Mountain Legacy: A Story of Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School With Emphasis on the Junior College Years - Hardcover

Statham, Frances Patton

9780877972822: Mountain Legacy: A Story of Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School With Emphasis on the Junior College Years

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0877972826 ISBN 13: 9780877972822

Publisher: Cherokee Pub, 1999

"Go one day by railroad, one day by horse and buggy, a third on horseback, a day on foot, and then on all fours until you climb a tree. And when you fall out, you'll be in Rabun County."

In Mountain Legacy, these are the directions that guide the reader to the formerly isolated, poverty-stricken valley of the Appalachian Highlands of north Georgia, where, one hundred years ago, a man founded an 1800-acre farm school, and students could get an education by combining poetry with plowing, mathematics with milking, and psychology with sorghum syrup making.

Part One of this nonfiction book (384p.), with bibliographical references and index, tells the story of Andrew Ritchie's struggles to get an education, himself, and then to return to the valley to build Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, despite almost insurmountable odds.

Part Two addresses a unique time period in the school's history, the junior college years of the Great depression and World War II, and the personal stories of those students, who later became advisers to presidents, educators, scientists, physicians, mathematicians in the early space program, and heroes of the Bataan Death March and the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo.

Part Three shows the changes after WWII, the Foxfire years, and the visions for the future of a unique school, where dreams of an education and the escape from poverty can still come true.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Author:

Because of my on site research of World War II battlegrounds in both Europe and the Pacific for my earlier novels, On Wings of Fire and To Face the Sun, I especially enjoyed interviewing the men and women who had participated in many of those battles over fifty years ago.

But the ones whose life stories are included in Mountain Legacy are more than heroes of WWII. They are a unique group-from the Appalachian Highlands, where moonshine stills dotted the valleys during the Great Depression--and for them, higher education seemed an impossible dream, until they discovered a farm school where they could earn their tuition by plowing, cooking, canning, and raising cattle.

In listening to them recount their stories of struggle, survival, and ultimate success, with all the mishaps and humorous shenanigans that occurred, I realized that here was a part of our nation's history that could have vanished as easily as rain forests before an encroaching civilization, unless someone recorded their stories.

This, I have been proud to do and I hope that you, the reader, will enjoy these stories of patriotism and success-of an era when it was possible for a barefoot girl from Appalachia to become the primary mathematician for the early space program and the lift-off to the moon. Frances Patton Statham

About the Author:

Author of fourteen novels, including The Roswell Women (recently optioned for TV) and the 1999 nonfiction book, Mountain Legacy, Frances Patton Statham graduated, magna cum laude, from Winthrop University, received her master of fine arts degree from the University of Georgia, and an honorary doctorate from World University.

A lyric-coloratura soprano, she is also an artist, and is the recipient of numerous awards in music, art, literature, and community service. Besides being selected as Georgia Author of the Year in Fiction on three separate occasions, she has also been recognized for her outstanding lecture and guest solo appearances in Vancouver, Budapest, Madrid, Cambridge, and Singapore. She received the Stieglitz Award for her music composition, "Song Cycle for Soprano, Flute, and Piano."

Statham is listed in various biographical reference books, such as International Authors and Writers Who's Who, World Who's Who of Women, and Personalities of the South.

She is currently working on a contemporary novel in which two unlikely worlds collide-the down home, dirty, redneck world of NASCAR racing and the equally deadly milieu of opera.

In October 1999, Frances Patton Statham will be participating in the Civil War Reenactment Weekend at Andersonville Military Cemetery, where she will autograph the new edition of the Roswell Women.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.