During the last two decades, the Jesse Stuart Foundation has become the place to find books about Kentucky, the tri-state area, and Appalachia. Many are books which we have carefully edited and published and others are books we purchase for resale because they are compatible with our goals and regional themes. For example, a recent addition to our inventory is "Watermelon Hill," a memoir by Delbert R. Caudill, who grew up near Louisa in the 1940s and 1950s.

Watermelon Hill is in Lawrence County, Kentucky, about three miles south of Louisa between the Big Sandy River and Route 3. Caudill was born in Wayne County, West Virginia, but his family soon moved to Watermelon Hill, where his parents had purchased more than 100 acres of farm land. Caudill’s grandfather said "Dad must be crazy to pay that much money for a farm!" The house and land were undeveloped, but Earl and Lelia Caudill improved the property and raised a large family, which included Delbert’s older brothers and sisters, Lawrence, Lelia Mae, Curtis, Edna, and Jack. Although the Caudill’s made improvements, they never built a new house on the land or a bathroom in the house the entire 38 years they lived there.

It was, as Caudill remembers, "a subsistence farm, growing what we needed to survive, but we always had plenty to eat and some produce to sell." The Caudill’s home was painfully cold in the winter and sweltering hot in the summer, but the Caudill children never felt poor or deprived. "Some people we knew did get assistance in the form of a check or commodities," but Delbert’s father proudly supported his family without government assistance.

Delbert Caudill does a fine job of describing his parents, his family, his neighbors, and the daily routine of farm life. He praises his parents as "two of the hardest working and most honest people I have ever known." They taught their children to value hard work and to treat others with decency and respect. "I know plenty of people who had more material things than I did as a child," Caudill reflects, "but they may not have learned the value of things as I did."

For the first six grades, Caudill attended Lower Lick Creek School, a school with "electricity but no other conveniences." He later attended Louisa High School and graduated in 1960.

Caudill cautions his readers that "this is not a great literary work." He wrote it "as a trip back home and back in time" for people who grew up in Eastern Kentucky.

"Watermelon Hill," like many self-published memoirs, has obvious weaknesses in writing style and organization, but I found it to be refreshingly honest and accurate and I recommend it to those who want to learn more about Eastern Kentucky life in the mid-twentieth century. I think this book will be especially interesting to residents and former residents of Lawrence County, Kentucky.

It’s now available, along with thousands of other regional books, at the Jesse Stuart Foundation Bookstore, 1645 Winchester Avenue in downtown Ashland. For more information, call (606)326-1667 or visit our website: JSFBOOKS.COM.

The Regional Readers will meet Tuesday evening from 5:45 - 7:00 to discuss Harry M. Caudill’s novel "The Senator From Slaughter County." This group is open to the public and we’re always glad to welcome a new member.