Photograph of a pyramid made of stones with a relief of Abraham Lincoln's profile of it. In the image, the pyramid is in an open lawn and large homes can be seen in the background.

Photograph of adults and children standing outside of a one room school house in a wooded area.

Another of Joe Clark HBSS photographs which shows that things were beginning to change in the Hills of Cumberland Gap Tennessee. A wood fence in need of repair is set among overgrown weeds, awaiting for someone to take care of it.

Photograph of a young boy with his head out of a broken window in a building with wood siding.

Photograph of a young boy with his head out of a broken window in a building with wood siding.

Photograph of Alex Cline bending over to closely inspect the impurities he is skimming off the sorghum molasses with his homemade ladle.

Photograph of Alex Cline bending over to closely inspect the impurities he is skimming off the sorghum molasses with his homemade ladle.

Narrative by Junebug Clark: This photo was taken in the late 1930s. Hamtramck, Michigan is a small town and Polish community surrounded by the city of Detroit. Anna Ruzylo is my great grandmother. There are not many photos of my great grandmother in the archive since she came over from Poland very late in life. My wife, Kay, and I named our daughter Anna Marie Clark in her honor.

Photograph of an antique stone sharpening wheel in the middle of tall and short weeds attached to an old wood frame. Next to the sharpening wheel is an old barrel. There is a wire fence behind the sharpening wheel with the end post directly behind the wheel. In the background, it looks to be a dirt road leading somewhere coming up alongside where the sharping wheel is placed. Also in the background, it looks to be a field with a building off to the right edge of the photo. There is some kind of cone-shaped object placed on a fence post.

Photograph of an unidentified woman pouring sugar into the apple butter as a young boy stirs. In the image, the group is outside with the kettle over an open flame and a wood home can be seen behind them.

Photograph of a young boy stirring boiling apple butter over an open flame. In the image, the boy is wearing winter clothing holding the paddle stirrer while sitting in a wooden chair outside.

Photograph of an unidentified woman, stirring boiling apple butter with an paddle stirrer over an open flame. In the image, the woman is seated, due to the physical intensity of the task, a few feet from the copper kettle.

Photograph of Aunt Nora Treece and Franklin D. Roosevelt Wright making apple butter by the spring house outside of their home in the hills of Cumberland Gap Tennessee. This picture is in Joe Clark, HBSS, small book called "A Few Grains of Corn" from the General Store. The envelope containing the negative is inscribed "Clark Bruce's; Junebug's Aunt; Mary Well's"

Photograph of a girl pouring sugar into the kettle. In the image, the unidentified girl is adding sugar to the apple butter while I boy stands over another bag of HERSHEY'S PURE CANE SUGAR.

Photograph of a different bins filled with apples in a backyard. The apples sit in the bottom right part of the image on a small porch of what appears to be a shed. Beyond the fence, there are hills and foliage sitting in the background.

Photograph of five bins of apples sitting in front of a wooden well. The apples are positioned in the lower third of the image and sit on the steps leading to the well. A building is attached to the porch on the right, and an open field can be seen past the fencing in the background.

Photograph of five bins of apples sitting in front of a wooden well. The apples are positioned in the lower third of the image and sit on the steps leading to the well. A building is attached to the porch on the right, and an open field can be seen past the fencing in the background.

Photograph of two men arm wrestling at a bar while two other men observe.

Narrative by Junebug Clark in the summer of 2014 Friends and neighbors come from miles around to participate in the Molasses Making Stir-off. Overall Background: These Molasses Making Stir-off photos were shot by Joe Clark HBSS in the early to mid-1940s. Either on the farm of Fred Whitaker about four miles southwest of Cumberland Gap, or in Cumberland Gap on the farm of Baptist preacher the Rev. Hugh Vancel. More information about these images can be found in scrapbooks in the Clark Family Collection at the University of North Texas Special Collections Library. Specifically in a Detroit news pictorial article published December 13, 1942 titles "stir-off party" where mountaineers make molasses and merriment. Also in life magazine published November 13, 1950 [page 156] titled “Stir-off Time in Tennessee, Fun Starts in Hills as Molasses Boils.’ Also in the library is the NBC Today Show story on Joe Clark HBSS by Bob Dotson. It features Joe Clark returning to Cumberland Gap Tennessee to photograph a molasses stir off taking place in the same location as some of these photographs and attended by some of the same people in the early 1980s. Let me briefly set the scene of the time and …

Photograph of a man preparing a spoke to attach to a wheel. The man stands on the left side of the image and files down the end of a spoke, and the wheel he works on sits on top of a table to the right of him. There are tools scattered everywhere around the wheel, and the scene is illuminated from a light off camera on the right.

Photograph of Aunt Nora and Uncle Wild Treece pulling cotton through a seed pulling machine made of wood. In the image, the couple is seating across from each other both rotating handles while Aunt Nora feeds the cotton through the gears.

Photograph of Aunt China and Uncle Harv Sparks sitting near a fireplace in their home living room. Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.

Narrative by Junebug Clark: This photo was taken during the late 1930s in Hamtramck, Michigan. Hamtramck is a small town and Polish community surrounded by the city of Detroit. My Aunt Esther (can’t recall her maiden name at this time) is featured at the kitchen table. She would eventually marry Bill Krent and have 4 children: Jackie, David, Marsha and Claudia.

Narrative by Junebug Clark: Hamtramck, Michigan is a small town and Polish community surrounded by the city of Detroit. This photo was taken in the late 1930s. The girl in this photo is “Aunt Georgia.” A honorary title because she moved in and lived with our family in the years before I was born. Photo by: Bernice Clark.