Women of the Mountains

              Women of the Mountains
Rev. Edgar Tufts
Principle Girls Department
Lees- McRae Institute
Banner Elk, N. C.
The Executive Committee of Home Missions
of the Presbyterian Church
in the United States
Perhaps nowhere in our land, not even among the negroes, do the women
suffer greater hardships and more deprivations than they do in the
mountains. Beginning with the tender years of early childhood, down to
old age, theirs is a lot of hard labor, few comforts, few opportunities and
often extreme poverty. No wonder that the freshness of youth is early
wiped from their brows, and that premature wrinkles cover their care- worn
faces.
That there are many exceptions no one is more aware than the writer. But
on the other hand, no one who is at all familiar with the conditions can
deny the statements that I shall make.
Hardships of Girlhood Days The mountain woman is born to work. This
begins as soon as she is large enongh to hold the baby, if there should be
one, which is usually the case. Washing dishes, bringing in wood and
cleaning up the house are begun not many years after she has learned to
walk. Milking the cows, cutting wood and hoeing corn are considered a
part of her duties, as much as it is the privilege of her older brothers to loaf
around the village store or the blacksmith shop. Many a time have I seen a
small girl going to the mill with a peck of corn on her shoulder, or coming
from the store with a twenty- five pound sack of flour on her hip, or
bending over a washtub doing the work of a grown woman.
The difficulties of attending school are numerous and often
insurmountable.
The idea is common among the mountain parents that their girls do not
need much education. If they can read and write, that is as much and
sometimes more than they themselves can do, and as it sufficed for them it
ought to answer for their girls. This spirit is a difficulty that is hard to
overcome even with the combined efforts of teacher and pupil.
It is very hard for the girls to be spared from home. They are called upon
to help with all kinds of work in the house and outside, as there are
practically no servants in the mountains. So when the mother is sick or