LONGWOOD, FL-Journey back to a bygone way of life in America with Echo of the Hills: Journal of a Coal Miner's Daughter ($13.99, paperback, 978-1-60034-911-9), Barbara Gillespie Davis's autobiography of life in a pre-WWII coal-mining town. The story traces a family heritage that begins simultaneously with the birth of a town that evolved into a model coal-mining camp, a town where everyone's father or brother worked together and the families lived within a 20-mile radius and forged a commonality unlike most communities. Davis shows how misconceptions concerning the "unpolished" nature of coal towns reveal them to be what they truly are diamonds in the rough.
The eyes of the nation turned on Davis's Cabin Creek during the infamous coal wars. The Carbon Fuel Coal Company and its communities survived despite many adversities and mined a superior product, creating a legacy for those who took their living from the company. Growing up in such a community exposed Davis to heritage and traditions. Upon venturing to Washington, D.C., for a government career, she was shell-shocked by the vast melting-pot of personalities, customs, and cruel stereotyping found outside Cabin Creek. The honest, no-holds-barred approach of the author portrays an honest, simpler way of life that formed a unique part of America's heritage.
"I have held a lifelong goal of writing this story, because coal miners and their families have often been shortchanged by society by being viewed as common, unpolished people, which is not fair and is definitely untrue," says the author.
Barbara Gillespie Davis grew up in Cabin Creek, West Virginia, and ventured to Washington, D.C., after high school for a career in the federal government.
Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world's largest Christian publisher, with more than 3,900 titles published to date. Retailers may order Echo of the Hills through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors. Salem Communications is the country's leading Christian communications company with interests in radio, Internet, and magazine publishing.
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2007