Dorie: Woman of the Mountains

By Florence Cope Bush

Book Overview

Before the Great Smoky Mountains became a national park, the region was a lush wilderness dotted with isolated farms. Into this land of unspoiled beauty, Dorie Woodruff Cope was born in 1899. In this evocative memoir, Dorie's daughter, Florence Cope Bush, traces a life at once extraordinary and yet typical of the many Appalachian farm families forced to leave their simple mountain homes for the cities; abandoning traditional ways for those born of "progress."

Dorie's story begins with her childhood on an isolated mountain farm, where we see first hand how her parents combined back-breaking labor with intense personal pride to produce everything their family needed--from food and clothing to tools and toys--from the land. Lumber companies began to invade the mountains, and Dorie's family took advantage of the financial opportunities offered by the lumber industry, not realizing that in giving up their lands they were also letting go of a way of life. Along with their machinery, the lumber companies brought in many young men, one of whom, Fred Cope, became Dorie's husband. After the lumber companies stripped the mountains of their timber, outsiders set the area aside as a national park, requiring Dorie, now married with a family of her own, to move outside of her beloved mountains.

Through Dorie's eyes, we see how the mountain farmers were forced to abandon their beloved rural life-style and customs and assimilate into cities like Knoxville, Tennessee. Her experiences were shared by hundreds of Appalachians during the early twentieth century. However, Dorie's perseverance, strength of character, and deep love of the Smokies make this a unique and moving narrative.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087049726X
• ISBN13: 9780870497261
• Release Date: June 1992
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 11 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 6 and higher

Customer Reviews

Loved it

I follow a channel on YouTube called celebrating Appalachia and the host Tipper has a Friday series where she reads a story. We were reading this book and purchased it so that I could follow along. Dori's life was incredibly fascinating and I am glad that I purchased it.

Wonderful Book!

Just love this book. It's written in a way that makes you feel you are right there, emotionally and sensibly experiencing it all, beginning when Dorie is a young child. This true story tells how the mountain people lived during the early 1900's, including the hardships, but above all revealing the love and devotion these sturdy mountain people have for each other. An especially poignant part is when Dorie's newborn sister dies when her ill mother is not able to feed her, and the father gently rocks the baby by the warmth of fireplace each night until she passes. This both moving and informative book is highly recommend.

Loud ring of truth

Dorie is the history of every woman in East Tennessee who's family comes from "the mountains". A "must read" for any person seeking a peek back in time to what lives were like for those before us and the roots of where we come from.

Step Back in Time . . .

DORIE: WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAINS is an excellent example of new history-making, literature in which one person's story is representative of an era and its people. Dorie's narration of her life in the Great Smoky Mountains during the earliest years of the twentieth century evokes memories of our own old folks and their storytelling. Her account of the often hardscrabble existence she and her family endured in the mountains of East Tennessee is not a depressing one, but a testimony of the pioneer spirit that helped build this nation. Dorie's life straddled the fence between the old ways and the modern age, a time when many people still worked to produce everything their families needed even as other people discovered all the things that money could purchase at the local store or through the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogues. Education was not always as easily obtained. Jobs became increasingly hard to find as the area was developed into a national park and with the onset of the Great Depression. Through Dorie's story, we get an inside glimpse of life in an isolated but beautiful mountain wilderness, and the ways in which modernity simultaneously improved financial situations and contributed to the destruction of a uniquely American way of life.

Dorie: Woman of the Mountains

Dorie:Woman of the Mountains is an excellent book. Very well written - you feel as if you are talking with Dorie herself as she chronicles her life in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. This book is so entertaining you want to read it in one sitting. I would highly recommend this book to everyone. It is a most enjoyable trip back in time.