Grandma Gatewood's Walk

Grandma Gatewood's Walk PDF Author: Ben Montgomery
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613747217
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/Biography Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. There she sang the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it." Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction. Author Ben Montgomery was given unprecedented access to Gatewood's own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence, and interviewed surviving family members and those she met along her hike, all to answer the question so many asked: Why did she do it? The story of Grandma Gatewood will inspire readers of all ages by illustrating the full power of human spirit and determination. Even those who know of Gatewood don't know the full story—a story of triumph from pain, rebellion from brutality, hope from suffering.

Grandma Gatewood's Walk

Grandma Gatewood's Walk PDF Author: Ben Montgomery
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613747217
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book

Book Description
Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/Biography Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. There she sang the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it." Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction. Author Ben Montgomery was given unprecedented access to Gatewood's own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence, and interviewed surviving family members and those she met along her hike, all to answer the question so many asked: Why did she do it? The story of Grandma Gatewood will inspire readers of all ages by illustrating the full power of human spirit and determination. Even those who know of Gatewood don't know the full story—a story of triumph from pain, rebellion from brutality, hope from suffering.

Grandma Gatewood's Walk

Grandma Gatewood's Walk PDF Author: Ben Montgomery
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613747187
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. By September 1955 she stood atop Maine's Mount Katahdin, sang "America, the Beautiful," and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it." Driven by a painful marriage, Grandma Gatewood, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person-man or woman-to walk it twice and three times. At age 71, she hiked the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity, and appeared on TV with Groucho Marx and Art Linkletter. The public attention she brought to the trail was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction. Author Ben Montgomery interviewed surviving family members and hikers Gatewood met along the trail, unearthed historic newspaper and magazine articles, and was given unprecedented access to Gatewood's own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence. Grandma Gatewood's Walk shines a fresh light on one of America's most celebrated pedestrians. Ben Montgomery is a staff writer at the Tampa Bay Times and co-founder of the Auburn Chautauqua, a Southern writers' collective. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 and has won many other national writing awards. He lives in Florida.

Summary of Ben Montgomery's Grandma Gatewood's Walk

Summary of Ben Montgomery's Grandma Gatewood's Walk PDF Author: Milkyway Media
Publisher: Milkyway Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 67

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Book Description
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Emma Gatewood was 67 years old when she set off to hike the Appalachian Trail in 1955. She was five feet two and weighed 150 pounds, and had no survival training. She was blind without her glasses, and she was utterly unprepared if she faced the wrath of a snowstorm. #2 Emma Gatewood was prepared for her hike. She had worked at a nursing home and saved her twentyfivedollaraweek paycheck until she earned enough quarters to draw the minimum in social security: fiftytwo dollars a month. She had started walking in January while living with her son Nelson in Dayton, Ohio. #3 She was a Cherokee woman who had lost her husband in the war. She never spoke about the town that kept dark secrets, or the night she spent in a jail cell. She told people she was a widow. #4 The Appalachian Mountains are beautiful and rugged. They were formed more than a billion years ago by metamorphic and igneous rock. The people who stayed lived by ax and plow and gun. They grew beets and tomatoes, pumpkins and squash, field peas and carrots.

Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail PDF Author: Jennifer Thermes
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683352904
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Emma Gatewood’s life was far from easy. In rural Ohio, she managed a household of 11 kids alongside a less-than-supportive husband. One day, at age 67, she decided to go for a nice long walk . . . and ended up completing the Appalachian Trail. With just the clothes on her back and a pair of thin canvas sneakers on her feet, Grandma Gatewood hiked up ridges and down ravines. She braved angry storms and witnessed breathtaking sunrises. When things got particularly tough, she relied on the kindness of strangers or sheer luck to get her through the night. When the newspapers got wind of her amazing adventure, the whole country cheered her on to the end of her trek, which came just a few months after she set out. A story of true grit and girl power at any age, Grandma Gatewood proves that no peak is insurmountable.

The Man Who Walked Backward

The Man Who Walked Backward PDF Author: Ben Montgomery
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316438049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery, the story of a Texas man who, during the Great Depression, walked around the world -- backwards. Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world -- backwards. In The Man Who Walked Backward, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery charts Plennie's backwards trek across the America that gave rise to Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, and the New Deal. With the Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a backdrop, Montgomery follows Plennie across the Atlantic through Germany, Turkey, and beyond, and details the daring physical feats, grueling hardships, comical misadventures, and hostile foreign police he encountered along the way. A remarkable and quirky slice of Americana, The Man Who Walked Backward paints a rich and vibrant portrait of a jaw-dropping period of history.

A Shot in the Moonlight

A Shot in the Moonlight PDF Author: Ben Montgomery
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780316535540
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The little-known true story of freed slave George Dinning and Colonel BennettH. Young, a Confederate war hero, who in 1899 took on a Kentucky mob in courtafter Dinning was beaten for defending his farm against whites.

The Barefoot Sisters Southbound

The Barefoot Sisters Southbound PDF Author: Lucy Letcher
Publisher: Stackpole Books
ISBN: 0811735303
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
"At the ages of 25 and 21, Lucy and Susan Letcher set out to thru-hike the entire 2,175 miles of the Appalachian Trail--barefoot. Quickly earning themselves the moniker of the Barefoot Sisters, the two begin their journey at Mount Katahdin and spend eight months making their way to Springer Mountain in Georgia. As they hike, they write about their adventures through the 100-mile Wilderness, the rocky terrain of Pennsylvania, and snowfall in the great Smoky Mountains. It's as close as one can get to hiking the Appalachian Trail without strapping on a pack"--Back cover.

Hiking Through

Hiking Through PDF Author: Paul Stutzman
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 0800720539
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
With breathtaking descriptions and humorous anecdotes from his 2,176-mile journey along the Appalachian Trail, Paul Stutzman reveals how immersing himself in nature and befriending fellow hikers helped him recover from a devastating loss.

Leper Spy

Leper Spy PDF Author: Ben Montgomery
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613734336
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The GIs called her Joey. Hundreds owed their lives to the tiny Filipina who stashed explosives in spare tires, tracked Japanese troop movements, and smuggled maps of fortifications across enemy lines. As the Battle of Manila raged, Josefina Guerrero walked through gunfire to bandage wounds and close the eyes of the dead. Her valor earned her the Medal of Freedom, but what made her a good spy was also destroying her: leprosy, which so horrified the Japanese they refused to search her. After the war, army chaplains found her in a nightmarish leper colony and fought for the US government to do something it had never done: welcome a foreigner with leprosy. This brought her celebrity, which she used to publicly speak for other sufferers. However, the notoriety haunted her and she sought a way to disappear. Ben Montgomery now brings Guerrero's heroic accomplishments to light.

When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike

When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike PDF Author: Michelle Houts
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821445804
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
It took her two tries, but in 1955, sixty-seven-year-old Emma “Grandma” Gatewood became the first woman to solo hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one thru-hike. Gatewood, who left an abusive marriage after raising eleven children, has become a legend for those who hike the trail, and in her home state of Ohio, where she helped found the Buckeye Trail. In recent years, she has been the subject of a bestselling biography and a documentary film. In When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike, Michelle Houts brings us the first children’s book about her feat, which she accomplished without professional gear or even a tent. Houts chronicles the spirit of a seasoned outdoorswoman and mother of eleven whose grit and determination helped her to hike over two thousand miles. Erica Magnus’s vibrant illustrations capture the wild animals, people from all walks of life, and unexpected challenges that this strong-willed woman encountered on the journey she initially called a “lark.” Children ages 4–10 will delight in this narrative nonfiction work as they accompany Emma Gatewood on the adventure of a lifetime and witness her transformation from grandmother to hiking legend, becoming “Grandma” to all.