The following story first appeared in the Autumn 2000 Glenmary Challenge.
For a free copy of the next issue

Big Stone Gap: Fact and Fiction
This New York Times best-seller and soon-to-be movie, set in 1970s Glenmary mission territory, refers to a “Father Rausch.” The real Father Rausch reviews the novel against the backdrop of the real Big Stone Gap as he remembers it.
By Father John S. Rausch

Growing up in Big Stone Gap, Va., Adriana Trigiani answered the taunts of her classmates concerning the Catholic faith while she learned about the religions of others. With strong Italian roots that reached through New Jersey back to Europe, Adriana with her six siblings and a few Catholic friends represented a religious minority during the 1970s in the Southwest Virginia school system.

Her novel’s Catholic heroine, Ave Maria Mulligan, says: “When I was little, every Friday morning we had assembly in the elementary school auditorium. The speaker was always a minister from one of the local Churches. Of course, as we grew older, we dreaded it. But when we were kids, we loved the fire-and-brimstone Bible stories, delivered with passion and zeal by the Protestant of the Week” (page 65). 

Adriana weaves the experience of growing up in a small Appalachian town and former Glenmary mission into her best- selling novel, Big Stone Gap, a romance published by Random House and a soon-to-be-movie. The first six chapters build toward an actual 1978 incident when Elizabeth Taylor choked on a chicken bone at Big Stone’s Coach House restaurant during a campaign visit with her then-husband, John Warner, who was running for the U.S. Senate. The story focuses on Ave Maria, the town’s 35-year-old unmarried pharmacist and rescue-squad volunteer, who finds her Italian family and frees herself to choose love. 

While local folks will be able to identify familiar people and places in the novel, with fiction come some imaginative details. Continuing to describe the school arrangement with ministers, she writes: 

“The Protestants were on rotation until one week when there was a cancellation and no preacher could fill in, so the spot went by default to the only Catholic priest in the area. The school kids used to tease me about my religion, saying Cath-licks drank blood in our service and worshiped statues. The kids were convinced when the priest showed up that he’d have horns and green skin. They were mighty disappointed when Father Rausch [Hey, that’s me!], a mild man with a crew cut, brought out puppets and acted out the parable of the Prodigal Son...” (page 65).

Adriana and her family were my parishioners in 1972 and 1973 in Norton, Va., 12 miles from their home in Big Stone Gap. In fact, I never had a crew cut and I never did puppetry in her school. Yet the incident she describes sparks a vivid memory. I once confronted a principal in the next county by asking when the Catholic priest could address an assembly in rotation with the Protestant ministers. I finally got my invitation as the pastor of seven students in a school of 300. 

The Trigiani family moved to Big Stone Gap in 1966, 20 years after Glenmary began establishing missions in that area of Southwest Virginia. Throughout her novel Adriana makes references to places Glenmary served, like Pennington Gap, Norton, Appalachia and Coeburn. 

Ave Maria reflects: “The Catholic church here is run by a small missionary order of poor carpenter priests called the Glenmarys. We didn’t even have a real church building until five years ago; the priests were so busy building churches in poorer areas, they kept putting ours off” (page 75).

Glenmary arrived in Norton, Va., around the First Sunday of Advent 1945 to serve six counties: Wise, Lee, Scott, Dickenson, Russell and Buchanan. From the base parish in Norton, Glenmary priests drove 12 miles over winding roads every Sunday to Appalachia. Although Glenmary celebrated its first Mass in Big Stone Gap in 1947, those parishioners still traveled the two miles to Appalachia on Sundays. The parish list in 1948 when Appalachia became an official parish reflected the ethnic backgrounds of the Catholics drawn to the coalfields or those converted to the faith: Isaac, Scaruppa, Fraley, Ossea, Tenis, Revella, Maceyko, Bolinski and Murphy.

By 1965, with the Appalachia church situated on a bend of the railroad tracks and the building needing major repairs, a parish center was built in Big Stone Gap and Glenmary moved the parish there. The statue of the Sacred Heart and later the bells from the Appalachia church were also moved to Big Stone Gap. With new roads, corporate offices and a federal courthouse, Big Stone was becoming the new growth center. 

In the novel Zackie Wakin, a character in the book and in real life, is described as “a compact Lebanese peddler-turned-local entrepreneur....He is small at about five feet, his complexion cafT au lait, his lips full (sign of generosity)” (page 15). In real life Zackie had a pleasing presence and an affable manner. As a young man he assisted Glenmarians with their teen programs by helping with the Boy Scout cabin in Dungannon, the bowling league in Appalachia and the swimming outings in Norton. In later life he generously gave to the Church and bought a small house for some Benedictine Sisters doing social ministry just over the line in Kentucky. Being a Catholic meant being an ambassador for the Church in every aspect of life.

In 1948 a group of Catholic nursing sisters from Ireland, the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, started St. Mary Hospital. In the novel Ave Maria says, “The common wisdom around here is, ‘When you’re sick, let the sisters take care of you.’ Even though the locals don’t particularly care for Catholics, they make an exception when it comes to health care. The nuns built their hospital in Norton, the closest city and the location most central to the coal camps. I love the hospital because there are statues of saints and angels tucked in every corner” (pages 85-86).

The witness of these sisters, in fact, proved inestimable in establishing the Catholic Church in that entire area. Besides their works of mercy, the sisters, together with other faithful Catholics, introduced local folks to the symbols of the faith. 

Ave Maria sees her boyfriend, Jack, “standing at the fireplace, looking at a small ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary on the mantel” (page 110). She tells him that her name means “Hail Mary,” and the Blessed Mother is her patron saint. He asks about a set of white pearl beads and she explains, “...the rosary is a devotion to the Blessed Mother.” 

Big Stone Gap reads like a romance set in a small town with the local color of the Appalachian culture. Adriana trades on her “Eye-talian” heritage to introduce an influence frequently overlooked in Appalachian literature. She also weaves Catholic references through the story like a subtle thread. 

In 1987 Glenmary returned the parish at Big Stone Gap to the Diocese of Richmond. But Glenmary Father Les Schmidt, a regional worker, still gets his mail there. 

This novel reminds us that less than 60 years ago the Catholic Church in the mountains appeared foreign, magical and idolatrous. In some areas, it still does. The novel documents how growing up in a population of less than two percent Catholic means explaining the faith and correcting misconceptions. It also reveals that, through presence, service and practice the faith ultimately grows deep roots and nurtures the people in places like Big Stone Gap.