Wilma Dykeman
Encyclopedia
Wilma Dykeman Stokely was an American
writer
of fiction
and nonfiction whose works chronicled the people and land of Appalachia
.
, now part of Asheville
. She was the only child of Bonnie Cole Dykeman and Willard Dykeman. Her father had relocated to the Asheville area from New York as a widower with two grown children, and had met and married her mother in Asheville. He was 60 years old when Wilma was born and died when Wilma was 14 years old. In later life, she credited both of her parents for giving her a love of reading and her father for giving her a love of nature and a curiosity about the world around her.
She attended Biltmore Junior College (now the University of North Carolina at Asheville
), graduating in 1938, and Northwestern University
, where she was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1940 with a major in speech
.
In August 1940, shortly after her graduation from Northwestern, she was introduced to her future husband, James R. Stokely, Jr., by Mabel Wolfe, the sister of Asheville writer Thomas Wolfe
. Stokely, of Newport, Tennessee
, was a son of the president of Stokely Brothers Canning Company (which in 1933 bought Van Camp to become Stokely-Van Camp Inc. The Stokely brand of canned food is now a brand of Seneca Foods
and Van Camps a brand of Conagra Inc.) The couple married just two months after they met. They had two sons, Dykeman Stokely and James R. "Rory" Stokely III. The couple maintained homes in Asheville and Newport, and Dykeman continued to divide her time in both homes after Stokely died in 1977. Dykeman and Stokely wrote several books together.
After Dykeman died in 2006, Appalachian writer Jeff Daniel Marion called the couple's marriage a "partnership in every sense of the word," describing Dykeman and Stokely as "partners in writing, partners in marriage and partners in having similar points of view."
In addition to this, in honor of Wilma Dykeman who strongly advocated for linkage between economic developmen and economic protection along the French Broad River
, both the City of Asheville and Buncombe County in Western North Carolina have adopted the Wilma Dykeman RiverWay Plan
- a 17-mile greenway & park system that intends to revitalize sustainable economic growth along the French Broad and Swannanoa River
.
Dykeman died December 22, 2006 after suffering complications from a fractured hip and subsequent hip replacement surgery. She is buried in the Beaverdam Baptist Church Cemetery in Asheville, near her childhood home.
Her first book, The French Broad, was published in 1955 as part of the Holt Rinehart
Rivers of America Series.
Dykeman wrote three novels: The Tall Woman (1962), The Far Family (1966), and Return the Innocent Earth (1973). The main character in The Tall Woman is a mountain woman who works to bring a community together after the Civil War
. The Far Family continued the story of that same woman's family, generations later. Return the Innocent Earth recalled the Stokely family's legacy, examining modern industry through a fictionalized Tennessee canning
company. The book portrayed the Clayburns, a poor but enterprising family that went into the canning business in a small mountain town called Churchill around 1900.
Her 1975 book Too Many People, Too Little Love is a biography
of Edna Rankin McKinnon, a pioneer in family planning
.
for the Knoxville News Sentinel
newspaper
, contributing as many as three columns each week. When introducing her as a new columnist, the paper's editor announced that Dykeman would write under the title "The Simple Life," which would be "a momentary turning aside, a glimpse down a different path, to see, hear, feel, ponder the common uniqueness of our lives" and communicate "the salt of humor, gnarled strength of old ideals, the variety of new ideas and the friendship of people well-known and little-known along the way." Two collections of her columns were published in book form: The Simple Life and Explorations (1984). She also contributed regular columns to The Newport Plain Talk newspaper. Dykeman's writings also appeared in magazines including the New York Times magazine, U.S. News & World Report
, Harper's, and Reader's Digest
.
and the University of Tennessee
in Knoxville
. She was a member of Board of Trustees for Berea College and the advisory board of the University of North Carolina
. During the period 1978 to 1982 she served as a consultant to the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge
for its "An Appalachian Experience" public education project, of which her son James R. Stokely III was executive director. The project resulted in the development of teaching materials on Appalachia and the 1982 publication of An Encyclopedia of East Tennessee, edited by James R. Stokely III and Jeff D. Johnson (ISBN 10: 0960683208, ISBN 13: 978-0960683208).
governor Lamar Alexander
named her official state historian, an honorary role that she filled until 2002. In 1985 she received the North Carolina Award
for literature. In 1957 she shared the Sidney Hillman
Award with her husband, James Stokely, for their book Neither Black Nor White, which was recognized as the best book of the year on world peace
, race relations or civil liberties
. In 1994, she received the Pride of Tennessee Award from Governor Ned Ray McWherter, honoring her commitment to community, education, and advancement of the humanities. McWherter said, "She has managed to capture and truthfully portray the people, places, and events that make East Tennessee and Appalachia a unique place in world culture." Other awards she received include the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Trophy, a Guggenheim Fellowship
(in 1956), a National Endowment for the Humanities
Senior Fellowship, and the Tennessee Conservation Writer of the Year Award. She also was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame and received honorary degrees from several colleges and universities.
also has given a Wilma Dykeman Award for Regional Historical Literature.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
of fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and nonfiction whose works chronicled the people and land of Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
.
Biography
Dykeman grew up in the Beaverdam community of Buncombe County, North CarolinaBuncombe County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 206,330 people, 85,776 households, and 55,668 families residing in the county. The population density was 314 people per square mile . There were 93,973 housing units at an average density of 143 per square mile...
, now part of Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
. She was the only child of Bonnie Cole Dykeman and Willard Dykeman. Her father had relocated to the Asheville area from New York as a widower with two grown children, and had met and married her mother in Asheville. He was 60 years old when Wilma was born and died when Wilma was 14 years old. In later life, she credited both of her parents for giving her a love of reading and her father for giving her a love of nature and a curiosity about the world around her.
She attended Biltmore Junior College (now the University of North Carolina at Asheville
University of North Carolina at Asheville
The University of North Carolina at Asheville is a co-educational, four year, public liberal arts university. The university is also known as UNC Asheville. Located in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, UNCA is the only designated liberal arts institution in the University of North...
), graduating in 1938, and Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, where she was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1940 with a major in speech
Public speaking
Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners...
.
In August 1940, shortly after her graduation from Northwestern, she was introduced to her future husband, James R. Stokely, Jr., by Mabel Wolfe, the sister of Asheville writer Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...
. Stokely, of Newport, Tennessee
Newport, Tennessee
Newport is a city in Cocke County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 7,242 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Cocke County.-Geography:...
, was a son of the president of Stokely Brothers Canning Company (which in 1933 bought Van Camp to become Stokely-Van Camp Inc. The Stokely brand of canned food is now a brand of Seneca Foods
Seneca Foods
Seneca Foods Corporation is a leading low-cost food processor and distributor headquartered in Marion, New York, USA. The company primarily produces canned, frozen, and bottled produce under private label as well as national and regional brands that the company owns or licenses, including Seneca,...
and Van Camps a brand of Conagra Inc.) The couple married just two months after they met. They had two sons, Dykeman Stokely and James R. "Rory" Stokely III. The couple maintained homes in Asheville and Newport, and Dykeman continued to divide her time in both homes after Stokely died in 1977. Dykeman and Stokely wrote several books together.
After Dykeman died in 2006, Appalachian writer Jeff Daniel Marion called the couple's marriage a "partnership in every sense of the word," describing Dykeman and Stokely as "partners in writing, partners in marriage and partners in having similar points of view."
In addition to this, in honor of Wilma Dykeman who strongly advocated for linkage between economic developmen and economic protection along the French Broad River
French Broad River
The French Broad River flows from near the village of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into the state of Tennessee. Its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville is the beginning of the Tennessee River....
, both the City of Asheville and Buncombe County in Western North Carolina have adopted the Wilma Dykeman RiverWay Plan
Wilma Dykeman RiverWay Plan
The Wilma Dykeman RiverWay Plan is RiverLink's design to redevelop the urban riverfront corridor of the U.S. City of Asheville, as a demonstration project for the entire French Broad River watershed by connecting a Greenway System along the French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers...
- a 17-mile greenway & park system that intends to revitalize sustainable economic growth along the French Broad and Swannanoa River
Swannanoa River
The Swannanoa River flows through the Swannanoa Valley of western North Carolina, and is a major tributary to the French Broad River. It begins at its headwaters in Black Mountain, NC, however, it also has a major tributary near its headwaters: Flat Creek, which begins on the slopes of Mount...
.
Dykeman died December 22, 2006 after suffering complications from a fractured hip and subsequent hip replacement surgery. She is buried in the Beaverdam Baptist Church Cemetery in Asheville, near her childhood home.
Books
Dykeman wrote a total of eighteen books, including both nonfiction and fiction.Her first book, The French Broad, was published in 1955 as part of the Holt Rinehart
Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in secondary schools. Holt, Rinehart and Winston was a division of Harcourt Education...
Rivers of America Series.
Dykeman wrote three novels: The Tall Woman (1962), The Far Family (1966), and Return the Innocent Earth (1973). The main character in The Tall Woman is a mountain woman who works to bring a community together after the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The Far Family continued the story of that same woman's family, generations later. Return the Innocent Earth recalled the Stokely family's legacy, examining modern industry through a fictionalized Tennessee canning
Canning
Canning is a method of preserving food in which the food contents are processed and sealed in an airtight container. Canning provides a typical shelf life ranging from one to five years, although under specific circumstances a freeze-dried canned product, such as canned, dried lentils, can last as...
company. The book portrayed the Clayburns, a poor but enterprising family that went into the canning business in a small mountain town called Churchill around 1900.
Her 1975 book Too Many People, Too Little Love is a biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of Edna Rankin McKinnon, a pioneer in family planning
Family planning
Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
.
Newspaper columns and magazine articles
From 1962 to 2000, she was a columnistColumnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
for the Knoxville News Sentinel
Knoxville News Sentinel
The Knoxville News Sentinel is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. It operates , an award-winning news website....
newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
, contributing as many as three columns each week. When introducing her as a new columnist, the paper's editor announced that Dykeman would write under the title "The Simple Life," which would be "a momentary turning aside, a glimpse down a different path, to see, hear, feel, ponder the common uniqueness of our lives" and communicate "the salt of humor, gnarled strength of old ideals, the variety of new ideas and the friendship of people well-known and little-known along the way." Two collections of her columns were published in book form: The Simple Life and Explorations (1984). She also contributed regular columns to The Newport Plain Talk newspaper. Dykeman's writings also appeared in magazines including the New York Times magazine, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
, Harper's, and Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
.
Public speaking and education activities
Dykeman was popular as a public speaker, giving 50 to 75 lectures a year by her own estimate. She also taught classes at Berea CollegeBerea College
Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky , founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students...
and the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
in Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
. She was a member of Board of Trustees for Berea College and the advisory board of the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina
Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...
. During the period 1978 to 1982 she served as a consultant to the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge
Children's Museum of Oak Ridge
The Children's Museum of Oak Ridge is a non-profit children's museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States, that provides museum exhibits and educational programs.-History:...
for its "An Appalachian Experience" public education project, of which her son James R. Stokely III was executive director. The project resulted in the development of teaching materials on Appalachia and the 1982 publication of An Encyclopedia of East Tennessee, edited by James R. Stokely III and Jeff D. Johnson (ISBN 10: 0960683208, ISBN 13: 978-0960683208).
Awards and honors
Dykeman received many awards and other recognitions. In 1981, TennesseeTennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
governor Lamar Alexander
Lamar Alexander
Andrew Lamar Alexander is the senior United States Senator from Tennessee and Conference Chair of the Republican Party. He was previously the 45th Governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987, United States Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993 under President George H. W...
named her official state historian, an honorary role that she filled until 2002. In 1985 she received the North Carolina Award
North Carolina Award
The North Carolina Award is the highest civilian award bestowed by the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is awarded in the four fields of science, literature, the fine arts, and public service....
for literature. In 1957 she shared the Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. Head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, he was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.-Early years:Sidney Hillman was...
Award with her husband, James Stokely, for their book Neither Black Nor White, which was recognized as the best book of the year on world peace
Peace
Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...
, race relations or civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
. In 1994, she received the Pride of Tennessee Award from Governor Ned Ray McWherter, honoring her commitment to community, education, and advancement of the humanities. McWherter said, "She has managed to capture and truthfully portray the people, places, and events that make East Tennessee and Appalachia a unique place in world culture." Other awards she received include the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Trophy, a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
(in 1956), a National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
Senior Fellowship, and the Tennessee Conservation Writer of the Year Award. She also was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame and received honorary degrees from several colleges and universities.
Legacy
The Appalachian Writers Guild's Wilma Dykeman Award for Essay is named in her honor. This recognition is awarded each year for the best essay on Appalachian life and literature, religion, folklore, culture, or values. The East Tennessee Historical SocietyEast Tennessee Historical Society
The East Tennessee Historical Society , headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of East Tennessee history, the preservation of historically significant artifacts, and educating the citizens of Tennessee...
also has given a Wilma Dykeman Award for Regional Historical Literature.