From One Mountain Home to Another: Trading West Virginia Roots for a Georgia Ridge

There’s a place in West Virginia that will always live in my heart, even if it no longer belongs to my family. My grandparents’ farmhouse stood sturdy against the wind for decades, its white paint peeling in places, its porch swing creaking like it was whispering old stories. The land around it rolled gently into the hills, with fields that blushed green in spring and burned gold in autumn. It wasn’t just property, it was memory, heritage, and the heartbeat of our family.

I discussed this farmhouse in my genealogical based presentation, Hillbilly Highway.  My mother, aunts, and uncles discussed the farm and how it was my grandfather's dream... And they lost it to foreclosure. An extremely low monthly payment, then, that now, the land gets over $250k in natural gas underground. They would have been "money rich"  if they could have kept the farm.  And, they probably would not have divorced. 

My husband and I tried, for years, to buy it.  The current owners, siblings, don't even live there.  Only one lives in West Virginia.  When I learned I couldn’t buy it, the loss was like a stone dropped in deep water, slowly sinking, ripples of disappointment spreading in every direction. I just didn't accept this so I kept trying, over and over again. 

I couldn't imagine someone, a fellow Appalachian, not understanding the deep need to make that foreclosure right.  To own the dream that my grandparents dreamt.  Grand Dad left the coal mines in search of a better life.  He wanted to do right for his wife and kids.  They came down off the mountain to try living off the land.

I had imagined my hands on that same worn banister my grandmother polished, my footsteps echoing on the same kitchen floor where coffee and cornbread greeted every morning. I imagined breathing in the scent of damp earth after a summer rain and picking ramps for the Spring Ramp Festival.  It was the same earth that had cradled generations of ancestors before me. But sometimes, dreams get tangled in the knots of reality, and you have to let go before your fingers bleed from holding on too tight.  I won't lie. I was bloodied and bruised from this loss. 

I didn’t let go of Appalachia, though. The mountains don’t belong to any one person.  They are a gift we can keep finding in different corners. A gift I have always wanted to share with the world.  My journey took me farther south, to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. After traveling the globe, for work, I always yearned for Appalachia.  Georgia is not the same, of course, as West Virginia.  My ancestors didn't walk this land.  The ridges here are softer, the air a little warmer, the accents just a shade different. But when I step onto the sleeping porch of my little Georgia bungalow, I see the same mist rolling off the hills in the morning.  I hear the same wind sifting through the trees. I feel the same pull that tells me I am still in the embrace of Appalachia. It is times like this that I miss my grandparents and my Dad but I also feel them closer, than ever, to me.

There’s sadness in knowing I won’t walk those West Virginia fields of that farmhouse again as it's caretaker. But there’s hope that I can make this Georgia home into a place where memories grow, where the soil remembers my hands, and where future generations might feel the same belonging I once felt up north. I carry the regret with me, but also a promise: to honor my grandparents’ legacy, not by owning their land, but by tending to my own with the same love and devotion.

Because home isn’t just where the family came from. It’s also where the family’s future begins.  It’s a heartbeat you carry with you, especially in Appalachia. I may never again watch the sun set behind my grandparents’ barn where my mother, aunts and uncles tended to the animals, but every dawn in these Georgia hills feels like a quiet vow. 

I will plant roots here, deep and stubborn, and let them grow toward the sky the way theirs once did. The farmhouse may be gone from my hands, but the mountains still hold me, and I will make sure my stories and theirs keeps echoing through these ridges for generations to come.

Blue Ridge Mountain Song by Alan Jackson

Follow along for the mountain views, the renovation inspo, and/or the Yorkie antics, come find us on Pixelfed:

👉 https://pixelfed.social/Appalachian

There’s plenty more to come, and we’d love to have you with us on this journey.

Have you bought or live in your ancestor's home? Drop us a message—we're all ears (and maybe a little drywall dust). 🛠️🏡🐾

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