{"id":53176,"date":"2022-09-21T08:05:56","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T12:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/?p=53176"},"modified":"2022-09-21T08:05:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T12:05:56","slug":"book-feature-no-work-in-the-grave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/arts\/book-feature-no-work-in-the-grave\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Feature: <em>No Work in the Grave<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><em>Life in the Toe River Valley<\/em><\/h2>\n<h4>Jo Ann Thomas Croom, Author<\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-53178\" src=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Book-Feature-1_-No-Work-none-needed-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"386\" \/>A new history of the Toe River Valley in the early 1900s draws on the writings of two men who bore witness to great changes brought about in their quiet farming community by the railroad and large-scale mining. Jo Ann Thomas Croom grew up in Madison County and taught at Mars Hill University for many years. When she retired, she found herself with time to take up the brown-lined notebooks her father, Walter Thomas, and uncle, Monroe Thomas\u2014both educators, historians and residents of Mitchell County\u2014left behind. Monroe kept a farm journal that evolved into a history of the area. He also wrote poetry, and Thomas Croom, with her daughter\u2019s help, published a collection of his poems titled Lilt in the Mountains. She then decided to compile a history using her uncle\u2019s many journals and the records made by her father, who, upon retiring, organized the family history through story-telling.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than the accounts becoming \u201cdusty archives,\u201d Thomas Croom wanted to share their life experiences. \u201cAs I began to appreciate the uniqueness of the materials I had inherited, I could almost feel the daily routine of the farm as well as the challenges of the time and place,\u201d she says. \u201cHistory is often written by outsiders looking in\u2014much of this history was written by insiders living in place at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No Work in the Grave: Life in the Toe River Valley, <em>June, 2022, memoir, paperback, $29.95, by Jo Ann Thomas Croom, and published by Dykeman Legacy Press, Asheville, NC. Order copies at <a href=\"http:\/\/WilmaDykemanLegacy.org\">WilmaDykemanLegacy.org<\/a> or find at local bookstores.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new history of the Toe River Valley in the early 1900s draws on the writings of two men who bore witness to great changes brought about in their quiet farming community by the railroad and large-scale mining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":53178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Book Feature: No Work in the Grave - The Laurel of Asheville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new history of the Toe River Valley in the early 1900s draws on the writings of two men who bore witness to great changes brought about in their quiet farming community by the railroad and large-scale mining.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/arts\/book-feature-no-work-in-the-grave\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Book Feature: No Work in the Grave - 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