Intersection Column | The Gift of Reading
- mtlmagazine
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
by Ann H. Gabhart
Do you remember learning to read? I do. I went off to school eager to unravel the mystery of words and discover their promise. I was soon reading about Dick and Jane and their dog, Spot.
Fast forward a lot of years and many, many books, both read and written, to when our local adult education center was looking for literacy tutors. I hate the thought of anybody not knowing how to read. So, I signed up, took the training, and was soon sitting next to a young man who went all the way through school without learning to read. He was just passed on year after year while words remained a mystery to him.
In the early 1900s, many adults who lived in the Kentucky Appalachian region were in that same situation, unable to read. Not because they were overlooked at school the way Johnny was but because for one reason or another, they didn’t go to school as children. They might have lived in isolated areas with no schools close enough to attend. They might have had family difficulties that kept them from school. Whatever the reason, many Appalachian adults were illiterate.
At that time, the common thinking among educators was that once a person did not learn to read as a child, they would then be unable to learn. But in Rowan County, Kentucky, one woman cared enough to go against this accepted belief. Inspired by an older woman sharing how she taught herself to read, Cora Wilson Stewart, superintendent of schools, set out to prove that adults could learn. She set a goal to abolish illiteracy in her county.
Her enthusiasm was shared by the teachers of the one-room schools in the county who stepped up and volunteered their time to teach adults after teaching children during the day. After the teachers spread the news in their areas, the schools opened on the night of the first full moon in September 1911. The moon lit up the trails to the schoolhouses. That made Moonlight Schools the perfect name for this chance for adults to learn to read.
On that first night, Mrs. Stewart and her teachers hoped maybe a hundred or so people would come. Instead, twelve hundred adults eager to learn to read and write showed up at the schoolhouses.
I have written several books with Appalachian settings and history. Reading about the Moonlight Schools made me excited to head back to the mountains for a new story. I loved how the chance to learn to read brought people streaming down from their mountain homes to the schoolhouses.
My story, A Chance for Kallie Mae, comes from the perspective of two who did miss out on attending school when they were children. In my mind, Kallie Mae Bertram and Quinn Spencer represent all those hopeful learners that showed up for that first session of the Moonlight Schools. The two prayed as children for a school within walking distance. By the time that happened, both had family obstacles that kept them from attending.
Romance, a mountain feud, family troubles, and some unexpected dangers are stirred into the story along with the Moonlight School history.
Learning to read brought new hope to both Kallie Mae and Quinn the way it did to so many of the mountain people in the early 1900s. One of the first things people learned at those schools was to write their name. They no longer had to sign papers with an X. Many of them opened bank accounts just for the pleasure of signing checks.
The news about the Moonlight Schools and adult education spread to other counties in the Appalachian region and then all across the United States with Cora Wilson Stewart a much in demand advocate for adult learning.
The thought of so many people having the opportunity to learn to read and experience the joy of written words and books because one woman cared warms my heart. I hope readers will like living that wonder of learning words with Kallie Mae the way I did as I wrote her story.
About the Author
Ann H. Gabhart is the bestselling author of many novels, including The Pursuit of Elena Bradford, The Song of Sourwood Mountain, and In the Shadow of the River. She and her husband live on a farm a mile from where she was born in rural Kentucky. Ann enjoys discovering the everyday wonders of nature while hiking in her farm’s fields and woods with her grandchildren and her dogs, Frankie and Marley. Learn more at AnnHGabhart.com.
About the Book
Kallie Mae Bertram has two dreams in life, but will either one come true? A sweeping Southern historical romance where forbidden love, family feuds, and second chances collide in the early twentieth century Appalachian Mountains.
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