Writing Chattanooga: Southern by Nature

I love to read, primarily works by nature writers, and to write book reviews. Some reviews are published, while others languish on my hard drive. At one time, this interest was focused on the West and desert Southwest, so my bookshelves include numerous works by Joseph Wood Krutch, Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, and others. I may address those in a later story here, but I want to start close to home.

Early in 2022, I embarked on a new project to examine, in a focused way, works by Southern nature writers. I had already read works by several Southern nature writers but soon discovered many more than I anticipated. I narrowed the focus to Tennessee, but even that task seems daunting. Since I live in Chattanooga, beginning my discussion with Chattanooga scribes seems appropriate.

I had already read some works by Robert Sparks Walker and Emma Bell Miles, as well as Bradford Torrey’s Spring Notes from Tennessee. Torrey was no Southerner but wrote about Florida and Tennessee, among many other locations, in his plethora of published works.  I later discovered The Living Year by Mary Q. Steele, who lived on Signal Mountain, and I also included comments on that work.

This is not an academic paper but a review of the works with some biographical information on three of the four authors. These authors are deceased, so I am reviewing nature writing of the past here. I would love to tell you about contemporary Chattanooga nature writing, but I must first discover the contemporary Chattanooga nature writers and read their works. You are welcome to suggest a few authors in the comments section.

Emma Bell Miles 1879 – 1919

Miles was a child of the mountains who lived in two worlds. She attended art school in St. Louis but returned to Walden Ridge to marry and raise a family. She was at home with Walden Ridge mountaineers and Chattanooga socialites, many of whom were patrons who purchased her art. Miles lived in poverty and suffered ill health throughout her life. She died at age thirty-nine of tuberculosis.

She wrote for the Chattanooga Times, sold her artwork to local patrons, and published poems and short stories in Harpers and other magazines. She largely supported her husband and children. Her husband also suffered ill health. His work was irregular, and often the children were left in his care while she worked at the newspaper and lived in town.

Dr. Peggy Douglas, Chattanooga musician, playwright, and poet, wrote and produced the musical, Twisted Roots after extensive research on Miles in the special collections of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library. 

There is a substantial article about Miles in the online version of the Tennessee Encyclopedia. https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/emma-bell-miles/.

Our Southern Birds includes descriptions of several bird species and Miles’ drawings of each species. The entries include descriptions of her encounters with the species. A scanned version is available as a free download from Google Books. Recent reprints are available for purchase from various sources. 

The Spirit of the Mountains is her best-known work and has achieved respect from American folklorists. Miles chronicled the music and verse of the mountain people.

Miles also spoke out on the treatment of Appalachian women with a proto-feminist voice. Her words beamed with admiration for the mother of a newborn who provided a long list of things when asked if she wanted anything while her husband was in town. 

She ended her book with hopes that mountain culture will come into its own and with a lament for all that the people have lost as Appalachia succumbs to progress that impoverishes rather than enriches.

The Common Lot and Other Stories is a recent publication by the Ohio University Press (Athens, Ohio). The stories are about Appalachian life, particularly women's lives in Appalachia. Many of the stories were first published in Harpers. 

Strains from a Dulcimore (sic) is a posthumous collection of poetry. The spelling of Dulcimer in the title is an Appalachian variant of the word. Some of the verses may have appeared in a chapbook that Miles self-published and sold during her lifetime, as discussed in her journals, published by Ohio University Press. 

Stephen Cox, the special collections librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library, edited Once I Too Had Wings: The Journals of Emma Bell Miles 1908-1918. He transformed handwritten diaries into published text.  

Cox mentioned several other works Miles described in her journals. These appear to be lost works. Several were submitted to publishers, but no copies remain. 

Emma Bell Miles is a biography by Kay Baker Gaston. It is out of print but available in some libraries and from used book dealers. (1985, Walden's Ridge Historical Association).

Mary Q. Steele

1922-1992

Mary Q. Steele was born into a writing life. Her mother, Christine Govan, was a writer. Steele attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Her husband, William O. Steele, wrote action stories.

The Living Year: An Almanac for My Survivors by Mary Q. Steele is among my favorite discoveries. Steele was primarily an author of young adult and children's books, but these pages reveal a keen naturalist’s eye and a heart for nature that mature readers will appreciate.

She watched as a spider spun a web one day, and the blue-gray gnatcatcher in her yard built a nest on another. A fox sauntered down the road. She listened to the music of the waterthrush. She picked up a snail and saw the eyestalk protrude from the head.

Most of these adventures in the natural world took place within thirty miles of her Signal Mountain home. As contemporary nature authors emphasize nature close to home, it is comforting to know that this naturalist did so with a book published in 1972.

“For the world that has grown old and wrinkled and feeble is suddenly made young and beautiful and vibrant enough to break your heart.” From the “April” section of The Living Year. This nature through-the-seasons approach is popular today and may owe its popularity to A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (published 1949). 

Though out of print, The Living Year is available through libraries and used book dealers, as are many of her children’s books. Her young adult and children’s books are also set in the natural world with titles such as Anna's Garden Songs and The Crow and Mrs. Gaddy. 

Spring Notes from Tennessee

Bradford Torey, ornithologist, and travel writer, published Spring Notes from Tennessee in 1896 after visiting Chattanooga. Other than a book on Florida, the rest of his writings are about regions other than the American Southeast. His Chattanooga stories required weeks of observation on Missionary Ridge, Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain, and other Chattanooga locations.

He also recorded some encounters with Civil War veterans, both Federal and Confederate, but was primarily concerned with landmarks and bird watching. He commented that real estate seemed to be Chattanooga’s primary business interest.

This is the beginning of a series of articles on Southern Nature Writers. Most future articles will be about living writers, but I will include two critical historical authors. My primary focus is on Tennessee, but writers from other states will appear too.