Betty

The story begins in 1909, when Landon Carpenter is born, and continues until 1973, when Betty leaves the town of Breathed. Landon regularly educates his children about the history of their Cherokee ancestors, many of whom were forcibly moved to Oklahoma in the mid-19th century, while those who remained had no choice but to speak English and adopt Christianity. The history that Landon refers to here is known as the Trail of Tears. Between 1830 and 1850, more than 60,000 members of the Cherokee, Chicasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and Muscogee peoples were forcibly moved from their homelands in the southeastern US to new, designated lands in the Great Plains. Thousands died of starvation, exposure, and disease during the journey.

Landon’s Cherokee traditions starkly contrast with white European societal structures. Cherokee societies are traditionally matriarchal, and women are seen as the heads of their households and the owners of their family’s homes and land (Mize, Jamie Myers. “Sons of Selu: Masculinity and Gendered Power in Cherokee Society.” The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2017). The white, Christian culture that dominates Betty’s Appalachian world, by contrast, is emphatically and often violently patriarchal. In school, Betty is taught false stories of white supremacy and women’s inferiority, but at home, Landon empowers Betty by telling her that she is beautiful and full of the power of her ancestors.

The Carpenters live in poverty, as many Americans did in Appalachia at this time. Landon has worked difficult jobs all his life, sometimes in mines and factories, and when they move to Breathed, he makes money by selling treatments for certain ailments and furniture he makes. Their family is representative of many Appalachian families in the mid-20th century. An influential 1963 report, commissioned by then-president John F. Kennedy, characterized Appalachia as “a region apart.” The mountainous and heavily forested topography, relative lack of roads and train lines, and lack of economic investment had left the region isolated from the rest of the country and lagging behind in nearly all indicators of social and economic progress (Isserman, Andrew M. “Appalachia Then and Now.” Appalachian Regional Commission, 1996). Leland joins the military as many sons did, Flossie gets pregnant to secure a wealthier future, and Betty is the first of their family to graduate high school despite the fact that her teachers ignore her based on her gender and Cherokee heritage. Especially in areas with high rates of poverty, it was not uncommon for children to die of drug overdoses, as Flossie does. Old Woman Slipperwort and Alka’s brother’s stories demonstrate how being gay was viewed at the time—LGBTQ+ youth were subject to violence and often forced to hide their sexuality. Additionally, one white man in Breathed was married to a Black woman until she was lynched. Each character’s story represents a different truth about the historical moment in which the Carpenter family lived in mid-20th-century America.