Hand crafts

I have told the story of my great-grandfather here before—the Horace Kephart of Great Smoky Mountains fame, whom Ken Burns brought to life with care and meaning in his most recent series, "National Parks: America's Best Idea."  Kephart was the father of six when he left his life as a librarian to travel and then to live mostly alone in the Smokies; one of his children, a son named George, would become a forester and an official in the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.  He would also be my grandfather.

This tiny porcupine-quill basket is among the many artifacts George Kephart left behind.  Recently I helped my father take this and a series of other Indian-crafted baskets to an auction house, with the hope that a collector will rightly make room for them.  It is hard, however, to give up family history, even if one doesn't quite know, nor will ever know, how a basket this tiny and carefully made came into the possession of a handsome, taciturn man.

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Ken Burns, Horace Kephart, and an Upcoming Documentary Film

Ken Burns has been at work on a six-part documentary called America's Best Idea—a series that will tell of the making of our national parks. Since my great-grandfather, Horace Kephart, played a pivotal role in the creation of the Greak Smoky Mountains National Park, he, along with his good friend, photographer George Masa, will be featured in the stories told.

(I've written about my great-grandfather from time to time, both for literary journals and here, on the blog.)

The photograph here is of Horace Kephart's son, George Kephart, my father's late father. Though Horace was absent during the majority of his children's youth—ensconced among the Appalachians, recording their ways, advocating on behalf of earth and stream, living a life that to many remains a mystery—few people were as proud of Horace Kephart as this son. I think of him looking down right now, and smiling.

The series begins this Sunday night. A viewers' guide is featured here. Concurrent with this event is the release of a long-hidden Horace Kephart novel, Smoky Mountain Magic, that features an interesting foreword by my cousin, Libby Hargrave, and a beautiful introduction by long-time Kephart scholar, George Ellison.

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Horace Kephart Day

May 1st was Horace Kephart day in Bryson City, NC, and my brother who, as the sole male of this generation, carries our last name forward, was there among cousins, librarians, enthusiasts, and scholars to commemorate this author-naturalist-woodsman who, among other things, penned Our Southern Highlanders and contributed to the preservation of the Great Smoky Mountains with the creation of the national park. I have written about my great-grandfather, not just on this blog, but in the pages of Tin House. I have thought about him often—of the family he left behind to live the life he chose, of the rising earth he fought to save, of the people who came to think of him as their own.

But my brother was the one who traveled south this past weekend to remember this enigmatic soul, and last night, on the phone, he told me of what he'd seen there, of what he'd heard. It's the story of my great grandfather's funeral that I wake up thinking of today—the story of how countless multitudes emerged from the hills to honor the man who had honored them, to roll a boulder into place so that no one would ever forget.

"I saw photographs," my brother said. "Everyone came." Even two of the sons who had not seen their father for years and who loved him despite the absence, despite all that he could not be for them.

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Serena and the Horace Kephart Legacy

And so I finished reading Brideshead Revisited, and I stand, with so many of you, in awe of it: the miracle of its structure, its graceful folding in and out of time and perspective, its flawless sentences and interesting words. A masterpiece, as countless many before me have said.

I turned, then, to Serena, the new Ron Rash novel that is getting such play on best of the year lists, and what do I find but a fictional recreation of my great-grandfather, Horace Kephart, of whom I have written in this blog before. A troubled soul, a brilliant librarian, who left his wife and children following a calamitous breakdown and who never truly returned to them. Went off, instead, to the Great Smoky Mountains, where he studied the people and wrote books about them, where he refined his campcraft and wrote books on that, too, where he became a mayor, where he loved nature with supreme erudition. Toward the end of his life, my great-grandfather fought with others to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and whatever else you might wish to say or think about him, he helped save part of the world for the rest of us.

In any case, Kephart is here in Rash's book, and from what I can tell, Rash has not made a pretty figure of him—attributed thoughts and deeds to him that might be hard for a Kephart such as myself to swallow. An interesting choice, I think, to use Kephart's name and work while fictionalizing his character.

But I'll read on and report more fully when I'm done.

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An Ode to My Great Grandfather, Horace Kephart

I have, I will confess to this, been feeling exasperated, rushed. I've gotten myself too deeply into too many things; we all do that, this time of year. But did I really have to sign up to perform a complicated cha-cha Friday night, in the midst of finishing a massive corporate web site and launching four new client projects? And can I really think about anything coherently until I know whether my son will be granted his early-decision wishes at a fabulous university? And why is the Christmas tree sitting out on the porch in the rain, and not here, in the house, where it belongs? And have I bought a single hostess gift this year? No. Not yet. Of course not.

But today, running from my house to the mailbox and back, I stopped—realized that I had in hand a package from my dear friend Katrina Kenison, who edited Best American Short Stories for years and who now at last lives in a house that she and her family literally loved into existence. (And you should see the views at night.)

In any case, there I was, running, and there, of a sudden, was this package, and before I knew it, I was holding in my hands an original copy of a book called CAMP COOKERY, which probably doesn't ring a bell for you, but which was authored by none other than my great grandfather, Horace Kephart. He was a bit of an odd bird, this man, but a genius, too. A brilliant librarian who had a Virginia Woolf-quality breakdown at the age of forty-two. He was already the father of six, the husband of one, but he left everything he knew behind and traveled to North Carolina, where he fell in love with mountains and bears and local lore, drank moonshine, authored books with names like OUR SOUTHERN HIGHLANDERS, became mayor, and fought for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He won the last battle. The preservation of that land as whole and true has a lot to do with him. (I hear that Ken Burns is making a documentary of great national parks. Oh, I hope that he remembers Horace.)

CAMP COOKERY, Katrina wrote, had been in her personal library for years, acquired, her letter informed me, "back when I was sure that, someday, I'd be living part-time in a rustic cabin by a pond." I'm not sure that we knew each other then. I'm not sure that I've ever even told her my great-grandfather's complete story, but here was this book, this perfect, sanctified, preserved treasure, and not just the book, but old newspaper recipes kept inside.

Are there better gifts than these? Are there dearer friends? Are there more succinct reminders of what this season means?

Horace, I hope you're up there listening, you strange and wonderful man. You may have left your family for a mountain, but family continues to swell around you.

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