About the Author (Helen Ayers)

About Mom

            For 21 years my mom, Helen C. Ayers, was the general manager of the Brown County Democrat, the only newspaper published in Brown County, and frequently rated the blue- ribbon newspaper in Indiana, and for those 21 years, she was one of the main writers and producers of this newspaper.

            I cannot think of anyone else besides my own mom, who knew and wrote about so many people living in that back water county.  She was one of those kinds of people everyone said they “knew” even though they were not personally acquainted with her.  They knew “of her” because either her picture or her name appeared in almost every issue of that newspaper.

            She loved to go out into the county, meet strangers to her in their own homes and come back to her office and write wonderful stories of those same people.

            I have asked her to write some short stories to describe how these many people lived and made a living right here in beautiful Brown County.

            If you really want to know how she feels about her time here in Brown County which spans 60 years now, you need to order her two books available on Amazon.  One is titled “Appalachian Daughter,” the second in a series is titled “The Stuff of Legends.”  The first tells of her early life in the Pine Mountain area of eastern Kentucky, and the second book, tells of the 60 families who influenced her the most during these past 60+ years.  She knew all 60 of those families and was loved by them back then and she still loves them today.

            Her books are easy to read, they were written with nearly every family having an entire chapter to itself.  You can read a chapter, lay it down and forget it for awhile and come right back and pick up the thread of her stories. She just wants you to promise to not dog ear the pages, just enjoy them to the fullest.

So with introduction, I will turn this blog over to my mom with the hope that you will enjoy reading more about her and about her stay in Brown county and what you can expect to see and learn if you make it a habit to visit us here.