No Work in the Grave Life in the Toe River Valley
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Step back in time to the early 1900s
and enter the sparsely settled Toe
River Valley in the Appalachian moun-
tains of North Carolina. It is a region
slowly healing from the deep ravages
of the Civil War, and life is centered in
small insulated communities made up
of subsistence farm families. One such
family, struggling to succeed, consists
of AH. and Maggie
Silver Thomas, their
six
sOnS,
and their
one daughter.
Throughout the
first half of the 20th
century,
the
entry of the railroad opened up the Valley
for large-scale timber and mineral ex-
traction, forever changing personal
lives and transforming the tradition-
al agrarian society into a wage-earn-
er economy. Two of the Thomas sons,
Monroe and Walter
- both historians
and educators - independently re-
corded their observations during this
period. Their carefully written records
and reminiscences form the backbone
of this memoir brought to full life by
Walter's daughter Jo Ann. While this
is the story of one particular family, it
represents a microcosm of the history
of the region.