Olympicsa hard, good life
- Original Kentucky.com article: a hard, good life
Wisdom is sometimes found in surprising places.
Photographer Phyllis M. EagleTree found it in a poor, elderly woman in Harlan County, whose life and life-affirming philosophy is the subject of her new photography book, Roll the Wheel: The Abundant Life and Wisdom of Mae Phillips.
EagleTree, twice married and the mother of a grown son, was working as a commercial photographer in Chicago in 1990 when she started thinking about the next chapter of her life -- and the essence of life itself. The Cumberland County native looked to her Eastern Kentucky roots for guidance, and an acquaintance introduced her to Phillips.
Phillips had given birth to nine children, raising those who survived and others pretty much on her own after her wayward husband, Ovie, took off with another woman. She grew most of what she ate in her garden and took satisfaction in simple pleasures and the value of family and community. She had little formal education but was wise in ways the world no longer seems to appreciate.
Before long, the two women were friends, then EagleTree moved into a house down the road from Phillips near Evarts. They were neighbors for a year and a half, during which EagleTree chronicled Phillips' life story and wrote down her pearls of everyday wisdom.
'Mae's stories of loss mingle with her stories of thankfulness and humor,' EagleTree writes. 'She shows there can be celebration even in the midst of grieving. Embracing the whole experience of being alive, she 'rolls the wheel' and lives a life rich in meaning and fulfillment. ... A great sustainer and celebrant of life, she instructs us, too, to roll the wheel.'
The heart of the privately published book (available at Joseph-Beth Booksellers and other Kentucky bookstores) is EagleTree's sepia-toned photographs of Phillips at home, in her garden and interacting with neighbors. The text is mostly edited transcripts of Phillips' stories and her views about the human condition, accumulated during 93 years of hardscrabble living. (Phillips died in August 2006.)
EagleTree's lovely photographs and Phillips' homespun aphorisms offer a window into a way of life in Appalachia that is quickly disappearing.
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