Velda Brotherton and Obama’s momma’s people

story by Marla Cantrell
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Velda Brotherton writes the stories of the old-timers who occupy the surrounding hills and dells — including researching stories about the Arkansas relatives of President Barack Obama.

It’s been a lucrative move for the Arkansas writer, who has written for 30 years and is about to publish her eleventh book, “Arkansas Meals and Memories – Lift Your Eyes to the Mountains.”

In it she shares her family recipes like caramel pie and corn fritters. Her mother was a wonderful cook, and that was fine with her grandmother, who had bigger fish to fry.

“My grandmother didn’t like to cook,” Brotherton said. “My mother did. When my grandmother was 80-years-old she’d call up and say, ‘I just climbed up on the ladder and cleaned out my gutters.’ … She’d chop wood but she hated housework. When we moved back to Arkansas I met a woman who said my grandmother used to ride side-saddle across two counties. She’d take that horse into a raging creek and come out on the other side. She was 6’1”. She lived to be 97.”

The recipes are a new slant on Brotherton’s work. She has six Western historical romances to her credit. Another waits on a shelf in her office for the day when the genre reignites the interest of publishers. But she is best known for her pitch-perfect writing of the extraordinary people living near her home in Winslow.

“I decided to do some non-fiction because I like it. The first book was ‘Wandering in the Shadows of Time,’” Brotherton said. “I actually wrote it after I came back to Arkansas and realized what was here that needed to be written about. I was so affected by coming back to where my roots were, where I was little.”

Her most recent work is “The Boston Mountains: Lost in the Ozarks.”

“The funniest thing is driving around talking to people and getting lost,” Brotherton explained. “That’s why it’s called ‘Lost in the Ozarks.’ I have no compass in my head. When my husband’s with me we do pretty well. But when he’s not I wander all over the place.”

Funny and controversial. According to Brotherton, you should use the word “mountain” sparingly.

“The Ozarks are not mountains,” Brotherton said. “The Boston Mountains are called that because Boston used to be slang for a hard way to go. If someone had a hard time doing something he’d say it was the Boston. So they named them that because they’re so tough to get through. It’s actually a dissected plateau.”

That’s just part of what the local author learned while roaming the back roads. She speculates that the former town of Aurora in Madison County was named after the spectacular meteor showers in November 1833, which is known as The Night the Stars Fell. The town was formed that year.

“Tens of thousands of meteors fell that night,” Brotherton said. “I don’t know for sure that the town was named because of it, but it’s a romantic notion.”

She also visited the final resting place for President Obama’s mother’s people in Dinsmore, which is less than a mile from both the Madison and Carroll County lines.

“When I first started putting something together I came across and article that claimed Obama’s mother’s people had settled in Arkansas and where it was,” Brotherton said. “I thought, ‘It’s got to be a hoax.’ … We found the tombstones. The daughter of the people buried there married and one of her children was Obama’s mother.”

In fact, the Obama line can be traced to his great-great-great-great-great grandparents Nathaniel and Sarah (Ray) Bunch, who came to Arkansas sometime around 1840, according to this published report.

It’s these kinds of discoveries that keep Brotherton seeking out the stories of the Ozarks.

“I always say it’s not a history book, it’s a book about the people who made our history.”

The author, who said she doesn’t know if she will ever again write such a prolific book as “The Boston Mountains: Lost in the Ozarks.” is happy with her work. There are directions for those wanting to visit the sites she writes about and more than 130 photographs.

There are also stories you might never hear otherwise.

“The past whispers of secrets long kept,” Brotherton said.

Brotherton has managed to eavesdrop on quite a few.