Lodging for 22nd Union

The Comfort Inn at Big Stone Gap (5 minutes from Mountain Empire Community College) has reserved a limited block of rooms, all with double queen and king sized beds, with WiFi, heated indoor pool, and breakfast for $84.60 per person per night. This is a 15% discount from their regular rate. The rooms are reserved for the nights of June 21, 22, and 23, 2018 with departure for Sunday June 24, 2018. You may request rooms for any or all of these dates. The rooms will be held open for individuals to make reservations for the MHA Union 2018 until June 10, 2018 so reservations need to be made by that date. The local number for Comfort Inn at Big Stone Gap, VA: (276) 523-5911

The Wise County Chamber of Commerce has an online directory of hotels, motels, and other lodging options throughout the county.

Melungeons Hold Annual Gathering in June

Best-selling author, television writer, and film director Adriana Trigiani will be the featured speaker at the 22nd annual gathering of the Melungeon Heritage Association (MHA). The event will take place on the last weekend in June in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and the Vardy Community in Hancock County, Tennessee. “It’s a gathering of Melungeons,” says MHA president Scott Withrow, “but everyone is welcome, whether you have Melungeon ancestry or just an interest in Appalachian history.”

The Melungeons are a mixed-ethnic group first documented in the Clinch River region of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia at the beginning of the 19th century. Most researchers have assumed the Melungeons were of mixed African, Native American, and European ancestry, but theories and legends about the Melungeons included descent from Portuguese adventurers, Spanish explorers, shipwrecked sailors or pirates, Muslims, Jews, and others. Because of their uncertain ancestry, the Melungeons faced legal and social discrimination through the mid-20th century. In recent years, Melungeon descendants have embraced their heritage and meet annually to listen to research presentations and share genealogies.

Melungeon characters have appeared in several recent works of fiction, including Trigiani’s Big Stone Gap (2000, Random House), set in Trigiani’s Virginia hometown. The book was made into a film in 2015, directed by Trigiani and starring Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg,Jenna Elfman,and Jasmine Guy. Trigiani has published 14 novels and two memoirs. She has also written scripts for television shows including The Cosby Show and A Different World, was the writer and executive producer of City Kids for ABC/Jim Henson Productions, and oversaw the Lifetime television special Growing Up Funny and the Showtime series Linc’s.

The Melungeon Heritage Association gathering, entitled 22nd Union, will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 21st, in Dalton-Cantrell Hall at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap. Author and historian Marvin Jones will offer presentations on the mixed ethnic community of Winton Triangle in eastern North Carolina. Forest Hazel will discuss the efforts of the Occaneechi Tribe of Virginia to gain federal recognition, and filmmaker and photographer Julie Williams Dixon will present her film Melungeon Voices and her photography exhibit, “People and Their People.” The evening will end with a 7:00 p.m. showing of the film Big Stone Gap.

On Friday, June 22nd, participants will travel by carpool or on their own to the Vardy Community in Hancock County, Tennessee, long recognized for its Melungeon population. The Vardy community was the site of a Presbyterian mission that served Melungeons during the first half of the 20th century, and a tour of the site will begin at 10:00 a.m. Author and Vardy historian DruAnna Overbay will present “Vardy: A Sense of Place” at 1:00 p.m. That evening at 6:00 p.m., a reception will be held at the Southwest Virginia Historical Museum State Park in Big Stone Gap, followed by family group discussions for those interested in exploring their own possible Melungeon connections.

Saturday, June 23rd, will open at 8:45 a.m. in Dalton-Cantrell Hall at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap. Adriana Trigiani will begin with a presentation entitled “An Appalachian Childhood in Big Stone Gap/Melungeons in Fiction.” Dr. Terry Mullins will present “One Melungeon Family’s Clinch Valley Odyssey,” and Dr. Arwin Smallwood will discuss “The Great Tuscarora Diaspora.” After lunch, Julie Williams Dixon and Paul Johnson will present “Lost Communities: Mixed Race Settlements of the Virginia/Carolina Border,” and Dr. Edward Davis IV will offer “From Melange in Angola to Melungeons of America.” Filmmaker Heather Andolina will discuss her documentary-in-progress about the Melungeons, followed by a general meeting of the Melungeon Heritage Association.

Registration for 22nd Union is $10 for any or all of the three days. Pre-registration information, as well as information about MHA and the presenters, is available online at www.melungeon.org. Participants may also register on-site. Pre-registration is required for anyone who wants lunch at Vardy on Friday, June 22nd. Lodging information in Big Stone Gap is also available on the MHA website.

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The Melungeon Heritage Association will meet on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 21, 22, and 23, 2018 in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Keynote speaker for the annual conference is Adriana Trigiani, author of the Big Stone Gap series, including Big Stone Gap (2000), Big Cherry Holler (2001), Milk Glass Moon (2002), and Home to Big Stone Gap (2006) and director of the movie, Big Stone Gap. Ms. Trigiani will speak Saturday on the topic, “An Appalachian Childhood in Big Stone Gap/Melungeons in Fiction.” She is the perfect keynote speaker for this year’s theme, “Migration and Sense of Place.”

Registration is $10 for any or all of the meeting days, which include a pre-conference program at Mountain Empire Community College on Thursday, June 21; a program at Vardy Community Historical Society in Tennessee on Friday, June 22; an evening reception and family group discussions at the Southwest Virginia Museum State Park; and speakers at Mountain Empire Community College on Saturday, June 23.

The Melungeon Heritage Association invites anyone to attend, whether they simply have an interest in Melungeon and regional ancestry, think they have Melungeon ancestry, or have documented Melungeon ancestry.

Also appearing for the first time this year as Union presenters are Dr. Edward Davis and Forest Hazel. Speakers returning to Union who are familiar to MHA members are (in alphabetical order) Julie Williams Dixon, K. Paul Johnson, Marvin T. Jones, Lynda Davis Logan, Dr. Terry Mullins and Dr. Arwin Smallwood. The schedule also includes several events in a non-lecture format such as a photography exhibit from Julie Williams Dixon, a tour of Vardy, and a showing of the film Big Stone Gap. Registration information and a more detailed schedule with presentation topics will be posted by late winter/early spring.

The latest, revised versions of the schedule and registration form are available in pdf form, attached to this post.

MHA Speaker Schedule Revised

Melungeon Heritage Association.registration form revised

Mr. W. C. “Claude” Collins, long-time and beloved board member of MHA, passed away Wednesday, February 15, 2017.     A service of celebration for his life was held at Sneedville (Tennessee) United Methodist Church on Saturday, February 18, 2017, 6:00 p. m.

Claude lived and worked in Hancock County his entire life. A graduate of the masters program at the University of Tennessee, he worked in the Hancock County Educational System for 45 years as a teacher and then a food service director.

Those who knew Claude may remember that he attended Vardy School and told stories of his hardscrabble life growing up on Newman’s Ridge –of walking down a mountain path in mornings to attend school—and how those teachers and leaders at Vardy School inspired him to become a life-long educator.   Presented the first life-time achievement award from MHA, he was as genuine as they come and a mentor to many.     

One person remembered him as the “best of people”—one with “spunk and a positive outlook on life.”  This person remembered thinking once:  “I’d like to be more like Claude.  Maybe I am a better person for having known him.”   

We who knew Claude are all better people for the experience.

Johnnie’s Story

By Johnnie Clyde Gibson Rhea

On May 23, 1931, I was born in Virginia to John and Martha Goins Gibson.  My grandparents were Andy and Emily Long Gibson and Alex and Merky Collins Goins.  I have researched back to my 6^th grandparents.

My parents owned one car back in the late 30’s.  They never had another one so we did a lot of walking.

I was raised on Blackwater and Newman’s Ridge.  We never owned a tractor; it was a red mule!  I went to school at Elm Springs, Vardy, Sneedville and Howard Quarter School; never got through the 7^th grade.

I washed on a washboard and cooked on a woodstove.  I sawed wood to cook with and to keep warm.  I washed by a spring and carried water because we never had running water in the house or an inside toilet.  I plowed with a mule, I turned ground, I shocked hay, worked on strawstacks, threshed wheat, cut corn, and pulled fodder corn.  I made my toys out of corn stalk.  I walked to school 2 miles there and back and was picked up by a truck for 4 miles there and back, to go to school.  I used a cut of saw to cut wood for wood to sell.  My games at night were by a coal oil lamp where we played Hully Gully with parched corn.  I took a bath in an old wash tub on Saturday night.  We had an old victrola with a Carter Family record.  We finally got a Sears Roebuck radio run by a battery that lasted three months.  We never had a store bought sled or wagon, but would go to the woods and make  our sled and wagon from wood.  We lived in the woods, and never learned to climb a tree or swing on a grapevine.  I had to pull weeds for the hogs to eat.  We had two hogs killed in the fall and two cows gave milk and butter.  All we bought from the store was a little coffee, salt and sugar.  Taking history back, we grew our own corn and wheat for making our flour for bread, made molasses and maple syrup. To dye our clothes, we used walnuts, rye or goldenrod.  We had to spin our wool from sheep.  We made our quilts out of worn clothes to keep warm.  We lived in a house that when it came a snow we would wake up with snow on our bed.  We  had chickens to kill and eat, and sold eggs. You made your own food to eat in the winter out of the garden, berries and apples; we dried our beans or we would go hungry.  I can say I never went to bed hungry or went naked.

I had good parents that provided for me.  I am thankful for that.  We didn’t have anything fancy.  We just had a phone, old rough stuff to eat, didn’t go to the store for food.  We didn’t have any electricity.  We had a spring where we put milk and butter we made.  Three times a day we brought it to the table and took it back to the spring.  The spring was our refrigeration.

So—I was that Melungeon, raised up poor and hard, still Melungeon made and proud to be one, too!

Johnnie  (Johnnie Clyde Gibson Rhea)

This was shared by a friend of Johnnie on the occasion of her passing. She was the heart and soul of Melungeon Unions so it is being posted in the Unions section of the forum-ed

Mattie Ruth Johnson, age 73, died Wednesday, August 13, 2014 at Holston Valley Medical Center, Kingsport, Tennessee. Mattie Ruth, who spoke at 6^th Union, authored My Melungeon Heritage: A Story of Life on Newman’s Ridge (Overmountain Press, 1997).

Tracing her ancestry to the Collins, Mullins, and Gibson families of Hancock County, she gave us a personal account of growing up on Prospect Ridge, part of Newman’s Ridge. She had many friends among MHA members who remember her kindness, her art work, and her Melungeon genealogical research. At 14th Union in 2010 (Lincoln Memorial University), and again at 16th Union in 2012 (Southwest Virginia Museum), Julie Williams Dixon shared outtakes from her documentary Melungeon Voices, and her interview with Mattie Ruth was especially enjoyed by those who attended the presentation. Mattie Ruth gave five of her paintings of the Newman’s Ridge area to Philip Roberts, who has kindly allowed us to use them on our main page. Here are his descriptions of the places depicted: