Bearing Up - making do, bearing up, overcoming adversity

Forty writers from North Carolina and Kentucky share personal stories of bearing up under challenging circumstances—making do and overcoming adversity—in the spirit of America’s pioneer hero Daniel Boone 250 years ago. He was trapped by an early snow storm in the winter of 1767/1768 and had to survive deep in the hills of eastern Kentucky—bearing up.

• “If they made it onto shore, they knew barbed wire and mines awaited them.”

• “But then came the flu epidemic of 1917; her young mother died on Christmas Eve.”

• “He does this three more times: he finds a new city, he finds a new wife.”

• “We carried our weapons at the ready, from one nameless hill to another.”

• “This was rape in the middle of nowhere—French countryside, in the dark.”

• “When I found the deer’s leg in the toy box, I knew I had my ticket to fame.”

• “Folks paid her with a chicken or a bag of meal; Granny was a healer.”

• “Carlton was opposite, out of sight, when grandfather shot at a flying bird.”

• “When asked her age on job applications, she simply wrote ‘atomic.’”

• “Dad’s youngest brother pimped me out at 4 to a heroin dealer for drugs.”

• “Down I swam, headfirst. Three feet under, darkness, then deeper still.”