The Great Smoky Mountain Association has a great deal of information on the Walker Sisters, and they kindly allowed us to reprint a poem from Louisa Walker (spelling is hers):
Hettie, Martha and Louisa ginning cotton, 1936.Photo courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains Association.
There’s an old weather bettion house
That stands near a wood
With an orchard near by it
For almost one hundred years it has stood
It was my home in infency
It sheltered me in youth
When I tell you I love it
I tell you the truth
For years it has sheltered
By day and night
From the summer’s sun heat
And the cold winter blight
In this cabin, with nothing but the implements and methods of their forebears, the Walkers grind their meal, card their own wool and spin cloth for dresses and blankets.
But now the park commisioner
Comes all dressed up so gay
Saying this old house of yours
We must now take away
They coax they wheedle
They fret they bark
Saying we have to have this place
For a National Park
For us poor mountain people
They don’t have a care
But must a home for
The wolf the lion and the bear
But many of us have a tltle
That is sure and will hold
To the City of Peace
Where the streets are pure gold
Louisa at the churn and Martha and Hettite behind her on the porch.Photo courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains Association.
There no lion in its fury
Those pathes ever trod
It is the home of the soul
In the presence of God
When we reach the portles
of glory so fair
The Wolf cannot enter
Neither the lion or bear
And no park Commissioner
Will ever dar
To desturbe or molest
Or take our home from us there
-By Louisa Walker, with permission of Great Smoky Mountains Association
