Spirits in the Field: An Appalachian Family History

by Bruce Hopkins

When highway US-460 is rebuilt through the old family cemetery the author discovers or uncovers his family history as preparations are made to move his ancestor's graves. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1893239195
• ISBN13: 9781893239197
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Bruce Hopkins
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Flawed, but good.

Spirits in the Field by Bruce Hopkins is an interesting text. It is invaluable as a genealogical text for Hopkins family history buffs, and useful as a tool for understanding Pike County, and thereby all Eastern Kentucky, regional history.Particularly apt are Mr. Hopkins' observations about the effect of the Civil War on the region. He does a terrific job explaining, in a non-polemical manner, the devastating effect the war had on ordinary people of Pike. Some of his prose is haunting. Particularly memorable is his turn of phrase "and all the geese were gone," showing the absolute change in atmosphere and character of the mountains before, during, and after the War. It's profound to imagine the proud geese of Pike, strutting around proudly before the war, immune to outside danger, fearless and strong, being slowly decimated - pilfered, roasted and digested - during the war, and utterly absent at its close.Nevertheless, the book is flawed. Mr. Hopkins writes as if his reader should already be fluent in Hopkins family history. Names are flung around casually, without any connection to the personalities of their owners. While it's clear that Mr. Hopkins cares deeply about these faceless, characterless names, it remains unclear why his readers should. The superfluous introduction of characters and names throughout the text makes many sections nearly unreadable. The full of effect of a major character's story is often trumped by the interference of a dozen background figures, more names and dates than actual people. To an extent, this is nearly unavoidable in a genealogical text; the historical record renders many once living, breathing human beings as mere names and dates. But the problem could have been prevented, or at least controlled, by omitting many figures, fleshing out others with a little creative license, or at the very least, providing some genealogical charts in an appendix. Pictures might also have helped the reader identify major characters.On a personal level, I could have done without the ghost story. While in one sense, it was clearly the motivation for the book, for me it was also cumbersome. I found myself wanting to skip through the interruptions of Mr. Hopkins' personal life and get back to the meat of the text. I wanted to see, feel, know Elijah; I didn't want to read about Mr. Hopkins' desire to do the same.Additionally, there was something about Hopkins' prose I found objectionable in these sections. While generally quite smooth and natural during sections about the main characters of the novel, in the sections about Mr. Hopkins himself, the prose became labored and forced. What would be described quite naturally as "fear of strangers" if a character like Elijah suffered it, became xenophobia when Mr. Hopkins himself experienced it.However, these flaws do not drown out the usefulness of the book as a whole. Spirits in the Field gives us a glimpse into the world of Hopkins' ancestors - of the ancestors of the

Outstanding!

This book, Bruce Hopkins' first, is a pleasure to read. In fact, I read it in one day as I found it too irresistible to put down! A very enjoyable story of life in eastern Kentucky and - most importantly - Hopkins' desire to learn more about his past. Hopkins makes brilliant use of nighttime dreams and daytime visions to help bring his readers into the story. Highly recommended!

Relevant, erudite, and plainspoken by a native Appalachian.

Bruce Hopkins has sensitively and intelligently presented an issue not often broached in effective terms by so many other scholars - that of the "rape" of the Appalachian mountains for their mineral and timber resources by outsiders and the effect those industries have had on the native inhabitants. However, Bruce has chosen to approach it from a very different point-of-view. Rather than pen another unread socio-economic treatise designed to gain another insignificant author a master's or doctoral degree or another chronicle of the moral decay of the inhabitants (a la Harry Caudill) or another condemnation along ecological lines, Bruce has chosen to approach the topic through an area overlooked by every other author whom has deigned to write about this backwater of our nation. He has chosen to approach the topic through the heritage and history of the residents, particularly those of his own family who settled, farmed, and moved away from Greasey Creek in Pike County, Kentucky.By presenting the story of his own research into his family members buried in a cemetery slated for ignominious removal and relocation to make way for a new highway, (through a series of epiphanies) Bruce reveals the importance of his family's history - in effect, demonstrating that all Americans possess a personal heritage which is so often and so easily selfishly dismissed for personal convenience or profit. Bruce's Hopkins clan has a history as interesting as that of any blue-blooded family from Massachusetts, Virginia, or Georgia, and he demonstrates why each of us should make the attempt to preserve our own personal histories for our children, so that they may learn to appreciate their own places in history, and to learn pride in their ancestry and heritage, which aspects are so often subsumed in the name of "diversity".My only criticisms of the book concern two general and one specific areas: the first over which Bruce apparently had little control and the second a suggestion to make it easier to understand the complicated relationships between the family members Bruce knows so well. First, there were a number of editorial errors which Bruce has promised to correct to perfect the book. These did not appreciably affect the reading of the work, and the whole is perhaps the most erudite work to come out of the region. Second, a family tree or a listing of the family members in an appendix may make it easier for the reader to understand which ancestor Bruce is discussing. Finally, while Bruce did a magnificent job discussing the Civil War and its effects on his family, some details regarding the loyalties of the local men were not rendered clearly, though in most cases they were. This last criticism is a personal complaint as the author of this review has done a great deal of research in this particular era and area. Bruce's understanding of the historical situation is, essentially, correct and the importance or accuracy of his family's history would not be affe

family history

I never thought I'd be interested in reading a family history. But this book is much more. When Mr. Hopkins discovered that the state was going to build a highway through Greasy Creek and his family cemetery without even bothering to identify the graves they were moving, he was incensed. He immediately began what became a six-year struggle with the state highway department to get the graves properly identified and moved with the respect they deserved. In the process, Hopkins discovered or re-discovered a rich family history going back before the Civil War. In this book he discusses, along with his family, the effect of the Civil War on his family and Appalachia. His writing is insightful and at times even poetic. He can spin a yarn with the best of them. Everybody in Appalachia should read this book.