My Story # 1 - Jim Stokely discussing Wilma Dykeman's memoir

Family of Earth: A Southern Mountain Childhood, written by Wilma Dykeman (1920-2006) when she was in her early twenties, recounts the first 14 years of her life at the head of the Beaverdam Valley just north of Asheville, North Carolina. She describes both the nature and the people of the valley in their wondrous variety: flood and fire to tree and flower, preacher and herb dealer to land baron and general laborer. Originally subtitled What We Are Fighting For, Wilma wrote this memoir during World War II to remind her fellow citizens of the situation at hand:

"It is peace upon this earth for which we fight - good peace; it is life upon this earth for which we die - full life. It is what our peace and life have meant to us in yesterday that will enable us to fight and die today."

Wilma's son Jim Stokely, who discovered this manuscript in his mother's posthumous papers, discusses the many dimensions of Family of Earth and its powerful impact on readers. Lee Smith, for example: "I will place this book next to Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings on my shortest and most important bookshelf."

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