Participation Type
Reading
Session Title
Session 1.16 Readings and Theater
Presentation #1 Title
Down the Great Wagon Road toward The Union of German and Scots-Irish Forces: Familial History through Visual, Prose, and Poetic Voices
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The brittle Germanic pride of the Trautmann family which immigrated to Pennsylvania and points south to eventually settle in Iredell County NC gave rise to a strong culture of Lutheran agrarianism and community identity. But when Henry Allison Troutman married Louisa Alvaline Morrison of the hills of Alexander County, her own Scots-Irish heritage of strengths, values, and traditions blended with his in a lifestyle of vigilance, pride of place, and joining of minds and hearts. Death in the family resulting in separation from "the old place" left me haunted by stories of good and tragic times. My mother's longing for that place, I believe, led to her early death. But along with my grandmother, the family pillar, she left stories and standards which imbued the family with strength through poverty, loss and change. Through photos of "the old place" and its inhabitants, stories told through the voices of the living and the dead, and poems reflecting my journey through the mixed tangle of ancestral trails still walked in the rural communities of Alexander and Iredell counties, I hope to bring one story alive and to suggest my work as a form for enriching the ancestral stories of the many old Wagon Road families still walking their own roads today.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Joyce Compton Brown has written numerous reviews and essays for regional publications and has presented at conferences emphasizing Appalachian, Southern and Women's literature and issues. She taught at Gardner-Webb University for many years and holds degrees from Appalachian State University and the University of Southern Mississippi. She has published a number of poems, co-authors a column for a local newspaper, and tries to be a recorder of journeys in poetry and prose.
Down the Great Wagon Road toward The Union of German and Scots-Irish Forces: Familial History through Visual, Prose, and Poetic Voices
Smith Hall 154
The brittle Germanic pride of the Trautmann family which immigrated to Pennsylvania and points south to eventually settle in Iredell County NC gave rise to a strong culture of Lutheran agrarianism and community identity. But when Henry Allison Troutman married Louisa Alvaline Morrison of the hills of Alexander County, her own Scots-Irish heritage of strengths, values, and traditions blended with his in a lifestyle of vigilance, pride of place, and joining of minds and hearts. Death in the family resulting in separation from "the old place" left me haunted by stories of good and tragic times. My mother's longing for that place, I believe, led to her early death. But along with my grandmother, the family pillar, she left stories and standards which imbued the family with strength through poverty, loss and change. Through photos of "the old place" and its inhabitants, stories told through the voices of the living and the dead, and poems reflecting my journey through the mixed tangle of ancestral trails still walked in the rural communities of Alexander and Iredell counties, I hope to bring one story alive and to suggest my work as a form for enriching the ancestral stories of the many old Wagon Road families still walking their own roads today.
