Path Was Steep, The: A Memoir of Appalachian Coal Camps During the Great Depression

The title, The Path Was Steep, foreshadows the two primary motifs of her book, motion and struggle. Wife of an ambitious and restless coal miner, Sue, as she was commonly called, recreates the challenges and the rewards of life in the coalfields of Alabama and West Virginia during the years of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Despite the many hardships her family faced, Pickett's great sense of self-worth, her estimable creative powers, her boundless curiosity, and her impressive energy e...