Lessons from a Hotbed of Dulcimer Playing
A few years ago, I fell in love with Berea, Kentucky.
Now, Berea may not be at the top of your list of places to visit. Unless you live in that part of the world or are immersed in Appalachian culture and music, chances are you have never heard of Berea, Kentucky, until now. I had never heard of it either until a series of events led me to motor on down there a few years ago.
There are multiple places from which I could launch this story, but the best one is a life-altering phone call I received at 1:20 AM on Monday, June 6, 2011. At the time I had completed my fourth year serving as minister of my church. When I shook myself awake and answered the phone that night, a male voice informed me he was a local police officer.
“Ma’am, I am sorry to have to tell you this, but your church is on fire.”
“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, roughly 50 times. Then the officer asked, “Can you respond to this, or is there someone else I should call?
“I’ll be there in 20 minutes,” I answered.
Thus began a 3-year journey from tragedy to triumph, as our congregation figured out how to soldier on even though we had been rendered homeless. If I listed everyone who helped us, both outside and inside the congregation, you would be reading this blog post from now until Christmas. Even then, I probably would inadvertently leave someone off the list. We were so fortunate! But, germane to my thoughts about Berea, Kentucky, there is one person I want to mention: Carter Ruff, a local luthier who was also a member of the congregation. Surveying the damage the morning of the fire, Carter thought he could reclaim a big enough stretch of one of the pews to build a guitar to offer at one of our many (many!) subsequent fundraisers. Guitar made from pews salvaged from church fire (youtube.com)
Back then, my husband was the church webmaster. To generate interest in the guitar, he periodically visited Carter’s shop so that he could post updates on the church website. During one visit, he asked Carter to teach him how to build a guitar, something he had always dreamed of doing. Carter agreed, but suggested they start with something a bit easier — an Appalachian dulcimer. Soon my husband had crafted a beautiful dulcimer that neither of us knew how to play. I took lessons with Maine musician Anne Dodson, who was in the process of writing a 2-volume compendium of everything you need to know about playing the dulcimer. She test-drove many of the lessons in that book with me. Books and Recordings (annedodson.com)
Eventually, I felt comfortable enough with the dulcimer to play it at a few church services. A parishioner approached me after one of those services and told me about Warren May, a famous dulcimer builder out of Berea, Kentucky (Berea, KY Woodworker: Warren A. May Mountain Dulcimers & Furniture (warrenamay.com). My dulcimer teacher told me Berea was “a hot-bed of dulcimer playing,” so how could I possibly resist visiting? I did a little research and not only discovered information about Warren May, but, more importantly, I learned the story of Berea, Kentucky, itself — a history that made me fall in love with the town.
There are countless exemplars of human virtue. While I love the stories of famous pillars of goodness — the Gandhis and the Mother Teresas of the world — I treasure finding stories of lesser-known people. Their relative obscurity reminds me that it’s not always the famous who can inspire. Any one of us can. The story of Berea, Kentucky, lifts up one such lesser-known person.
Born in Kentucky in 1816, Berea founder John Fee was raised in a slave-holding family. John Fee’s father seems to have harbored enough doubts about slavery to invest in land in free states, but not enough to emancipate his slaves in Kentucky. In contrast, John condemned slavery from an early age. In time, his father disinherited John because of John's abolitionist views.
Called to the ministry in the Presbyterian church, John studied at Lane Theological Seminary in Ohio. After graduating in 1842, he returned to Kentucky, preaching abolition. His abolitionist views made it difficult for him to find a church that would accept his leadership. He eventually broke ties with the Presbyterian church because he believed fellowship in the church should be denied to slaveholders — a position the Kentucky synod would not take up. From then on, Fee advocated a non-denominational, non-sectarian Christianity.
In 1853, Cassius Clay (the original one — the wealthy Kentucky abolitionist, not the boxer) offered Fee a 10-acre homestead, seeing in him someone who would take a strong stand against slavery. On that land, Fee founded the town of Berea and set about pursuing his dream of creating a co-educational, racially integrated college modeled after the anti-slavery Oberlin College in Ohio. He wrote, “we . . . eventually look to a college — giving an education to all colors, classes, cheap and thorough.”
He built a home in Berea in 1854, and, in 1855, a one-room school, which doubled on Sundays as an anti-slavery church. Recruiting teachers from Oberlin, he then began incorporating Berea College. But in 1859, Fee had to put his dream on hold when pro-slavery mobs drove him and his supporters from their homes. Indeed, through the years, Fee and his immediate family were repeatedly and violently attacked because of their abolitionist views. But Fee held firm, even in hostile territory, with little support from his extended family, associates, the established church, or the law. The Biblical instruction to love one’s neighbor as oneself governed his life and actions.
Fee spent the Civil War years in exile. At Camp Nelson in 1864, he began teaching Black soldiers who had enlisted in the Union Army there. After the war, Fee returned home to Berea, encouraging those same soldiers and their families to follow him there. In 1866, the Berea College articles of incorporation were recorded at the county seat. In 1867, 96 black students and 91 white students enrolled.
Nowadays, Berea College retains much of the same spirit that Fee instilled in it. In addition, over the years, the college has come to focus on preserving and teaching Appalachian cultural crafts and music. That’s how Berea became “a hotbed of dulcimer playing” — the cultural focus that initially drew me to visit in 2016.
While I was in Berea, I enjoyed visiting Warren May’s shop — his dulcimer-building being one of many Appalachian arts featured throughout the town. In Appalachian craft shops, you could purchase anything from a bowed psaltery (which I didn’t buy, although I was tempted) to a creche scene crafted of straw figures (which I did buy and used in my ministry). Outdoor sculptures were installed throughout the town, and, in an outdoor concert, local band Zoe Speaks ably represented the lively music scene. In Berea I enjoyed celebrating the culture of a region of the United States that is often either overlooked or actively dismissed.
But it was the story of John Fee that sealed the town and the college on my heart. The likelihood that he would have followed such a trajectory seems small to me. He grew up immersed in a culture and family that defended slavery. Adopting and maintaining views radically different from the views of people in his orbit had to have been difficult. His abolitionist advocacy resulted in real losses for him — family of origin, home, denomination, and more. Despite threats, violence, and exile, Fee cleaved to the moral high ground, working hard to achieve his vision, regardless of what others thought of him. As I walked around the Berea College campus and surrounding town during my visit, my heart swelled as I imagined that brave past.
John Fee was extraordinary, it is true. What made him special is that he used his time to do good, to inaugurate justice, to build the world as it should be. In the end, are not those the kinds of things we can choose to do, too? Our challenges and opportunities will differ from John Fee’s, for our times are not the same as his were. But we, too, can adopt bravery and moral conviction to do good in our own corners of the world. Even seemingly small acts by people who will be soon and long forgotten are so important for moving the world toward justice and peace. People like John Fee set an example — one you can follow. And so can I.
Love,
Sylvia
(Information about John Fee and Berea College: Bing Videos and John Gregg Fee - Wikipedia)
What a great true story! Thanks for writing this post - it is inspirational, and humbling.
Sylvia, I’ve come to look forward to your blogs. Heartwarming always but also make one’s mind THINK. Fee was definitely a godly man who followed God’s teachings. He was strong in his convictions. Those convictions live on today in Berea.
Thank you + I look forward to your next
Corey