More than 20 years ago, Bessie Head sat down with a pen and a notebook and began writing. She never learned to type. Her formal education ended after eighth grade, and every one of her stories was written by hand. She was not trying to become an author. She was not planning to publish a book. She simply wanted to preserve memories for her family— stories of growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky during the Great Depression, stories she feared might otherwise be lost with time. Today, at 100 years old, those handwritten memories have become a published book, Forgotten Times: Survival in 1930's Appalachian Kentucky, available through Barnes & Noble. Born in Viper, Kentucky, near Hazard in Perry County, Bessie was one of 13 children. Growing up in the 1930s, life was challenging by modern standards. Children walked miles to school, often barefoot. Homes had no electricity or indoor plumbing. Meals were cooked on wood stoves, and coal mining provided one of the few opportunities for work.
"Helping others, being considerate, being thoughtful, and keeping our faith," Bessie said. "All of it stayed with me." A lifelong reader, Bessie's love of books began as soon as she started school. "From the time I started school, I read anything I could," she said. That love eventually inspired her to record the stories she remembered so vividly. Among her favorites is "The Special Day," the first story in the book, which recounts her baptism as a young girl in a Kentucky creek. Although Bessie carefully filled notebook after notebook with memories, she never imagined anyone beyond her family would read them. "Never," she said when asked if she thought the stories would one day become a book. "It was never my intent to have them published. It was the Lord's intent." The person who helped make that happen was her daughter, Landis Thompson. More than 25 years ago, Landis first read her mother's handwritten stories and immediately recognized their importance. "My first thought was that I needed to preserve them," Landis said. When the two eventually discussed turning the notebooks into a book, Bessie had one request: do not change her words.
Yet Bessie never viewed her childhood as unusual.
"We didn't know anything different," she said. "Everyone lived that way. My parents were poor, we were poor. That was just the way of life." What stands out most in her memories is not hardship, but the values that carried families through it: faith, compassion, resilience, and neighbors helping neighbors.
26 CEDARHURST SENIOR LIVING | SUMMER FLOURISH 2026
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