Ali Rivera explains how she came to learn through a DNA test that she is a descendant of James Vester Miller , an African American who was a master brick mason and responsible for building many of the historic buildings in Asheville. She discusses…
Allenee Wilkes is interviewed by Derrick Brown on November 5, 2002. They discuss Allenee Wilkes' experience in the Korean War. Veteran Mr. Wilkes shares some information on his military service in the Korean War. Born and raised in Cullowhee, North…
Martha "Alma" Blair Coleman discusses life during World War II, working in the defense plant that manufactured atom bombs, the effects of the war on friends and relatives who served, including her brother who returned from the war shell shocked, and…
Alva L. (Lucille) Frady DelSesto is interviewed by Susan Moody. Alva DelSesto was an Army nurse during World War II. She discusses growing up and how the war affected her entire life. She talks about her interest in becoming a nurse, her time in the…
Alverta Lowman is interviewed by Edward Clark Smith on March 24, 1987 as a part of the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project. Lowman describes cleaning houses for different families in Asheville. She recalls church services,…
Al Forney was born in Waynesville in 1954. He attended the Pigeon Street School in his earliest years. Forney recalls how the staff at Pigeon Street School were strict yet loving. Teachers expected all their students to learn because they believed…
Amy Ammons Garza recalls listening to her grandfather’s stories about the history and people of Jackson County, and how he encouraged her to remember and pass them on. At age 39 she dreamed of her grandfather and this prompted her to go to college…
Andrea Clarke recalls family history in the Clarke/Miller lineage. She also describes moving to Asheville in the late 1960s from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her family’s experience with urban renewal in the East End neighborhood in the 1970s and…
Anita Coggins is interviewed by Tessa Davis on May 27, 2016, as part of Mountain People, Mountain Lives: A Student Led Oral History Project. Coggins talks about her childhood memories growing up in Jackson County, N.C. and her motivation for getting…
Ann McAdams and Lunia Williams are members of Haywood County’s Reynolds High School 1964 graduating class. After high school, Ann worked in the school system, and Lunia went to nursing school to become a nurse. In this 2017 interview, both women…