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My grandmother was born out of wedlock back around 1900. She was put into an orphanage. When her mom (my great grandmother) met and married a man a year later she confessed after the wedding that she had an illegitimate daughter. That man went straight to the orphanage and brought that baby home. He raised my grandmother like his own and loved her until the day he died. Some men are just better.
They’d rather grab a phone and hit record or make a TikTok begging for money. Can’t forget the go fund me. Sad how people have changed. Our grandparents and greats would be ashamed to see us staring at phones all day. lol
If they had been more charitable and less judgemental no one would have needed to "fight", the more I see and hear the more I realise that nothing changes.
If Nancy did leave Roberta in the cave, she definitely didn't do it alone. The rocks were too heavy. It is also worth noting that all the towns people who were so concerned and outraged by Roberta's disappearance and death were the same ones who shunned Nancy and then Lizzie for having illegitimate children instead of being good Christians and helping them the many times they had no home or food. Where was their outrage when Roberta had nothing to eat or a decent home to live in?!
Like with a lot of people today more concerned with being seen as righteous Christians than actually being Christian, they always seem to forget Christ admonished those who judged others, they run off to quote the old testament instead of living by the new!
My daughter is related to Nance on her dad's side. I guess we'll never know the truth but it's still one of the saddest stories I've ever heard. Rest peacefully little Roberta 🙏🩷
My Grandmother raised 5. Children on her own after divorcing an Alcoholic….. She took in Laundry and picked cotton, planted garden….. sent her kids to school and took them to Church,
This entire story is so horrendously sad. The perpetuating cycle of ignorance, poverty, desperation and abuse is so dehumanizing that we see how people become animalistic. In my head I recognize this. But my heart cries out for this child who was never loved. I do believe she did this because she committed this crime in rhe very same cave she knew so well. Once again, JD, you've narrated this so eloquently. We can all say a prayer in memory of this child lest we forget others who deal with these same cycles .
Not sure it was the same cave. It said she lived/grew up on Iron Mountain, which is in Iron Duff (I think). The cave where Roberta was found is in Utah Mountain area, which is on Maggie Valley/Jonathan Creek side.
@@bettyir4302 - Simply saying this in general, not aimed at you: That bible verse about God visiting the sins of the father on the children is a terrible translation. Should simply read 'Sins of the father will be visited on the children' which is absolutely true. Not that humans escape ultimate responsibility for their own deadly sins, but environment definitely plays a strong role. As the rod is bent ....
I researched that story for my husband's aunt by marriage. She and my husbands grandmother tended Nancy on her death bed when they were younger in Whittier N.C. Said she came in on the train to Whittier from Ashville and her son picked her up when she was allowed to come home from prison. They thought she would tell what really happened to the child on her death bed. But my husbands aunt said she never did. His aunt said "she took it to her grave". I remember when the shack she died in was torn down for a new house after the property was sold. My husband's aunt asked me to read the legend of Nace Dude and see if I could find the cave. She said it always bothered her and she was to old to go look for herself and I was young and would I be willing to go and see to help settle her mind before she also died! She is now deceased. She said the men of the family went and found the cave and said the rocks were to large for Nancy to do it by herself. She told me where to look for the cave!! I found the cave. But I came up from the bottom of the mountain and couldn't climb to the entrance because of the huge rocks! Wr had to sneak in and the cave is nearly to the top of the mountain. It was open and I could see it. If I had come down the mountain from the top i could have walked right up to it. It's true! The rocks are huge! I believe it would have taken at least a grown men to move any of the rocks I saw there that day. I know for a fact that I could have never moved one by myself! I don't believe she did it by herself either after I went to the cave myself with my husband. I found the cemetery where she was buried. But my husband's aunt said it wasn't marked to keep mean spirited people from destroying the grave. She said it was in the back of the cemetery. But most of the graves in the back were so old and only marked with river stones at the head of the graves. So I couldn't find her. Only the area she was located. By the time I reported back to my husband's aunt I was so weary from the story! My heart was so heavy! It took me a long time to overcome it! Sometimes I wish she had never asked me to do it for her! Cataloochee is so beautiful where Nancy lived! Lake Junaluska is so peaceful where the old folks home was where Nancy claimed to have left the child. The court house still stands in Waynesville. And sometimes I wonder which of the giant trees still standing might have been the one that the people intended to hang her, her daughter and that man from when I pass by, and I always think of the story. I will always believe she took the blame to protect someone. My husband's aunt said her son was mean and they wondered if he was involved! But I've always wondered if she was followed there by the man who refused to marry her daughter! He had a hate for the child! An unbearable hate! And a motive! He wouldn't marry the daughter until that child was out of his way! Makes me wonder if the daughter was already pregnant by her father and that's why he burned the cabin down! I don't think that research will ever completely leave me in peace! There is another story to research! It's as disturbing! It's about the first woman ever hung by the neck until dead in N.C. It's the ballad of Frankie Silver! I meet her great granddaughter! That's how I found out about the story. We worked side by side in a sewing plant in Sylva N.C. She told me when I met her that I might not want to be friends with her because everyone knew who her great grandmother was. Her great grandma killed her abusive drunk husband with an axe in front of the fireplace after he came home drunk one night! He beat her and threatened to start on the children. She panicked and chopped him up and tried to hide the crime. But it all fell apart when the dog's and searchers found his head in an old tree stump on the property. It's definitely worth a video also. You have to understand how hard life was back then in the Appalachian Mountains. Starvation was a breath away! Moonshine was the making for a lot of abuse for the women who already had their hands full! Mortality rates for children was high! The older graveyards are full of babies! It's amazing Nancy lived so long with the life she was dealt! My heart hurts for the poor child! But Nancy lived an awful life for many years! And died a broken old woman in a shack with that stench about the baby hung around her neck! I will always feel sorry for her also! I believe she took the blame for some reason for a man! Either to save her daughter's lover because they did have other children together or her son! That's what I will always believe! What a pitiful life she indured! The Appalachian mountains are full of these awful stories! I can tell you three more. In Cades Cove on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountais a woman in the Cove died in child birth. The infant was not breathing either. The people of the cove buried her and the baby in one coffin together in a cemetery in the very back of the cove! For several days people kept seeing her in the cemetery. They all decided to dig her up. They did!! And found the infant alive! That's documented!! Another one is of an old woman my mother helped tend to at a nursing home In Swain Co. She came from Robinsville. Her mother died and left her to the mercy of her father and a group of brothers, way back up in the mountains! She was the only female left on the mountain! They used her for sex and she became pregnant. Another nurse told mama that the daughter belong to her own father. Her daughter was at the nursing home with her! She was so inbred she couldn't talk or take care of herself. The old woman lay in bed and fixed her eyes on the ceiling and never spoke a word until she died. Mama put her hand on the woman's forehead one night and prayed for her in silence. The old woman rolled her eyes and looked right at mama. Then rolled her eyes back to the ceiling and fixed them again until she died. Mama quit the nursing home after that. We don't know what ever happened to her inbred daughter. You just don't know how bad it was back then in the Appalachians. For the women it was awful! The other story happened on the Great Smoky Mountains. And for me personally it's the scariest story of all. It nvolves a woman's murder on the park. Her murder is unsolved! She was beat to death on the park. And her body was found just a little ways down a trail from her car. She haunt's it now! If you come across the top of the mountains around Newfound Gap and the entrance of Climans Dome at the right time at night she might hitchhike a ride in your back seat and you can hear her gasping for breath and screaming in terrible fear! Reliving the horror of her last moments of life! This will continue until you pull off the road and turn on the over head light in the car. As soon as you turn on the light the car falls silent and there is no woman in the back seat! That happened to my husband and myself one night coming home from Gatlinburg when I use to sing for a restaurant and bar called North of the Border. If I told anyone what happened to us my mountain husband would not say anything! I asked him just before he died to tell me the truth! Did it happen to us or not! That I needed to know! And I needed to know the truth!!! And if the answer was no i would accept it. He looked right at me from his hospital bed and plainly said "YES! It did happen"!!! I asked him why he never backed me up when I told someone about it! He said "I didn't want them to think we was crazy"! Just like a mountain man! Guess it was ok for them to think I was crazy! My husband died only a few days later. We spent almost 33 years together rambling these mountains! These mountains hold deep dark frightening secrets!!! I came from Jacksonville Florida when I was about 19 or 20. I'm almost 68 now! It was a huge change of life! A great awakening from big city life to mountain life in the middle of nowhere! I married a ridge runner! A sharp shooter! A mountain wildlife hunter! I've explored these mountains for over fifty years! Iv'e even seen a huge black panther on the park. And about a thousand pound Russian razer back hog with piglets. I llove the mountains! But I have learned to respect them also! And to always be very aware of my surroundings!!
I know these were hard times and the grandmother never really knew love. She was treated so harshly as a child, but there is no excuse for what she did to that precious little girl. To think that grandma lived to be 104, but that little girl was taken at 3 years of age . So sad. Thanks for the story!
Nancy was supposed to throw herself into the bear's jaws to save her much more valuable brother and didn't do it. Therefore, she earned her mother's eternal ire. Gotta obey Mother's rules.
I think everyone was guilty including the self-righteous town folks who didn't give a damn about the child until she was dead. They wouldn't hire her mom or grandma leaving them starving and desperate, dependant upon the lowest of men.
Most of them were probably too poor to take them in and didn't know much about the situation. They didn't have internet and phones. They worked from sun up to sun down and didn't know what was going on several miles up the road and in the next hollow.
@@catherinebaum9185 I think there was a culture of minding your on beeswax. That was certainly the culture in the U.K. when I was growing up. What happens in a persons home stays there. A bad concept in my opinion.
Thank you for sharing all these stories. I am from South Africa and will never be able to visit these mountains. But I get a vivid picture ebery time I listen
Such a sad story of harbored guilt and sadness ending in the death of such an innocent little girl. Thank you for telling this sad but true story. You are the best my friend
@TheAppalachianStoryteller Anywhere there is poverty. Especially the Appalachia's this still continues. This is the reason half of my family don't talk to the other half I don't speak to my Mother or Daughter. They're meaner than copperheads in shook up jar.
Glad I found your channel. I'm 66 years old, and born and raised in east TN, and still live in Bristol, TN, So alot of these stories happened close by.
What a sad story. But like someone else commented, she wasn't loved as a kid and wasn't taught how to love. 😢😢. I couldn't begin to think of doing any of my children this way.
I feel there's more to this story. A few details that can never be proven. If a 12 yr okd coukd move the rocks, id say ahe probably could too. But its certainly possible she had help. As one comment mentioned about Nancy's parents, she wasnt loved as a child. Humans have to be be taugh love, along with everything else. unfortunately it usually doesn't come naturally. J.D. Im glad you did the research on this, cause i don't think i could have. The story telling was great, but a sad story indeed.
It was hard to tell this story- when I began researching, I never realized the details I would find or the actual pictures of the crime scene. I didn’t show them here cause they broke my heart
What ever happened to Lizzie? Neither of those women had a chance in life but killing an innocent child is no excuse. Thank you for a wonderful story. It should make every woman who has ever had to raise a child alone today be thankful for what we have today.💋
I dont know what happened to Lizzie, I do remember looking her up on Find a grave, but other than her date of death, I didnt find anything else on here
Poor baby i feel sorry for all three people poverty's hell sometimes im catching hell myself but aint no way on God's green earth that i would put no one before my children! Great story 🙏 God Bless you and your family
A close friend was supposed to be watching her brother at the beach. She turned her head, he drowned. Her parents were merciless with her. Even as an adult she carries horror within her. She is a lovely woman. What Nancy could have become in different circumstances makes your heart ache.
How can a parent DO THAT TO THEIR CHILD!!! If anything, it’s the parents fault for putting a child in charge of another child! I hope to God your friend is comforted by the love she is given today by you and everyone else
No excuse for this. I'm in the Philippines and would go to a restaurant and got to know one of the female servers. I told her how I did not have a son and would love to have one. Well one night I went to said restaurant and some guy kept staring at me, after the place was empty, the waitress said the guy invited me to his table for a beer. At the table he told me a woman from his village worked in Manila and got pregnant. She then went back to the poor village, delivered the baby and abandoned it, a baby boy. He asked me if I would take this baby boy and give him a home. We went and talked to my wife and we decided we would take him in. Three days later the man shows up with the baby boy and the babys grandmother. The village was so poor they had to borrow clothes, bottles from other mothers and bring them back. That baby boy is now a strapping teenager.
Maybe, but not always. When my parents beat me, I always vowed I would never lay a hand on my children and I never did. I couldn't bear the thought of hurting anyone the way I was hurt.
Wow absolutely brilliant true life stories across the pond really appreciate your crack that happened in the us it was a cruel ways back then so sad exactly the same in the uk too. Thanks for sharing there stories to us all they will never be forgotten....🇬🇧🇺🇸...😢😢❤
Welcome aboard my friend so glad to have you here there’s a large community of folks from Australia that are also in this channel and we’re glad to have you here
JD, I have subscribed to your channel a long while back & I click the like button to every one of your episodes that I watch. Please keep these wonderful stories coming, we need them so much. 💕
Wow!! What a sad sad story JD!! Things weren't any different then...being a single mother still hold a stigma today. Poor little gal. I feel sorry for all of them.
Sad but great video JD. Being from Swain County, I’ve driven Conleys Creek many times never knowing this part of History. Thanks for the tremendous story…..FYI. My great grandfather John Wesley Phillips was from Eastern Tennessee. Thanks for your hard work Cuz😁
Wow, this is heartbreaking in every possible way. Nancy clearly did not know what love truly is, and she likely was speaking her truth when she said she "loved" that child.
I love your featuring Nance Dude…I read the book about her story years ago…and did a lot of research about this woman..I’m distantly related to her..she had a horrific life..there is much more to her story than this..so much more..I think it’s important to note that Nance literally tried every way possible to provide for Roberta..and her daughter Lizzy was terrible selfish girl…a very sad and tragic story of extreme abuse, poverty and hopelessness! Blessings❤
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller the book written that I’m referring to was all based on facts written by Maurice Stanley titled “the legend of Nance Dude”..I also read the fictional book loosely based on her story titled “the serpent slips into a modern Eden” by James A. Turpin. I obtained my copy of the Stanley book through the Haywood county historical society about 25 years ago. Included in the Stanley book are numerous records from court, local newspapers and interviews of old folks who knew Nance and lived in the community . The Stanley book also includes a lot of photos, birth, marriage and death records. I absolutely love your channel and so enjoy your posts-Good job!
@@donnamays24I have really wondered if someone with her weight and I read she had arthritis could have physically done this! Patricia Gambino Harrington
Times were just so hard & people so poor! I know this was horrible thing that happened to little Roberta , & how incredibly painful & the suffering she.endured! All 3 of them suffered & Nancy her life was a.nightmare since she was.a young child! So beautiful --all 3 of them! Shockingly beautiful actually! For.some reason I stopped receiving your.notifications a few months ago & I just happened.to.run across this.video! I now haven3 months worth to watch & its suppose to rain for thr.next 24 hours here. Kind of excited! Ive.missed your stories.& most definitely your.voice! God bless❤🇱🇷❤
Morning JD 👋 I'm watching and catching up on your Wonderful Story telling of Appalachian people, history and life🙏 ...I'm fascinated 💯 From a KIWI Fan from NEW ZEALAND 🌅🌊🌲
I don't know how many Black subscribers you have but, I can tell you that you definitely have one now. I had a very good friend whose great aunt would tell us stories about the holler😂 she was from in West Virginia. Keep up the good work 👍🏿
This channel just popped up in my feed! Wow! Truly great story telling. What a tragic heartbreaking story all the way around. Definitely just subscribed!
This story has haunted me for years! I grew up in Asheville NC and found an article about this when I was 13 and I am 55 now and it still haunts me! Patricia Gambino Harrington (I post on my hubby's UA-cam acct)
Oh JD, this is the saddest story I have heard. Just horrible all the way around. Where was the love they needed? Why didn’t they go to a church? So many questions. Thank you JD, for telling the story and keeping Roberta’s memory alive. God bless you! Love from Canadice NY ❤
Good morning JD! This story makes my heart hurt and break. I just can’t imagine how anyone could harm a child. God sees all and everyone has a judgement day. I hope you and your family have a very blessed weekend!
A truly heartbreaking story, very hard for me to tell, but Robertas story should not be forgotten. Hope you have a great weekend Willow, im taking my boy to the lake today.
Please do a story on the Legend of Nance Dude if you haven’t already. “One cold February morning in 1913, a 64-year-old woman known as Nance Dude led her granddaughter, Roberta Putnam, out of their home in western North Carolina and up the side of a mountain. She returned without the child later that day.”
This IS Nance Dudes story. The real story. Her name was Nancy Kerley, it was only when the fictional Novel came out about her life that “nance dude” nickname was invented.
I'm a North Carolina born and raised lady...but on the coastal plains. Love the channel! My great-granny was with us until I was 13 so Ive heard stories of living in these hard times. It was just as destitute at times on the tobacco farms of the east. My 2 great-great aunt and granny both bore children to the same wealthy Judge, whose farm they lived and worked as single "old maids". The communities could be so mean and unfair! I do believe they left little Roberta to die because starvation is a powerful motivator!
I'm in my 70s now and grew up in a rural area, our farm was next to Grandpa's. His farm was the same as always, no electricity or running water, everything except sugar and flour was from his farm. Smokehouse, outhouse, wood shop, barns, stables, pigpens, horses, cows, chickens, vegetables and blackberry, strawberry and even peach trees. Everything building Grandpa built, even the furniture, he had six sons and two daughters all born in the farmhouse. It was like living back in time. As kids we used to explore all the old farms around us and come across what they called "Family Cemeteries". Spooky. Sometimes the names were just etched on rock sometimes there were most "store bought" headstones. People all around were poor even back when I was young. I used to wonder though, did someone check out these deaths? One family cemetery was very old and had five baby's graves, each on was one year old when it died! One by one, no baby made it more than one year. I wondered about that a lot. Things like that used to bother me as a kid. I still think about it and what happened if a lot of children died in one family? Not sure but I think there were a lot of "family cemeteries" that are completely forgotten now.
Thanks for the tragic but interesting story. Life was rough in that area back then. I dont live there but am too familiar with the area. My ancestors settled cataloochee in the smokies. Still have the old family house up there where my grandfather was born. Part of the park service now. Im sure this was big news for them back then. Thabks again
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My grandmother was born out of wedlock back around 1900. She was put into an orphanage. When her mom (my great grandmother) met and married a man a year later she confessed after the wedding that she had an illegitimate daughter. That man went straight to the orphanage and brought that baby home. He raised my grandmother like his own and loved her until the day he died. Some men are just better.
beautiful
Bless his heart, that's a good man right there.
Great man
I wish people would fight like this today when injustice is done to a child
They’d rather grab a phone and hit record or make a TikTok begging for money. Can’t forget the go fund me. Sad how people have changed. Our grandparents and greats would be ashamed to see us staring at phones all day. lol
@@DorothySbornak so true
If they had been more charitable and less judgemental no one would have needed to "fight", the more I see and hear the more I realise that nothing changes.
..SO DO I!!
Would have been nice if they'd cared that much while she was alive.
The old art of telling a story is so absent today. Thanks for keeping it alive.
Thank you!
Listen to Old Gods of Appalachia. They are awesome!!
If Nancy did leave Roberta in the cave, she definitely didn't do it alone. The rocks were too heavy. It is also worth noting that all the towns people who were so concerned and outraged by Roberta's disappearance and death were the same ones who shunned Nancy and then Lizzie for having illegitimate children instead of being good Christians and helping them the many times they had no home or food. Where was their outrage when Roberta had nothing to eat or a decent home to live in?!
It’s the same as it is now. They don’t really care about the children, they just like being self righteous and outraged and to look down on others.
Sympathy is much harder to muster than indignation. Apparently...
@@sherlockholmes4769 Very true.
I thought the same thing❤
Like with a lot of people today more concerned with being seen as righteous Christians than actually being Christian, they always seem to forget Christ admonished those who judged others, they run off to quote the old testament instead of living by the new!
My daughter is related to Nance on her dad's side. I guess we'll never know the truth but it's still one of the saddest stories I've ever heard. Rest peacefully little Roberta 🙏🩷
This broke my heart. 😭
I thank God for a Granny that truly loved me.
RIP Roberta 💜
I'm only a few minutes into this story and am so glad the algorithm recommended this underrated channel. Such fantastic and vivid storytelling.
Welcome aboard!
Same here😮
My Grandmother raised 5. Children on her own after divorcing an Alcoholic….. She took in Laundry and picked cotton, planted garden….. sent her kids to school and took them to Church,
❤️
She sounds like a Saint to me.
Was she around at the time of this story?
A grandma nowadays is a lot younger and less than 100 years old.
This was a much longer time ago
You're full of crap
This entire story is so horrendously sad. The perpetuating cycle of ignorance, poverty, desperation and abuse is so dehumanizing that we see how people become animalistic. In my head I recognize this. But my heart cries out for this child who was never loved. I do believe she did this because she committed this crime in rhe very same cave she knew so well. Once again, JD, you've narrated this so eloquently. We can all say a prayer in memory of this child lest we forget others who deal with these same cycles .
Robertas story should not be forgotten. RIP
Very well said...
Welcome to planet Earth. Please enjoy your stay.
Not sure it was the same cave. It said she lived/grew up on Iron Mountain, which is in Iron Duff (I think). The cave where Roberta was found is in Utah Mountain area, which is on Maggie Valley/Jonathan Creek side.
Thanks for the insight 😊
As much as we focus our anger and disgust on Nancy, we can't ignore the part that Nancy's mother played on this story. So very sad.
Well said, Michael, there are many, many layers to this true story
They all failed Roberta.
This is so sad….
And Will Putnam. Each one was more than the first.
@@bettyir4302 - Simply saying this in general, not aimed at you: That bible verse about God visiting the sins of the father on the children is a terrible translation. Should simply read 'Sins of the father will be visited on the children' which is absolutely true. Not that humans escape ultimate responsibility for their own deadly sins, but environment definitely plays a strong role. As the rod is bent ....
Amazing how the whole area turn out to search for a missing girl yet when Roberta was alive they’d have shunned her and her family ,so heartbreaking
amen
I agree. If they were all so concerned, why did they not bother to help them to begin with!
My thoughts exactly
My exact thoughts...
That was hard to understand.....
That poor little girl, so sad. JD your stories are much appreciated and so captivating . Thanks for your work
Thank you Bryan
I researched that story for my husband's aunt by marriage. She and my husbands grandmother tended Nancy on her death bed when they were younger in Whittier N.C. Said she came in on the train to Whittier from Ashville and her son picked her up when she was allowed to come home from prison. They thought she would tell what really happened to the child on her death bed. But my husbands aunt said she never did. His aunt said "she took it to her grave". I remember when the shack she died in was torn down for a new house after the property was sold. My husband's aunt asked me to read the legend of Nace Dude and see if I could find the cave. She said it always bothered her and she was to old to go look for herself and I was young and would I be willing to go and see to help settle her mind before she also died! She is now deceased. She said the men of the family went and found the cave and said the rocks were to large for Nancy to do it by herself. She told me where to look for the cave!! I found the cave. But I came up from the bottom of the mountain and couldn't climb to the entrance because of the huge rocks! Wr had to sneak in and the cave is nearly to the top of the mountain. It was open and I could see it. If I had come down the mountain from the top i could have walked right up to it. It's true! The rocks are huge! I believe it would have taken at least a grown men to move any of the rocks I saw there that day. I know for a fact that I could have never moved one by myself! I don't believe she did it by herself either after I went to the cave myself with my husband. I found the cemetery where she was buried. But my husband's aunt said it wasn't marked to keep mean spirited people from destroying the grave. She said it was in the back of the cemetery. But most of the graves in the back were so old and only marked with river stones at the head of the graves. So I couldn't find her. Only the area she was located. By the time I reported back to my husband's aunt I was so weary from the story! My heart was so heavy! It took me a long time to overcome it! Sometimes I wish she had never asked me to do it for her! Cataloochee is so beautiful where Nancy lived! Lake Junaluska is so peaceful where the old folks home was where Nancy claimed to have left the child. The court house still stands in Waynesville. And sometimes I wonder which of the giant trees still standing might have been the one that the people intended to hang her, her daughter and that man from when I pass by, and I always think of the story. I will always believe she took the blame to protect someone. My husband's aunt said her son was mean and they wondered if he was involved! But I've always wondered if she was followed there by the man who refused to marry her daughter! He had a hate for the child! An unbearable hate! And a motive! He wouldn't marry the daughter until that child was out of his way! Makes me wonder if the daughter was already pregnant by her father and that's why he burned the cabin down! I don't think that research will ever completely leave me in peace! There is another story to research! It's as disturbing! It's about the first woman ever hung by the neck until dead in N.C. It's the ballad of Frankie Silver! I meet her great granddaughter! That's how I found out about the story. We worked side by side in a sewing plant in Sylva N.C. She told me when I met her that I might not want to be friends with her because everyone knew who her great grandmother was. Her great grandma killed her abusive drunk husband with an axe in front of the fireplace after he came home drunk one night! He beat her and threatened to start on the children. She panicked and chopped him up and tried to hide the crime. But it all fell apart when the dog's and searchers found his head in an old tree stump on the property. It's definitely worth a video also. You have to understand how hard life was back then in the Appalachian Mountains. Starvation was a breath away! Moonshine was the making for a lot of abuse for the women who already had their hands full! Mortality rates for children was high! The older graveyards are full of babies! It's amazing Nancy lived so long with the life she was dealt! My heart hurts for the poor child! But Nancy lived an awful life for many years! And died a broken old woman in a shack with that stench about the baby hung around her neck! I will always feel sorry for her also! I believe she took the blame for some reason for a man! Either to save her daughter's lover because they did have other children together or her son! That's what I will always believe! What a pitiful life she indured! The Appalachian mountains are full of these awful stories! I can tell you three more. In Cades Cove on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountais a woman in the Cove died in child birth. The infant was not breathing either. The people of the cove buried her and the baby in one coffin together in a cemetery in the very back of the cove! For several days people kept seeing her in the cemetery. They all decided to dig her up. They did!! And found the infant alive! That's documented!! Another one is of an old woman my mother helped tend to at a nursing home In Swain Co. She came from Robinsville. Her mother died and left her to the mercy of her father and a group of brothers, way back up in the mountains! She was the only female left on the mountain! They used her for sex and she became pregnant. Another nurse told mama that the daughter belong to her own father. Her daughter was at the nursing home with her! She was so inbred she couldn't talk or take care of herself. The old woman lay in bed and fixed her eyes on the ceiling and never spoke a word until she died. Mama put her hand on the woman's forehead one night and prayed for her in silence. The old woman rolled her eyes and looked right at mama. Then rolled her eyes back to the ceiling and fixed them again until she died. Mama quit the nursing home after that. We don't know what ever happened to her inbred daughter. You just don't know how bad it was back then in the Appalachians. For the women it was awful! The other story happened on the Great Smoky Mountains. And for me personally it's the scariest story of all. It nvolves a woman's murder on the park. Her murder is unsolved! She was beat to death on the park. And her body was found just a little ways down a trail from her car. She haunt's it now! If you come across the top of the mountains around Newfound Gap and the entrance of Climans Dome at the right time at night she might hitchhike a ride in your back seat and you can hear her gasping for breath and screaming in terrible fear! Reliving the horror of her last moments of life! This will continue until you pull off the road and turn on the over head light in the car. As soon as you turn on the light the car falls silent and there is no woman in the back seat! That happened to my husband and myself one night coming home from Gatlinburg when I use to sing for a restaurant and bar called North of the Border. If I told anyone what happened to us my mountain husband would not say anything! I asked him just before he died to tell me the truth! Did it happen to us or not! That I needed to know! And I needed to know the truth!!! And if the answer was no i would accept it. He looked right at me from his hospital bed and plainly said "YES! It did happen"!!! I asked him why he never backed me up when I told someone about it! He said "I didn't want them to think we was crazy"! Just like a mountain man! Guess it was ok for them to think I was crazy! My husband died only a few days later. We spent almost 33 years together rambling these mountains! These mountains hold deep dark frightening secrets!!! I came from Jacksonville Florida when I was about 19 or 20. I'm almost 68 now! It was a huge change of life! A great awakening from big city life to mountain life in the middle of nowhere! I married a ridge runner! A sharp shooter! A mountain wildlife hunter! I've explored these mountains for over fifty years! Iv'e even seen a huge black panther on the park. And about a thousand pound Russian razer back hog with piglets. I llove the mountains! But I have learned to respect them also! And to always be very aware of my surroundings!!
I know these were hard times and the grandmother never really knew love. She was treated so harshly as a child, but there is no excuse for what she did to that precious little girl. To think that grandma lived to be 104, but that little girl was taken at 3 years of age . So sad. Thanks for the story!
Thank you 💜
Karma has no deadline!
Wow how did Nancy live so long😮
Her history reminds me a bit of Aileen Wournos. Yes, she was a serial killer. Her home life was horrendous. It’s no excuse, but it played a part!
When you know nothing else aren't exposed to kindness, our animal instincts take over. 😢💔
one of the roughest lives ever and still lived to be 104...wow
crazy, the irony
Blaming a little girl for her brothers bear attack is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard.
💜
My best friend's mother blamed her for the death of her younger brother, who was accidently hung while playing with a rope in a tree.
Interesting name. I know a Justin Thomas.
Oh my god! That's horrendous on both counts.@@TheSouthernLady777
Nancy was supposed to throw herself into the bear's jaws to save her much more valuable brother and didn't do it. Therefore, she earned her mother's eternal ire. Gotta obey Mother's rules.
I think everyone was guilty including the self-righteous town folks who didn't give a damn about the child until she was dead. They wouldn't hire her mom or grandma leaving them starving and desperate, dependant upon the lowest of men.
Exactly!! 😢
100% AGREE!!!
True!
Yeah some people think it’s better to not let that cycle continue horrible but I get it
Most of them were probably too poor to take them in and didn't know much about the situation. They didn't have internet and phones. They worked from sun up to sun down and didn't know what was going on several miles up the road and in the next hollow.
The town didn't care one bit about Roberta while she was alive, but spoke up after she went missing.
100% true
@@catherinebaum9185 I think there was a culture of minding your on beeswax. That was certainly the culture in the U.K. when I was growing up. What happens in a persons home stays there. A bad concept in my opinion.
@@Nettsinthewoods Truth
Triggering for me being raised in East Tennessee. 😢 i was terribly abused, and it seemed like no one cared. In fact, they didn't.
Much love to you ❤️
I love your book so much!@TheAppalachianStoryteller
Sending love your way sorry you had to go through such a life of trial❤
@jjframe1238 thank you, that means the world to me! Bless you.
Prayers for you!🙏 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Thank you for sharing all these stories. I am from South Africa and will never be able to visit these mountains. But I get a vivid picture ebery time I listen
Glad to have you here! Greetings from the mountains of East Tennessee
It's just a plane ticket. Come on over!
The exact location he’s talking about were severely damaged in the hurricane.
@@christinablack6557 Praying for your safety and welbeing.
Such a sad story of harbored guilt and sadness ending in the death of such an innocent little girl. Thank you for telling this sad but true story. You are the best my friend
As tragic as this story is, Roberta deserves to be remembered.
@TheAppalachianStoryteller Anywhere there is poverty. Especially the Appalachia's this still continues. This is the reason half of my family don't talk to the other half
I don't speak to my Mother or Daughter. They're meaner than copperheads in shook up jar.
Such sad story for the grandmother but she chooses life over her granddaughter is unbelievable
09.09.2024
Yes, very sad. Even though my grandson is a young man now, I'd give up my life for him in a heartbeat. 💙😎💘
This story broke every inch of my heart 😢
a truly tragic story
My Mother was raised in these very same mountains and I can see how she was the way she was. It is very sad.
❤️
Glad I found your channel. I'm 66 years old, and born and raised in east TN, and still live in Bristol, TN, So alot of these stories happened close by.
Welcome aboard!
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller Glad to be here, thanks.
What a sad story. But like someone else commented, she wasn't loved as a kid and wasn't taught how to love. 😢😢. I couldn't begin to think of doing any of my children this way.
amen, well said
What a heartbreaking story. I'm stunned. ❤
Thank you for the story. Nancy Conard did have a hard life and there is a lot more to this story.
What a story! RIP little Roberta ❤ thanks for sharing JD😊
Thank you Renee
That baby sure didn't deserve what happened for sure . Now she's with her heavenly father who showers with like be and kisses as she deserves.
Amen
Love these Appalachian mountain stories.thank u sir
Thank you Wayne
I love to hear your storytelling even though it’s a sad story. These things need to be remembered.
Thank you so much Diane
That was a roughin man......Times back then were brutal here in the Mountains. Take care J.D.
It was a hard story for me to tell
I feel there's more to this story. A few details that can never be proven. If a 12 yr okd coukd move the rocks, id say ahe probably could too. But its certainly possible she had help. As one comment mentioned about Nancy's parents, she wasnt loved as a child. Humans have to be be taugh love, along with everything else. unfortunately it usually doesn't come naturally. J.D. Im glad you did the research on this, cause i don't think i could have. The story telling was great, but a sad story indeed.
It was hard to tell this story- when I began researching, I never realized the details I would find or the actual pictures of the crime scene. I didn’t show them here cause they broke my heart
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller thank you for not showing them. have a good night.
What a sad story..I live in mitchell County. But also know the area this happened in. Life was rough back it those days
Such a sad story.
That poor baby.
What ever happened to Lizzie? Neither of those women had a chance in life but killing an innocent child is no excuse. Thank you for a wonderful story. It should make every woman who has ever had to raise a child alone today be thankful for what we have today.💋
I dont know what happened to Lizzie, I do remember looking her up on Find a grave, but other than her date of death, I didnt find anything else on here
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller If Nancy lived to 104, how long did Lizzie live? How long did Nancy's wicked mother live, was the longevity genetic?
Wow! Although a very sad ending to an adorable and innocent little girl, thank you again for sharing with us!
Thank you 💜
Poor little Roberta, so heartbreaking. ❤
💜
Poor baby i feel sorry for all three people poverty's hell sometimes im catching hell myself but aint no way on God's green earth that i would put no one before my children! Great story 🙏 God Bless you and your family
So very sad and haunting. Bless the little children.
Amen
You did a great job
Telling this story
Sir
God Bless Roberta ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
thank you!
A truely sad story. Bur thank you for sharing it with us. God bless you and your whole family...🙏🙏🙏
Thank you, John. Hope you have a blessed day, brother.
A close friend was supposed to be watching her brother at the beach. She turned her head, he drowned. Her parents were merciless with her. Even as an adult she carries horror within her. She is a lovely woman. What Nancy could have become in different circumstances makes your heart ache.
oh my, Im sorry sorry to hear that from your friend
How can a parent DO THAT TO THEIR CHILD!!!
If anything, it’s the parents fault for putting a child in charge of another child!
I hope to God your friend is comforted by the love she is given today by you and everyone else
No excuse for this. I'm in the Philippines and would go to a restaurant and got to know one of the female servers. I told her how I did not have a son and would love to have one. Well one night I went to said restaurant and some guy kept staring at me, after the place was empty, the waitress said the guy invited me to his table for a beer.
At the table he told me a woman from his village worked in Manila and got pregnant. She then went back to the poor village, delivered the baby and abandoned it, a baby boy. He asked me if I would take this baby boy and give him a home. We went and talked to my wife and we decided we would take him in. Three days later the man shows up with the baby boy and the babys grandmother.
The village was so poor they had to borrow clothes, bottles from other mothers and bring them back. That baby boy is now a strapping teenager.
Wow! are you still raising the child?
Bless you and your wife for listening to your heart and God❤
You got a bonus grandma too!!
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller, Yes.
I'm so happy to hear how this turned out. When I was reading it I thought "oh no they stole a baby". Bless you for opening your heart ❤️
Aw such a sad story 😢 Thank you JD
Her young face is so majestic. It's so hard to see the world wear down what God created. This was a child. 😢😢❤❤❤
Amen
Such a sad story on every level! Thank you for sharing
Thanks for listening Karen ❤️
Abuse begets abuse in a cycle that is so hard to break. Such a sad story.
so true Summer
Maybe, but not always. When my parents beat me, I always vowed I would never lay a hand on my children and I never did. I couldn't bear the thought of hurting anyone the way I was hurt.
@@lisalu910 Bless you for breaking the cycle in your family. Your children and their future generations are so fortunate.
That's me subscribed. So good to have a real person doing the storytelling JD. Such a tragic story of this poor little soul 💔
Thanks so much! Glad to have you here! Make yourself right at home
So heartbreaking. You are an amazing story teller and my new favorite UA-camr. ❤ These stories are fascinating.
Thank you Laurie so glad to have you here. Hope you’re having a fabulous weekend, my friend.
Wow absolutely brilliant true life stories across the pond really appreciate your crack that happened in the us it was a cruel ways back then so sad exactly the same in the uk too. Thanks for sharing there stories to us all they will never be forgotten....🇬🇧🇺🇸...😢😢❤
Thank you so much!
Hi from Australia, I’ve just stumbled upon your channel and I have to say I love hearing a human voice! New subscriber 🎉
Welcome aboard my friend so glad to have you here there’s a large community of folks from Australia that are also in this channel and we’re glad to have you here
Thank you for your magnificent story telling.👍👏👏👏
Thank you 😊
JD, I have subscribed to your channel a long while back & I click the like button to every one of your episodes that I watch. Please keep these wonderful stories coming, we need them so much. 💕
Thank you so much Michael!
The photos are amazing in all of your videos.
Thank you so much, my friend. I do my best when it comes to research.
I love the stories about NC especially the happy ones
Wow!! What a sad sad story JD!! Things weren't any different then...being a single mother still hold a stigma today. Poor little gal. I feel sorry for all of them.
You are the BEST storyteller ever! Thank you!
Thank you so much, I am glad you enjoyed it!
Sad but great video JD. Being from Swain County, I’ve driven Conleys Creek many times never knowing this part of History. Thanks for the tremendous story…..FYI. My great grandfather John Wesley Phillips was from Eastern Tennessee. Thanks for your hard work Cuz😁
Good afternoon JD another great story and superbly told . All the best from Nottinghamshire County Uk .
Hope you are doing well Charles!
@TheAppalachianStoryteller Am i right in saying you play all the instruments? i play the mandalin very badly. I love the traditional sound.
Thank you for sharing this story with us! ✌🏼😊
Thank you 💜
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller 👍🏻✌🏼😊
I use to listen to your stories don't know why I didn't see them no more, Watching Miranda reminded me of you. I'm back 😊
Glad to see you made it back Nancy ❤️
First time I've seen this channel and this story made me subscribe. Thank you!! Great story telling.
Glad to have you here Paul, make yourself at home.
Wow, this is heartbreaking in every possible way. Nancy clearly did not know what love truly is, and she likely was speaking her truth when she said she "loved" that child.
So glad I ran across this channel. A lot of work has obviously went into these well produced videos...
Thanks for this comment- each one of these videos takes 40-60 hours of research and production
I find it amazing that these men made a posse yet none of these fine men could help this destitute family. Wow, the hypocrisy. This was a great story
thank you
I love your featuring Nance Dude…I read the book about her story years ago…and did a lot of research about this woman..I’m distantly related to her..she had a horrific life..there is much more to her story than this..so much more..I think it’s important to note that Nance literally tried every way possible to provide for Roberta..and her daughter Lizzy was terrible selfish girl…a very sad and tragic story of extreme abuse, poverty and hopelessness! Blessings❤
The book is a fiction novel with some historical facts along the way, this story I told was based on court and newspaper records
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller the book written that I’m referring to was all based on facts written by Maurice Stanley titled “the legend of Nance Dude”..I also read the fictional book loosely based on her story titled “the serpent slips into a modern Eden” by James A. Turpin. I obtained my copy of the Stanley book through the Haywood county historical society about 25 years ago. Included in the Stanley book are numerous records from court, local newspapers and interviews of old folks who knew Nance and lived in the community . The Stanley book also includes a lot of photos, birth, marriage and death records. I absolutely love your channel and so enjoy your posts-Good job!
@@donnamays24I have really wondered if someone with her weight and I read she had
arthritis could have physically done this! Patricia Gambino Harrington
JD that is one tragic story. If it’s blue, it’s blue.
Times were just so hard & people so poor! I know this was horrible thing that happened to little Roberta , & how incredibly painful & the suffering she.endured! All 3 of them suffered & Nancy her life was a.nightmare since she was.a young child! So beautiful --all 3 of them! Shockingly beautiful actually!
For.some reason I stopped receiving your.notifications a few months ago & I just happened.to.run across this.video! I now haven3 months worth to watch & its suppose to rain for thr.next 24 hours here. Kind of excited!
Ive.missed your stories.& most definitely your.voice! God bless❤🇱🇷❤
Glad to have you back! I hope you enjoy catching up!
Morning JD 👋 I'm watching and catching up on your Wonderful Story telling of Appalachian people, history and life🙏 ...I'm fascinated 💯 From a KIWI Fan from NEW ZEALAND 🌅🌊🌲
Thank you so much! I’m honored to have you here!
I was actually shocked when it turned out to be the same cave where she had sought refuge as a child.
Found you today! So happy i did! Really enjoyed! Look i gerw up listening to Garrison Keller I appreciate a good well told story!! TY
Welcome aboard Freddie! Glad to have you here!
I don't know how many Black subscribers you have but, I can tell you that you definitely have one now. I had a very good friend whose great aunt would tell us stories about the holler😂 she was from in West Virginia. Keep up the good work 👍🏿
There are a few others here that I see in the comments from time to time, glad to have you hear my friend, make yourself right at home.
This channel just popped up in my feed! Wow! Truly great story telling.
What a tragic heartbreaking story all the way around.
Definitely just subscribed!
Welcome to the channel my friend so glad to have you here. Pull up a chair and make yourself at home.
@@TheAppalachianStoryteller yes indeed, thank you!
This is SO COOL. YOU'RE SO COOL. Thank you for this option. I love your content.
You are so welcome!
I really enjoyed watching this. I am from Macon Co., NC, so, I am aware of all the places mentioned in this story.
Thanks for sharing!
thank you Kathy!
Another great story. Thanks
Thank you brother
I’m not crying I’m not crying. Yes I am and I’m ordering your Book now.
❤️ ❤️
Thank you❤❤❤❤❤
You are most welcome!
Good storytelling. Good job! Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it!
I love the south.
Especially TN....thank you for all the stories
Thank you 🙏
This story has haunted me for years! I grew up in Asheville NC and found an article about this when I was 13 and I am 55 now and it still haunts me! Patricia Gambino Harrington (I post on my hubby's UA-cam acct)
😮
Excellent story!!! I really like this one 👍🏻
thank you!
Oh JD, this is the saddest story I have heard. Just horrible all the way around. Where was the love they needed? Why didn’t they go to a church? So many questions. Thank you JD, for telling the story and keeping Roberta’s memory alive. God bless you! Love from Canadice NY ❤
Thanks for the story how sad. I live in mitchell country... but know. the area this happened at. Life was very hard back then.
Well said Keith
Love your accent and story telling JD. Val, Australia.
Thank you so much! Hello from the mountains of East Tennessee
So sad. Excellent storytelling.
Thank you
Good morning JD! This story makes my heart hurt and break. I just can’t imagine how anyone could harm a child. God sees all and everyone has a judgement day.
I hope you and your family have a very blessed weekend!
A truly heartbreaking story, very hard for me to tell, but Robertas story should not be forgotten. Hope you have a great weekend Willow, im taking my boy to the lake today.
Thank you jd 🎉
Any time!
Omg!! Hope the guy felt bad about telling Izzy to get rid of her
Thank you for the story even tho it is so sad
Thank you 💜
Another great video! 👍👍
Please do a story on the Legend of Nance Dude if you haven’t already. “One cold February morning in 1913, a 64-year-old woman known as Nance Dude led her granddaughter, Roberta Putnam, out of their home in western North Carolina and up the side of a mountain. She returned without the child later that day.”
This IS Nance Dudes story. The real story. Her name was Nancy Kerley, it was only when the fictional Novel came out about her life that “nance dude” nickname was invented.
I'm a North Carolina born and raised lady...but on the coastal plains. Love the channel! My great-granny was with us until I was 13 so Ive heard stories of living in these hard times. It was just as destitute at times on the tobacco farms of the east. My 2 great-great aunt and granny both bore children to the same wealthy Judge, whose farm they lived and worked as single "old maids". The communities could be so mean and unfair! I do believe they left little Roberta to die because starvation is a powerful motivator!
Thank you for commenting Wendy and glad to have you here!
Another video thanks jd this is gonna be good
Thank you 😊
Love your channel my friend. Leesson to you every day.
Thank you 😊
That was upsetting 😢, poor baby times were very hard back then maybe it her mother's new man and Nancy 😢😢
I'm in my 70s now and grew up in a rural area, our farm was next to Grandpa's. His farm was the same as always, no electricity or running water, everything except sugar and flour was from his farm. Smokehouse, outhouse, wood shop, barns, stables, pigpens, horses, cows, chickens, vegetables and blackberry, strawberry and even peach trees. Everything building Grandpa built, even the furniture, he had six sons and two daughters all born in the farmhouse. It was like living back in time. As kids we used to explore all the old farms around us and come across what they called "Family Cemeteries". Spooky. Sometimes the names were just etched on rock sometimes there were most "store bought" headstones. People all around were poor even back when I was young. I used to wonder though, did someone check out these deaths? One family cemetery was very old and had five baby's graves, each on was one year old when it died! One by one, no baby made it more than one year. I wondered about that a lot. Things like that used to bother me as a kid. I still think about it and what happened if a lot of children died in one family? Not sure but I think there were a lot of "family cemeteries" that are completely forgotten now.
Thanks for the tragic but interesting story. Life was rough in that area back then. I dont live there but am too familiar with the area. My ancestors settled cataloochee in the smokies. Still have the old family house up there where my grandfather was born. Part of the park service now. Im sure this was big news for them back then. Thabks again
Is it the Caldwell house in Cataloochee? I’ve been there many times always wishing I lived there. How did it fair in the hurricane?
@christinablack6557 yes, that's the place. I haven't been there in awhile. Need to plan a trip back. I think it faired alright
Never give doubt how cruel folks can be even from the ones that love us the most.
Agreed