When I first told of the interview assignment in class, I knew that I wanted to do it with an older Appalachian person. After all, if I’m going to talk to this person for upwards of half an hour, I wanted to make sure I was talking to someone who really had a grasp of Appalachia. After a bit of searching, I found my interviewee, Mrs. Myra Brush. In my limited interaction with Mrs. Brush, I knew that she was a well-traveled lady whom grew up in Lexington and returned in her mid-30’s. I asked her to do the interview, and at first she was a bit reluctant, she never thought she’d have anything to add to the class. After some reassuring, she consented and we set a date. I gave her the required questions before hand, hoping that she could come up with some interesting stories for the actual interview.

As we sat down, I was a little unnerved. I made sure I had practiced all of my questions so I did not stutter when I asked, but still, I had never done an interview before in my life, and I was curious as to how it would go. As we got started I noticed how connected all of her life was to her family and where she grew up. I found this very interesting, because I’ve never really felt a connection to where I grew up, or to moving back there when I was older. I remember at one point I asked her why she returned to Lexington after all of the years she spent traveling. She answered to the effect of finding no other place where she felt so comfortable at home. It was this response that made me want to write about the idea of loyalty in Appalachian culture. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that this woman was one of the most prolific world travelers I had  ever met, and yet she came back to her childhood home town. I, needless to say, was quite impressed with her love for this region.

The other thing that surprised me was the idea that the class system was much more noticeable than racism in her childhood. She told me that there were no noticeable African-American families in Lexington at the time, and that her parents were more concerned with keeping their social reputation than anything else. This made sense to me the more I thought about it in context of the time and place. I suppose that if I were a doctor in the 1950’s, I would not want to be seen with anyone less than other successful, educated people. Overall, this interview ended up being one of the most culturally eye-opening experiences I’ve ever done, in terms of region and time period. After I turned the recorder off, Mrs. Brush and I laughed that she thought she would never have anything to add when in fact I learned more about the Appalachian region and life in the 1950’s than I ever thought I would. Mrs. Brush was an excellent subject to interview, and I will always remember this experience with the enthusiasm and happiness that Mrs. Brush had during the process.