Her mom’s maiden name was Raney, and the Raney family was part Cherokee.
I think you can see that in her cheek bones.

Through the Raney’s Patti Loveless is a distant cousin of Loretta.

VanLear, the coal company town named for a President of the Consolidation Coal Company,
was a unique place.
Many immigrant families were brought by train from seaports directly there, unlike nearby coal towns.
Very diverse mix of backgrounds, mix of music.

Surrounding coal camps were mostly populated by local mountaineers.

Some distance away, other “Consol” coal camps at Jenkins and Lynch were similarly “worldly.”

If you walk up Butcher Holler to the ridgeline, you are looking down into Auxier Holler, one of my grandmother’s family homeplace.