We Were Poor, But We Didn't Know It

When I was growing up in Appalachia, we were poor.

But we didn’t know it.

We didn’t have vacations out of town.

We didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was in second grade.

We didn’t have store-bought wardrobes hanging in our closets.

But we had love.

And we had music.

And somehow, we always had enough.

There was always a garden.

Rows of beans and corn and tomatoes stretching out behind the house like quiet insurance.

There was usually a pig or a cow each year.

My daddy trapped in the winter — fur money turned into Christmas gifts.

My mother sewed.

Most of our clothes were handmade. And not thrown-together handmade.

Beautifully made.

Carefully pressed seams.

Perfect hems.

She quilted too. Every blanket had weight to it. History in it. Warmth stitched into it.

We didn’t call it homesteading.

It was just life.

I remember my brother and our cousin getting into the pigpen one summer.

Head to toe in mud.

Not a speck of skin visible.

I remember my mama holding my brother under the outside water spigot, fully clothed, hosing him off while he squealed and laughed.

No drama.

Just water and mud and summer air.

Our vacations were the river.

All the cousins piling into trucks and heading down to wade in cool Cumberland River water.

We camped under the stars instead of booking hotels.

We caught lightning bugs instead of flights.

In the winter, we sledded together.

All of us girls in dresses — because that’s what we wore.

Religious rules didn’t pause for snow.

So we’d slide bread sacks over our feet before putting on our shoes to keep our legs dry and warm.

Plastic crackling under our hems as we ran.

Resourceful. Determined. Cold. Happy.

We had an outhouse.

And because rats had started stealing our toilet paper, my dad set a steel trap.

One day, I caught my fingers in it.

I was little. Maybe seven.

I can still feel the panic.

And I can still see my brother running toward me, coming to rescue me.

Pain and protection — both vivid.

There was the time my brother rode in the back of the pickup when Dad went to buy pigs.

The cattle racks flew off.

Took him with them.

He rolled down the interstate wrapped up in a tarp.

And somehow…

He survived.

Appalachian childhood was not OSHA approved.

It was wild. Improvised. Miraculously intact.

We picked blackberries in the summer.

We snapped beans on the porch.

We played music in the evenings.

There was always a mandolin or a guitar or a banjo or someone singing.

We didn’t have excess.

But we had togetherness.

We had cousins and laughter and dirt under our fingernails.

We had stories being written without knowing they were stories.

Looking back now, I can see the poverty.

The hand-me-downs.

The outhouse.

The fur trapping for Christmas money.

But I also see something else.

Resilience.

Ingenuity.

Family woven tight.

We didn’t have luxury.

But we had belonging.

And sometimes I think that’s why those memories feel so rich.

Because they weren’t bought.

They were lived.

Appalachia shaped me.

Not just with rules and religion and hard work.

But with river water and quilts and bread sacks in the snow.

With a mother who could make something beautiful from scraps.

With a father who worked with his hands and did what he had to do.

We were poor.

But we didn’t know it.

Because love was loud.

Music was constant.

And somehow, there was always enough.

From the girl who grew up country — and still carries the riverbank in her bones. No wonder she loves the Lakehouse so much