The Touch of the Mountains

About the Book

For the people of eastern Kentucky, 1900-1915, are the highly publized season of the rape of their mountains. The greed of the timber industry, and the infamous battle of two railroads to be the first to lay track and corner the market for the newly discovered rich deposits of coal, is still remembered and mourned by the mountain people. Two pioneer families, the Colfreys and the Larchfields, lived through these violent years. Laurel and Joseph made their home on the highest mountain top in the Breaks area. Ten years of marriage end when her husband, son, and brother, Lee, drown during the great splashdown of timber through the Breaks area on the Kentucky-Virginia border.

About the Author

Maria Coleman Barker, born 1932 at Draffin, KY., the only girl in a family of eight. Graduated in 1970 from Pikeville College with a teaching degree in English and U. S. History. Moved to VA to teach in the Danville, VA Public School System. Retired in 1992 and returned to the mountains of southeastern KY that welcomes her and motivates her to write. Maria has one child, James L. Barker Jr. who lives and works for Pioneer Foods in Prosperity, South Carolina.