Threads of West Virginia Life Woven into Celebration Fabric

by Sharon Kennedy, July 6, 2009

In Hillsboro, WV, The Little Levels Heritage Fair and the Pearl S. Buck International Writers’ Workshop gather the threads of life.
This community weaves and frames pieces of their heritage into a celebration of Pearl S. Buck and West Virginia living.  Each single thread—human enterprise past and future--like the threads on the loom in the Sydenstricker  House,  birthplace of Pearl S. Buck’s father—complete the tapestry of this annual  celebration.

The large Loom overpowers a room in the Sydenstricker House. Single threads align vertically flowing into a complete woven fabric.  Imagination leads one to see single thread as a part life. 
Each thread symbolizes the earth, farm land, human hardship, enterprise, unions, fortune and misfortune, human emotions--happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, companionship and joy.  

Student writers and storytellers along with instructors, and the community  meet to talk and write about each of these single threads, the fabric of human life. This community takes each single thread-- like the Greenbrier River  flowing to join the New River—join each single thread to complete this whole celebration tapestry.

( http://pearlsbuck.blogspot.com/ ) 

Photo by Sharon Kennedy