Category Archives: Scearce, Flora Ann

Flora Ann Scearce. Singer of an Empty Day. Mount Olive, NC: Mount Olive College Press, 1997.

Born at the turn of the twentieth century, Selena “Sippy” Wright lives in North Carolina’s Great Smokies, with her parents. After a fire destroys the family’s cabin, they go to live with Sippy’s Grandmother and her youngest three children, and, while life on Utah Mountain is hard, the family struggles and survives together. Sippy’s story is filled with the work, school, and play of mountain children, but also includes details about her father’s work, her mother’s housekeeping, her grandmother’s medicinal herbs, and the events, songs, and games that were important to mountain culture. Based on the journals and recollections of the author’s mother, this novel tells the story of Sippy’s childhood from ages seven to twelve; her story is continued in Scearce’s second novel Cotton Mill Girl, published in 2006.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

1 Comment

Filed under 1990-1999, 1997, Docufiction, Haywood, Historical, Mountains, Novels in Series, Scearce, Flora Ann

Flora Ann Scearce. Cotton Mill Girl. Mustag, OK: Tate Publishing & Enterprises, 2006.

This novel follows Selena “Sippy” Wright as she joins the workforce at the tender age of twelve. Work as a “linthead’ in a cotton mill in Gastonia is hard, but Sippy makes lifelong friends and comes to see her own strengths. The hardships of early twentieth century mill life are vividly portrayed, but this is a book in the Oprah model–grit, good sense, and loving friends and family help a young girl grow in wisdom and happiness. This is the second Sippy Wright novel; Singer of an Empty Day (published in 1997) told the story of Sippy’s early life in a small mountain community.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Catalog.

Comments Off on Flora Ann Scearce. Cotton Mill Girl. Mustag, OK: Tate Publishing & Enterprises, 2006.

Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Gaston, Piedmont, Scearce, Flora Ann