Mountain Woman

Bertha May was one tough gal. I have a heart for the Appalachian people and most of them have overcome incredible odds. 

Bertha was born in 1840 on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains. Her ancestors had settled this place just a few years prior.

lt was a forest of sugar maple trees, and the land was fertile, good for growing corn. They made maple syrup each spring, and they called the land Sugarland. 

Bertha was one of 10 children in a family of Scottish immigrants. Her father was deeply religious and the Bible played a prominent part of their life. Most mountain people did not see the value of education but her father cared deeply and built a school house on their land. Their teachers were traveling teachers that rode in on horseback. Since the schoolhouse was so near they could go to school and work at home at the same time.

Bertha’s father was a blacksmith and she learned to shoe a horse, make tools at early age. Bertha accompanied her father on bear hunts, fishing expeditions and became an expert hunter in the process. Her father told her how to make traps for all kinds of animals. She even knew how to make mouse traps. Her father taught her how to tan leather and make saddles and other leather goods.

Her mother was a seamstress and from her she learned to spin cotton and wool, how to dye it and make beautiful coats and quilts. Her mother also taught her basket weaving. She was a spiritually sound lady who could do anything. 

In 1860 she fell in love with a young man by the name of John Winter. She was 19 and he was only 17 but he was a skilled hunter and blacksmith. They made a beautiful couple. 

John had had a hunting accident and an encounter with a bear. The bear broke his neck and it miraculously healed but his head tilted to the side. They said their vows and found a place to build a cabin. They chose a place by the name of Gatlinburg.

They soon had a boy and a girl and were living a good life when raiders from the Civil War came through and took their cow and their two pigs. The raiders then came back and took everything else. John had to defend their country so he went off to the war. That year her young son died and she dug a grave for him. Shortly after John’s body was shipped back and now she had two graves on her property.

—James Neuhouser