MATCHBOX MOUNTAIN
In a Pocket of Time in the Past

By Amy Ammons Garza

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

mm1 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 

workshops 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

booksbyamyRetter, A Novel of the Mountains        $16.00       
(1988)   Based in the Western North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains, the book “Retter” is a retelling of the stories Tom Ammons told his granddaughter about his wife, Retter, and how they met, married and how she saved his life. The story begins when at 5 years old, Retter sits on the knee of  20-year old Tom Ammons and eats cornbread and buttermilk. In jest, Tom promises to come back when she grows up and marry the little girl.  Tom leaves the mountains to become a gambler on a Mississippi Riverboat. 10 years later he returns and meets the 15 year old Retter. A love story ensues, with Retter and Tom marrying and moving to the top of Cullowhee Mountain, Jackson County, NC. The story follows the trail of the lives of the two, telling of the troubles Retter encounters when Tom, at the age of 39, is knocked off a railroad tressle and almost every bone in his body is broken. Retter saves Tom’s life through the use of a remedy taught to her by a Cherokee grandfather, “Charlie;” With Tom now crippled, Retter takes over most of the breadwinning for their family that now has grown to five children. The story continues with the births of four more children 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


booksbyamyCannie, The Hills of  Home     $16.00
(1992)  When the child Cannie, the 4th daughter of Wiley Owen, a circuit-riding preacher on Wolf Mountain,  is hit by lightning, she recovers slowly, discovering her ability to write, and begins a diary...tidbits that run throughout the novel. The girl grows into a beautiful 14-year old and meets 19-year old Frank Ammons. A love story develops as the young man from Cullowhee Mountain is smitten with the red-headed beauty. And then mountain life takes over, when at age 15, Cannie marries Frank and learns what it takes to be a married woman, leaving her beloved Wolf Mountain for Cullowhee Mountain, being in a family that makes white liquor (and drinks it), and then having a child at 16 attended only by her mother-in-law Retter. When Cannie is pregnant with her second child (not yet a year later), the house catches fire and burns completely down. Now, the small family moves to Wolf Mountain to live in a one-room shed underneath Horseshoe Rock, where Cannie gives birth to her second daughter. As World War II comes on the horizon, Frank has to leave his wife and children to fight for his country. 
    This story 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


booksbyamySterlen, 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


amysbooksBlue 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.


For information or to place an order for books, please email Amy at:  v.ammons@mchsi.com.
 

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