cover image Appalachian Passage

Appalachian Passage

Helen B. Hiscoe. University of Georgia Press, $29.95 (321pp) ISBN 978-0-8203-1354-2

For Helen and Bonta Hiscoe, Coal Mountain, W. Va., in the heart of Appalachia, was the back of beyond. When Bonta completed service at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in 1949, he signed on as a coal camp physician at Coal Mountain. The few roads were unpaved, the nearest hospital was 45 miles away and medical facilities were primitive. Patients were miners and their families, lumberjacks and old-timers who lived up the hollows. The author, his wife, professor emerita of natural science at Michigan State University, gives an engrossing account of their year at the camp, painting portraits of proud, independent, ``tetchy'' people during a stressful time: the miners, led by John L. Lewis, were on strike. Bonta, who had never practiced outside a hospital, delivered babies in rooms filled with family members. Despite some misunderstandings, the Hiscoes learned to appreciate and admire most of the people at Coal Mountain. This is a minor but valuable bit of Americana. Photos. (Jan.)