Pamela Gale Counselman

Grits, Cornbread, and Survival in Virginia Pamela Gale Counselman

This autobiography was written about the life and adventures of a poor little mountain girl that survived some amazing things, while growing up in the mountains of Virginia, USA, between 1956 and 1965. She survived many things that normal children growing up in this same era would never experience. The fascinating recollection of events has amazed so many people, and she recorded it for her family and now the whole world. If you are not from the mountains you will learn a new language and new items to cook, like good corn bread. She talks about her own family bootlegging and the moonshining that went on, plus all the dangers in the mountains. She has a secret side to her life she does not like to talk about, and then what she did in later life to help her deal with the pain. She also goes into great detail on what it was like to live in what most people would call a rough cabin in the mountains. She describes the issues she had with her mother and what it was like to be a middle child. Later she went back for a visit to her home area and described all the changes. There were happy times, fun times, and just plain terrible times. She went through the pain of segregation in school and she hated it. She moved north to Ohio and married a Yankee and she describes how this changed her life wonderfully.