The Moonlight School
In March 1911, Lucy Wilson’s widowed father sends his only child into the backcountry of Eastern Kentucky. Aunt Cora in rural Rowan County needs an office helper, and 19-year-old Lucy needs a break from her upper-crust but confining Lexington home life.
This novel’s historical back story features the real-life Cora Wilson Stewart, Rowan County’s first female school superintendent. Most adults in her county carried the heavy burden of never having learned to read, write, or “do numbers.” Many could not even write their names. Cora opened her rural schoolhouses on late summer moonlit nights to all adults who yearned for a basic education. Her moonlight schools became a huge success.
Lucy has never ridden a horse or been around lice-infected youngsters. After just one day helping Cora, she wants to go back home. She stays and, over the weeks, begins to marvel at the glorious nature in the hills and hollers all around her. She comes to admire the closely knit and hardworking country folk. Then Cora asks Lucy to fill in as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. Lucy stumbles through her first teaching days but soon realizes that the “dear little ones had found a place in her heart.”
Fisher’s secondary characters enhance the main plot. Lucy’s father owns the biggest lumber operation in the area. It has stripped virgin forests and blocked streams to poor farms and homesteads. Father’s handsome and dapper regional representative courts Lucy insistently. A mysterious and musically talented schoolmaster helps many through their hardest times. Fisher’s rendering of the customs, language, weather, and terrain all ring true. Her love for the land, its people, and their hardships and courage come through on every page. Highly recommended.
