Lending a hand

August 04, 2008 08:30 am

— By Sean Bailey / Staff Writer
Nestled in the hills of Knox County is a handmade wooden bridge that crosses Stinking Creek. Next to it is a hand painted sign that says “travel at your own risk.”
That bridge, as worn and rickety as it looks, has withstood 50 years of use by countless visitors and volunteers making their way to the Lend-A-Hand Center.
At the other end of the old bridge, two women have made it their mission to “lend a hand” with just about any task life can throw at a person — parenting, money woes, farming and even child birth.
“I came to Kentucky to learn to be a midwife ... Kentucky, then (in the mid 1950s), did not have a medical assistance program, so babies were born at home by granny midwives before I came here,” Peggy Kemner said.
Kemner came to Kentucky in 1955 and by that time she was already a registered nurse, earning her nursing degree at John Hopkins School of Nursing, not too far from her native Pennsylvania.
In 1955, southeastern Kentucky was one of the more remote locales in the United States.
Poor roads, lack of transportation and stifling poverty in general meant almost all children were born at home with the assistance of “granny midwives” — older women with no medical training.
While receiving her midwifery training and delivering the first of hundreds of babies in Clay and Leslie counties, Kemner met up with a school teacher from Indiana named Irma Gall. Gall was in Kentucky as part of a mission group teaching underprivileged youth.
The two quickly found that they shared a common dream — helping the needy in the hills of Appalachia — a dream that they have lived for 50 years this summer.
“We decided that the need was great in this area for our services. She taught school, and we decided to put our talents together and work at a place where we were needed,” Kemner said.
Kemner and Gall found an area along the Stinking Creek in Knox County that needed their skills, and by 1958 the two moved onto an almost inaccessible farm.
One of their first big projects was building the bridge that still stands today.
“One of the big changes we’ve seen is transportation. I mean we were very isolated when we first came. There weren’t very many bridges. In the winter time the roads would go out. So we had Jeeps and horses, at first, to get around,” Gall said.
In the early years, the main thrust behind Lend-A-Hand was its medical program. These were the days before Medicaid, and if you didn’t have enough money or any way to get to a hospital, you just had to live with what ailed you.
With her nursing experience, Kemner provided health care while Gall taught young children about healthy living and farming.
Changes in the mid-1960s to public assistance programs and the rules and regulations of healthcare has slowly changed how the two deal with medical assistance.
Now, Kemner said, they spend most of their time referring those that are in medical need to various assistance programs throughout Kentucky.
Kemner doesn’t always directly deal with medical assistance anymore, but she still has a hand in making sure those who need it get all the care they can find.
“Sometimes people really need more than just knowledge and referrals, they need to have somebody to take them and help them follow through, and that involves transportation and being with them,” Kemner said.
Kemner, who is in her late 70s, said just this Tuesday she drove a woman to London for medical care, next she took a “little boy to Barbourville for his shots,” and then back to the center, “just in time to clean-up.”
While Kemner is out helping meet medical needs, Gall is often back at the farm tending to its plants, animals and the needs of the center’s neighbors.
“We’ve gone into animals of all kinds. That supplies us with food and entertainment, and every once in a while a little financial gain. I think we lose more money than we gain, but we eat well,” Gall said with a laugh.
Throughout the years, the center has played host to volunteers from all reaches of the United States — not to mention those who come from as far away as Europe and Africa.
Friday morning, young volunteers sorted through bushels of donated bean plants and snapped beans from the twisting vines.
Mercedes Gruner and her sister Amber from North Carolina have spent many summers at the center volunteering and enjoying country life. The Gruners’ father was a volunteer at the center years ago and it changed his life. The experience is something his daughters have enjoyed at the center as well.
“It just really makes you appreciate things. And Peggy has been an inspiration to me, she’s inspired me to be a nurse,” Mercedes said.
Kemner said the beans came from a neighbor up the road who had more than he could use. The beans will be a snack for the center’s Sunday school students this weekend.
Donations, like the beans, come in from neighbors and community members all the time — in fact the center thrives because of donations. Grants also come from places like Berea College’s Appalachian fund, donations from churches and work groups, and Gall’s and Kemner’s own funds make the center’s work possible.
“We can lend a hand to other people, and church groups, work groups, they lend a hand to us. It works two ways,” Gall said.
Being deeply involved in people’s lives has meant the center has also dealt with the darkside of humanity.
In 1980, over an eight-month period, a neighbor’s son threatened Gall’s and Kemner’s lives. The man even attempted to burn several structures at the center to the ground.
At the time, the center was taking care of an elderly woman after her husband died. The woman’s son, a violent alcoholic, came home, thinking that his father had left him money.
When the son found no money, he blamed the center.
“He was the black sheep of the family. He thought he could come home and take over everything, and we let him. We didn’t care, but when he beat up his mother ... that was more than we could take,” Gall said.
The mother stayed at the center while the son continued to threaten everyone. At one point he was caught trying to burn down the house that his mother was staying in.
And then one day, it all stopped.
“His drinking buddies killed him,” Kemner said.
The arsonist is only one of the harrowing stories the pair have. They’ve been shot at. Cars have been stolen. Cows let loose.
But, of course, no hateful act has stopped them.
“As long as we are doing things with people, for people, then we’re part of the people. If we saw something that was wrong in the community and took a stand, then we became an outsider just that quick,” Gall said. “This happened several times when husbands were mistreating wives, or parents mistreating children. There were several times when we took a stand to see that something better happened. We got shot at, we got told off, we got threatened...”
Taking that stand has paid off, and for every story of violence and hatred, the pair have a story of hope.
When the law finally caught up with a moonshiner that had a large family who couldn’t fend for themselves, Gall and Kemner took a “stand.”
The moonshiner’s wife was not equipped to take care of the massive family by herself, so the center took the family in. They taught them everything they could, and years later that family is still a part of “Lend-A-Hand.”
“One of the daughters grows plants. When I try to pay her for some, she says ‘You took care of me, and now I’m going to help you,’” Kemner said.
Kemner has written a book about her years as a rural midwife called “I Am With You Always.” Gall has also penned memoirs, and with the help of a volunteer is submitting a history of the center to the state’s archives in Frankfort.
Next weekend is the big 50th celebration for the center. Volunteers from all 50 years and from every corner of the globe are expected to come for what Gall is calling “a homecoming.”
The center will host a variety show at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. Sunday, Aug. 10 activities include Sunday School at 10:30 a.m., “picture time” at 1 p.m. and an appreciation program at 2 p.m.
In the meantime Gall and Kemner are doing their life’s work — tending the farm, transporting the needy, and distributing food.
“We just live our name, ‘Lend-A-Hand.’ Any way we can, we lend a hand. And it’s reciprocal,” Gall said.
Lend-A-Hand can be reached at 606-542-4212.

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