Iron Pines Book Club: Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery and the Search for Understanding

“Why? Because it was there, she’d say. Seemed like a good lark, she’d say. 

She’d never betray the real reason. She’d never show those newspapermen and television cameras her broken teeth or busted ribs, or talk about the town that kept dark secrets, or the night she spent in a jail cell. She’d tell them she was a widow. Yes. She’d tell them she found solace in nature, away from the grit and ash of civilization. She’d tell them that her father always told her, ‘Pick up your feet,’ and that, through rain and snow, through the valley of the shadow of death, she was following his instruction.” 

This is a quote from the first chapter of Ben Montgomery’s book, Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail. While Gatewood is most definitely inspiring - at 67 she became the first woman to complete the 2,050-mile hike, I found some themes in how the book presented her and the hike that made her famous stayed with me beyond marveling at her amazing accomplishments. 

Throughout the book there seems to be a desire to attach meaning behind Emma Gatewood’s historic trek of the Appalachian Trail in 1955. This push to understand Gatewood’s “why” is presented through the intrusion of the media during and after her journey. 

“She didn’t know it then, but the story - her story - would soon sweep the nation. She’d be mentioned  in newspaper columns from Los Angeles to New York. Television shows would clamor for her time. As word spread like wood smoke, most towns she walked through, and even those she didn’t, would send a reporter to intercept her and ask her questions about how she’d done, how she was feeling, why she had begun.” 

There does seem to be a positioning of the media vs. Gatewood, and Montgomery makes it a point to call out tensions between the parties where Gatewood was not all that interested in attention she was receiving. It made me picture what it sometimes feels like when pesky mosquitos won’t leave you alone when you’re trying to enjoy the peace and quiet of the outdoors. 

Throughout the book, the author shares details about Gatewood’s life leading up to, during and after her first* Appalachian Trail completion. He presents a woman with 11 children and 23 grandchildren who survived domestic abuse, a detail I couldn’t help but hold close during my reading. Emma Gatewood, a persister that, by indication of some of her interviews, sought solace in nature. “‘I’ve always done a lot of walking in the woods,’ she’d tell a newspaper reporter years later. ‘The stillness and quiet of the forest has always seemed so wonderful and I Iike the peacefulness.’” 

*Yes, she completed the trail a second time in 1957, becoming the “first person - man or woman - to walk the world’s longest trail twice.” She completed a third hike of the trail in 1964, this time in sections. She also walked the Oregon Trail in 1959, inspired by the Oregon Centennial Exposition.

What is sometimes presented as a woman’s out of the blue decision to “go for a walk” that led to a 146-day journey comes across as dismissive at times. And I couldn’t help but wonder how many times Emma Gatewood may have thought about going for that walk before that day? What did she share with the sassafras trees, wild strawberries, the rivers, and mountains along the trail? What would her story be if she got to tell it? 

But also, who are we to demand that story from her? Nature makes no such demands…and maybe that’s why we’re drawn to spend our time there for whatever our reason is.

• O

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Note - I did really enjoy this book and learning about Emma Gatewood. I particularly enjoyed reading some of her poems that Montgomery shared in the book, one of which I’ve included below. She seems like she’d fit in real well here at Iron Pines. 

“The Reward of Nature”

If you’ll go with me to the mountains

And sleep on the leaf carpeted floors

And enjoy the bigness of nature

And the beauty of all out-of doors, 

You’ll find your troubles all fading

And feel the Creator was not man

That made lovely mountains and forests 

Which only a Supreme Power can.

When we trust in the Power above

And with the realm of nature hold fast,

We will have a jewel of great price

To brighten our lives till the last.

For the love of nature is healing, 

If we will only give it a try

And our reward will be forthcoming,

If we go deeper than what meets the eye. 

References: 

Montgomery, B. (2014). Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail. Chicago Review Press, Incorporated