Smoke and Silence:
The Lives of Ol’ Mort
Smoke and Silence: The Lives of Ol’ Mort is a folk epic memoir built from memory, myth, and the stories passed down across generations in eastern Kentucky. Told in the voice of Mort’s great-great-grandson and rooted in tales shared by Mort’s grandson, this is the story of a man who lived hard and loved quietly—who survived a world war, outran federal agents, raised his family from the land, and became something larger than life.
God’s Oddling:
The title of this book, God’s Oddling, comes from something my father used to call me. For years he called me “oddling” because I had gone away to college and become a writer, and because I didn’t smoke the tobacco we grew or drink the mountain liquor brewed nearby. I was recovering from my heart attack when my father died. During those last days he often visited me at my house, and he still called me “oddling.” … —Jesse Stuart, Greenup, 1960
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
JSF at 606-326-1667 or jsf@jsfbooks.com
ONLINE SHOPPING: While our physical storefront remains closed to the public, we are continuing daily operations with in many cases same-day processing of online book purchases. Please considering SHOPPING THE JSF ONLINE.
Find a book …
Use this search field for quick results!
Allan Eckert’s Winning of America Series
This Jesse Stuart Foundation best-selling series details accounts of frontiersmen and Native Americans and many dramatic events of the time period. Many years of research went into this popular series that also tells the story of wilderness America itself, its penetration and settlement.
Shop any of the 6 books in the series below, or BUY THE WHOLE SET!
Jesse Stuart Junior Books
Shop this popular book set for the young reader!
Latest JSF News
Appalachian Christmas Stories
This book weaves a garland of Christmas experiences for the people of Southern Appalachia. All of us at the Jesse Stuart Foundation hope that each reader will find in these pages the love for others that energizes the true spirit of Christmas. Many friends of the Stuart Foundation contributed stories and poems to this modest volume: Thomas D. Clark, Loyal Jones, Jesse Stuart, James Goode, Billy C. Clark, Harry [...]
Lieutenant (j.g.) Jesse Stuart and the Armed Services Editions
As a follow-up to my recent article on Jesse Stuart’s family during World War II, I offer this article about two of Stuart’s books that were republished as Armed Services Editions during the war. Although Lieutenant Jesse Stuart never served overseas, two of his books provided special inspiration to American soldiers far from home. Stuart’s novel, “Taps For Private Tussie,” and his short story collection, “Head O’ W-Hollow,” were [...]
Jesse Stuart and the JSF: Reflections on the Past, the Present, and the Future
In 1985, I moved to Ashland to assume the executive and literary leadership of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, an organization that had been created in 1979, five years before Stuart’s death, to manage his literary estate. With assistance from hundreds of people, including Keith Kappes, a Vice President at Morehead State University, Judy B. Thomas, President of the Ashland Oil Foundation, and former state librarian Wayne Onkst, we have [...]
Jesse Stuart and WWII: A Family Goes to War
Eighty-three years ago, on December 7, 1941, Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor plunged America into a global conflict that had been underway for a little more than two years. Early the following year, Jesse Stuart, nearly 36 with a pregnant wife, tried to enlist in the army but failed the physical. Like millions of American men, he wanted to serve his country and defend his family and his freedoms. [...]
Murder at Peddler’s Well: A Ghostly Tale
In his 1956 autobiography, “The Year of My Rebirth,” Jesse Stuart makes brief mention of the mid-nineteenth century murder of “Nick” Nickapopolis, a pack peddler who worked W-Hollow on a monthly basis in the 1850s. Little is known of “Nick”—the people of W-Hollow did not even know his first name so they called him Nick. Nick was one of several peddlers who visited W-Hollow, and he became a monthly [...]