Acknowledgements

There are so many people who contributed to the creation of Whistling Woman; friends, family, and fellow authors. In particular we’d like to thank:

Our father, John Tillery, for all the wonderful stories he told us, as kids and adults, about his Aunt Bessie, Uncle Fletcher, Grandpapa John, the rest of the Daniels family, and the people they encountered while they lived in Hot Springs. It’s hard to top a natural born storyteller, but we did our best to do justice to his skill on the stories we incorporated into the book.

Meghann French Parilla for her truly awesome research and photography skills. We love you Meghann!

Celia Miles for editing the manuscript.

The citizens of the town of Hot Springs for your kindness, generosity, and all-around interest in our project and for giving us that feeling of “coming home” whenever we visited your lovely town.

Deb Linton, librarian, Hot Springs Library, for helping us when we first started and for inviting us to a reunion of Dorland-Bell Institute. And to her husband, Pastor Gene Linton, for taking us on a tour of the beautiful Dorland-Bell Presbyterian Church chapel which plays an important part in Whistling Woman.

Also, the other librarians at the Hot Springs Library, Lisa Ledford and Winnie Broglin, for invaluable help regarding the town. And an extra thank you to Winnie for going above and beyond by taking her lunch break to run home and get us a copy of an article from the May 27, 2009 “News Record & Sentinel”, about the historical houses and businesses in Hot Springs.

Keith Gentry, owner, Gentry Hardware, for helping us on our quest to find Sandy Gap cemetery.

Klaus Nelson, owner of Harvest Moon Gallery, Gifts & Music, for generously allowing us to wander around in the beautiful historical house that contains his business and home–we know it’s not actually the house our great-grandfather built but it’s enough like the one we heard about as kids that we felt we’d stumbled onto the set of our book.

Don and Melanie Prater for the use of your beautiful cabins while we worked on the edits.

In Marshall, North Carolina, the librarians at the Madison County Public Library for allowing us to look through the genealogy room and answering all our questions.

Marla Gouge, Administrative Assistant, Marshall, NC, Madison County, for searching for information on the original courthouse in Marshall.

David Hunter, author and friend, for answering our question about what it would feel like to stick your finger in a bullet hole.

Jackie Burgin Painter, author and cousin, for providing a plethora of information about the Dorland Insitute in her book, “The Season of Dorland Bell, History of an Appalachian Mission School,” and historical facts about Hot Springs and the surrounding area in her book, “An Appalachian Medley: Hot Springs and the Gentry Family, Volume 1.”

The late John Parris, author, for his book, “These Storied Mountains,” from which we learned about trying fortunes and other western North Carolina folklore and beliefs.

Rick McDaniel, Citizen-Times Correspondent, for his article, “Melungeon Mystery,” in the September 2, 2007 ‘Asheville Citizens-Times”.

We used several on-line and written resources for the history and legends of the Cherokee but would like to acknowledge three books: “Long-ago Stories of the Eastern Cherokee” by Lloyd Arneach, “Medicine of the Cherokee, The Way of Right Relationship” by J. T. Garrett and Michael Garrett, and “Trail of Tears, The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation” by John Ehle.

The on-line sites we consulted in the massive amount of research on everything from how a body was prepared for burial in the late 1890′s to the traditions and celebrations of Old Christmas Eve were many and varied. We’d love to name them all but that would be a book in and of itself so we’ll have to settle for saying a simple thank you–our gratitude is longer than our Favorites list.

The lyrics to Seven Drunken Nights may differ from the lyrics as you know them or have heard them. The words we used in the book are the ones we were taught by our father as kids. Thanks, Daddy!

And finally, like the stories the book is based on, we tried to stay as close to the actual history of this amazing area as possible. We did, however, take the liberty of changing some of it to help the flow of the story. Though we tried to stick with the names of the people who passed through Aunt Bessie’s life while she lived in Hot Springs, we did take some liberties with them and may not have been true to their characters and personalities. Hopefully, we got more right than wrong, but any mistakes in the history or the people are solely our own.