by my good friend Carol Teague. She was always
willing to listen to my garbled cries for help when I didn’t really understand what
I needed to know, and she always responded in a way that increased my
knowledge of this concept of communication.

To all the members of my family and friends who encouraged me to set
out on this path and who listened as I tried to explain what I was learning, I am
eternally grateful.

Finally, to my children, my daughter and son-in-law, Dr. Ashley and Dr.
Mike Trimble, I appreciate your encouragement and occasional caution as I
travelled this road. Everything I have accomplished has been supported by your
love. Thank you.
iv
ABSTRACT
The research for this paper has been over forty years in the making as I first
read the obituaries of deceased Kentuckians in state and local newspapers beginning in
1972. A pattern became clear that Kentuckians who had left their mountains and moved
to northern industrial cities in order to find work as the coal fields played out and after
the Great Depression often returned, or were returned after death, to their birthplaces for
burial. Further investigation revealed that the religious beliefs that were deeply
embedded in so many mountaineers’ lives played a large part in their desire to have their
final resting place near where they had been born and had grown to adulthood. A study
of the obituaries of residents of selected counties supported the thesis that the return
home at or after death was influenced in part by their religious upbringing that did not
change as they moved north, even after decades of residence in northern cities. Microfilm
of area newspapers offered insight into the ways that Kentuckians laid their family
members to rest, and provided a way to compare death and burial in two discrete sections
of the state.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................1
2. The Economy: "We Live on Beans and Bread” ............................................................4
3. Culture: To Be Ethnic is Simply to Remember Who You Are....................................19
4. The Diaspora: ‘Kinfolk’ in Northern Cities .................................................................25
5. Mountain Religion: “Not the Religion of the Poor” ....................................................31
6. Religion in Northern Cities: Denominations and Congregations ...............................42
7. Post-Death Migration: A Return to the Mountains to Bury Their Kin ........................51
8. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................58
LIST OF REFERENCES ...................................................................................................62
APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................71
Table 1 Central Kentucky Counties .............................................................................72
Table 2 Eastern Kentucky Counties .............................................................................80
VITA ..................................................................................................................................89
vi
Chapter 1
Introduction
“Mountain people are religious. This does not necessarily mean that we all go to church
regularly, but we are religious in the sense that most of our values and the meaning we
see in life spring from religious sources. Formally organized churches that the early
settlers were a part of required an educated clergy and centralized organization,
impractical requirements in the wilderness, and so autonomous sects sprang up. These
individualistic churches stressed the fundamentals of the faith and depended on local
resources and leadership.” Loyal Jones, Appalachian Values1

When east Kentuckians, as part of the Appalachian “Great Migration,” moved
north and west to find jobs and sustainability in the first half of the twentieth century,
they took with them their religious beliefs. Uprooting individuals and families and
finding familiar settings in northern cities and communities required migrants to employ
the most portable asset that they possessed: their religious faith and practices. These
early migrant churchgoers were infused with a sense of individualism cloaked in the
warmth of kinfolk, a sense that as long as they could connect with family and friends,
especially through their religion, they could withstand the differences that their new lives
among northerners presented. Nevertheless, they clung to their origins in the mountains
and returned as often as was practicable. It is this sense of returning to their religious
roots that spawned the practice of bringing the deceased back to family cemeteries for
burial, a different form of migration: the post-death migration.
Writing in 2000, Phillip J. Obermiller and Ray Rappold alluded to the practice of
post-death migration as an indicator of the rate of assimilation of migrant east
Kentuckians as they moved both north and west seeking a better life for themselves and
their children.2 As east Kentuckians, they straddled both the geographical and cultural
divide between their birthplaces and their new status as residents of larger communities,

1 Loyal Jones, Appalachian Values (Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994), 34.
2 Phillip J. Obermiller and Kathryn M. Borman, eds., From Mountain to Metropolis: Appalachian
Migrants in American Cities (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1994), 30.