When I first started selling Appalachian books in the late 1970s, Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979) was by far the most popular author of older ladies. Giles was born and grew up in Arkansas and had clerical jobs with church-affiliated groups there and in Oklahoma. After she divorced her first husband, she obtained work in Louisville as a secretary at the Presbyterian Seminary there. She met her future husband, Frank Giles on a 40-hour bus ride and subsequently corresponded with him while he was serving in Europe in the military. They were married the day he returned to the states. In 1949 they moved from Louisville to Adair County, where Henry had grown up. Fascinated by the local culture and how outsiders related to it, Giles began her publishing career with a trilogy of three books, culminating in this one. They all portray professionals - in this case a nurse - who come to the mountains to do good but find that it is the mountain people who help them get their own lives together. This trilogy was followed by over 20 subsequent books of fiction and non-fiction,especially historical novels set in Kentucky and beyond.
Lexington, University of Kentucky Press, a 1995 paperback edition of a 1972 release. 253 pages. Trade paperback.