Appalachian Figures
Children across Illinois still vote every spring for their favorite chapter books under a prize that bears her name. In the Tri-Cities of Harlan County, a public library bears it too. Long before the honors, Rebecca Caudill was a girl from Poor Fork, the Harlan County community later called Cumberland, who turned the textures of mountain life into literature that has stayed in print, in classrooms, and in memory.
A beginning in the mountains
Caudill was born on February 2, 1899 in Poor Fork, now the city of Cumberland. She grew up in a large family of teachers, a fact that threads through her later work with schools and libraries.
Like many Harlan County families in the early twentieth century, the Caudills moved within and beyond the mountains. The region itself was being remade as rail lines and company towns knit together Cumberland, Benham, and Lynch. National Register documentation for the Cumberland business district places that transformation in the Louisville and Nashville Railroad era, when mining and merchants reshaped the valley.
Schooling, teaching, and an early career
After high school, Caudill earned a bachelor’s degree at Wesleyan College in Macon in 1920, then a master’s at Vanderbilt in 1922. She taught in Sumner County, Tennessee, taught English at Colégio Bennett in Rio de Janeiro, and worked as an editor at the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville. In 1931 she married journalist and historian James S. Ayars, and the couple later settled in Urbana, Illinois.
Writing Appalachia for young readers
Caudill began publishing for young readers in the 1940s and quickly became known for clear prose grounded in remembered mountain places. Tree of Freedom earned a Newbery Honor in 1950. A Pocketful of Cricket was distinguished as a Caldecott Honor book for Evaline Ness’s illustrations. A full copy of A Pocketful of Cricket survives online, a primary text that shows Caudill’s precise voice and sense for the seasons of rural childhood.
Scholars of Appalachian literature underline how consistently she returned to the people and patterns of her home country. Mary Warner’s survey of Appalachian young adult writing describes Caudill’s books as “authentic voicing” of mountain culture, a judgment borne out by both the settings and the moral weather of her stories.
Primary traces of the working writer
Manuscript and correspondence evidence show how hard she worked at each book. The W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection holds drafts and correspondence for Higgins and the Great Big Scare from the mid 1950s through publication in 1960. These include multiple typed drafts and author notes, a rare window into her revision process.
The University of Illinois archives preserve the papers of her husband, James S. Ayars. The finding aid places the couple in Champaign–Urbana civic life and documents their shared Quaker commitments, which in turn helps explain the pacifist themes and neighborly ethics that run through Caudill’s later essays.
Faith and voice
Late in life Caudill spoke plainly about the faith that shaped her. Her Illinois Yearly Meeting Plummer Lecture, printed as From Hardshell Baptist to Quaker in 1979, is cataloged in Appalachian State University’s special collections and appears in the library’s guide to Quakers in Appalachia. The title says much about both where she came from and where she stood.
Her memoir My Appalachia: A Reminiscence appeared in 1966, pairing short personal essays with photographs. Friends Journal’s contemporary review called it “a book of many facets,” noting the way the images and prose work together. Reading it now is to hear a writer who could compress the feel of a creek bank or one-room school into a few honest lines.
Cumberland in the mid century
Cumberland’s physical setting also shows up in the public record. Federal hydrologists and local photographers documented the January 1957 flood that swamped the Poor Fork through town. The National Weather Service’s retrospective quantifies the damage in Cumberland and along the basin and includes street-level images of high water against storefronts and bridges. These images and notes anchor how vulnerable that narrow valley could be, a reality familiar to anyone who has read Caudill’s descriptions of mountain weather and steep-sided towns.
Honors at home and away
Cumberland’s first community library was established in 1965 and named the Rebecca Caudill Public Library. The library’s own history places its first home in an old store building on Myers Street and traces moves and expansions that followed. It remains a living memorial to a local author whose books filled its shelves.
In Illinois, the statewide Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award has introduced generations of fourth through eighth graders to new authors. The award’s official site explains the program and preserves Caudill’s oft-quoted standard for children’s books: “A good book sticks to your ribs.”
In 2014 the Carnegie Center inducted Caudill into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, noting her status as the Hall’s first children’s author. The same biography confirms the essentials of her life, from a Harlan County birth to an Urbana death in 1985.
The closing of a life
Wire service obituaries carried the news on October 3, 1985. UPI’s report from Urbana recorded her death the previous evening and reminded readers that she wrote under her maiden name. It is a small detail that points back to the place printed on her title pages and hardcovers for four decades: Rebecca Caudill, of Harlan County, Kentucky.
Sources and further reading
W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University, Rebecca Caudill Papers, 1955–1962 finding record. Drafts and correspondence for Higgins and the Great Big Scare. WorldCat
Illinois Yearly Meeting materials and ASU Special Collections guide listing Caudill’s From Hardshell Baptist to Quaker (1979). Home
Internet Archive, full text of A Pocketful of Cricket by Rebecca Caudill. digitalcommons.wku.edu
National Weather Service, “Remembering the Flood of ’57,” images and impact summary including Cumberland. University of Southern Mississippi
University of Illinois Archives, Ayars, James S. papers finding aid. archon.library.illinois.edu
UPI obituary: “Rebecca Caudill Ayers dies at age 86.” UPI
National Park Service NPGallery, Cumberland Central Business District National Register nomination with historic context for Tri-Cities and the L&N era.
Harlan County Public Libraries, “About,” with establishment history of the Rebecca Caudill Public Library. harlancountylibraries.org
Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award, official site biography and program description. rebeccacaudill.org
Carnegie Center, Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, Rebecca Caudill. carnegiecenterlex.org
Mary Warner, “Appalachian Literature for Young Adults,” analysis of Caudill’s contribution. ERIC