Christmas has always been special to me. After
Thanksgiving, I have always begun immediately to prepare for Christmas by
decorating, planning my holiday dinners, working on the presents I want to give.
The holiday spirit begins to grow with each effort, as from deep inside comes
that warm, ebullient feeling. My eyes fill with tears, my heart swells
until it seems too full. I’ve thought many times during these moments,
“What has come over me!!”
Why does this happen to
me? Where did all this sentiment come
from? The only sensible answer is that it must have come from how and where I
spent my formative years.
The house in which I grew up
still stands in my mind...in a pocket of time in the past. It had no
electricity, no plumbing and shabbily covered one small spot in a cove on
Cullowhee Mountain. Draped around the side of the house was a high bank where
trees grasped the soil with their long intertwining roots. Underneath the
overhang was soft, red dirt that swept down to the edge of the house.
Within this red dirt, my brother David and sister Doreyl and I created our own
small towns, farms and roads that meandered from one side of the mountain to the
other. Houses were built out of empty tin cans, some with matchsticks
crisscrossed into rail fences. Inside the barnyards were small animals (dogs,
hogs, horses, cows) made from found objects in the woods. The water tower was a
small glass jar placed upside down. Gas pumps were round-top clothespins. Our
mode of transportation were old empty Diamond matchboxes. When the box was
intact, with the sliding cover in place, we called it our “car.” When we
wanted to have a logging truck, we’d pull out the inner box halfway, and, wa-la,
we had a truck!
Actually, if you think about it, what we
created was a perfect life where we controlled everything. There was no pain, no
suffering, no lost love, no sadness, no strife. Our community was called
“Matchbox Mountain.” At Christmas time, we played in amongst the icicles,
traveling through the towns, carrying our “Christmas tree” and presents in the
back of our logging truck. Along the way, we sang Christmas carols, bringing joy
at each stop as we pretended to visit all the homes of those we loved, giving
our presents away.
It was the real giving to each other
that filled us with smiles, always trying to come up with what each one
“secretly” wanted, sometimes outlandish things that we’d have to make up. In so
doing, we created our own Christmas spirit. You know, that Christmas spirit is
still there, in all three of our hearts, even after over 50 years! We found out
that it’s not the gift, but the spirit of giving to one another that fills our
hearts.
Living within nature, touching the red dirt of the
mountain, playing together shoulder to shoulder, creating presents to give away
as we traveled from one side of the cove to the other...what a learning!
Love is never experienced until it’s given away, even if it’s only play
acting.
I’ll never forget the isolation of the quiet cove,
the song of the birds, the music of the creek, the sun on our backs and smiles
on our faces. Matchbox Mountain became the place where the love of giving
was planted and continues to grow.
In the book "Matchbox
Mountain" you will find our stories--Amy, Doreyl, and David. We, the Ammons
kids, will live our year of 1952 forever in this book, in a pocket of time in
the past. We invite you to share these stories by reading the book, then passing
it on.
Below are descriptions of books by Amy Ammons Garza.
Mountain StoryBook
WITH COMPANION WORKBOOK
Matchbox
Mountain
$6.95
(Bright Mountain Books Publishing,
1994)
Matchbox Mountain is a collection of stories told from the heart of a writer
and seen through the eyes of an artist. Sisters Amy Ammons Garza, Author
and Doreyl Ammons, Artist relive a special year in their mountain childhood,
1952, when they were nine and ten years old, and their brother,
David, was seven. Within the words of the book the reader will find
children of the land with heartfelt tales depicting a life of pure, honest
creativity and its enduring qualities. Over thirty drawings illustrate
another firsthand view of the children and their adventures.
ISBN
#0-914875-24-8
Catch the Spirit of Creativity
$3.50
(Bright Mountain Books Publishing,
1994)
A workbook presenting the idea that everyone is creative and
important. Traveling the winding mountain roads of Western North Carolina,
two visiting artists found reason to celebrate and honor the children of
Appalachia; the children of the world. Based on ten years of
successful creativity workshops, Amy Ammons Garza and Doreyl Ammons have
compiled activities that demonstrate through participation that every person has
a gift of creativity. The concepts in this workbook are simple, yet
profound when the children suddenly realize that they have worth and are
naturally creative in his/her own unique way. This workbook can stand
alone, it can accompany it's sister book, Matchbox Mountain, and it can
also be the instrument in a workshop directed toward creative writing and
visual art in the public school system. ISBN
#0-914875-25-6
A TRILOGY of two mountain families based on stories
handed down
Retter, A Novel of the
Mountains
$16.00
(1988)
The book “Retter” is based on the stories Grandpa told me about the woman he
loved, Retter, my Grandma. The story begins when at 5 years old,
Grandma sits on the knee of 20-year old Tom Ammons and eats cornbread and
buttermilk. 10 years later, she marries him. The book tells of the
troubles, of the joys of living in the wilderness of Cullowhee Mountain in the
‘30’s and ‘40’s...true stories that give my family roots!
ISBN
#1-55523-092-X
Cannie, The Hills of
Home $16.00
(1992) A story of
three years in the life of the author's mother. It takes the reader to
another time, to the age of young love and marriage in the early
1940's. It shows the isolation and sensitivity of a girl and how she
became a strong mountain wife and mother. Spread throughout the pages of
this book is the love of the author's homeland, the Appalachian Mountains. ISBN
#0-595-15868-4
Sterlen, And a Mosaic of Mountain
Women $16.00
(2005) In the
tradition and style of “Retter” and “Cannie,” the third book “Sterlen” continues
the trilogy of the ongoing saga of the Tom Ammons Family from Cullowhee Mountain
and the Wiley I. Owen Family from Wolf Mountain. The novel introduces the reader
to Sterlen Galloway, a man who carried a banjo on his shoulder as he traveled
from house to house in Western North Carolina carrying his songs, laughter and
content-ment. And then he chanced to meet Marthie Ammons, a dark unhappy
woman whose sadness tore into his heart. It was only the beginning of a
love story that covers the era between 1941 to the blizzard of 1960. All the
characters from Garza’s previous novels “Retter” and “Cannie” come into play as
their lives are naturally woven into the story of Sterlen. History takes the
protagonists through World War II and beyond, while storytelling, the pain of
“birthings” and human tragedy, mountain living and love of the land lays the
ground work for the love story of Sterlen Galloway and Marthie Ammons. Also
included, in the back of the book, is the authentic lineage of the author’s
mountain families: Ammons, Owen, Bryson, Galloway, and Coggins. ISBN
#0-9753023-2-9
Blue Ridge
Mountain Stories
$12.00 + Shipping/Handling
$3.50
(A CD of mountain stories told by the author) A rendering of
family stories gathered by the author. The tape has stories such as
"Grandma
and the Panther," The Granny Woman," "Finger in the Fire," "Coon Hunting," and
more.
entiment come
from? The only sensible answer is that it must have come from how and where I
spent my formative years.
Catch the Spirit of Creativity
Retter, A Novel of the
Mountains 
Cannie, The Hills of
Home
Sterlen, And a Mosaic of Mountain
Women
Blue Ridge
Mountain Stories