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FACTUAL FOLKLORE ™
Mabel Martin Wyrick, Factual Folklorist, Dies at Age 90
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Mabel Martin Wyrick, noted Kentucky author, died October 12, 2003 at the Hospice of Hamilton, Ohio after a short illness. Mrs. Wyrick was born March 9, 1913 in Rye (Laurel County), Kentucky to Benjamin Harrison Williams, Sr. and Bessie Alice Rogers Williams. She grew up in a farming community where Laurel Lake now stands. She spent practically her entire life in the Laurel County area, moving away only in 1999 to live with her daughter and son-in-law in Brookville, Indiana.
Wyrick wrote weekly newspaper columns for several years called "If Quilts Could Talk ... I'd Listen" and "Land Beneath the Lake. Her columns were regularly featured in several periodicals, including the Corbin Times Tribune, the Sentinel-Echo, the Berea Citizen, Appalachian Heritage, and Back Home in Kentucky. She also published six books, three of which told the stories of early life in the hills of Southeastern Kentucky. She also published two books of fiction which were set in the Laurel County area, and one book of railroad tales as told to her by her second husband, Wilson L. Wyrick.
When she was twelve years old, her parents sent her to boarding school at Sue Bennett. During her four years at Sue Bennett, she earned a diploma in business studies, met her husband, and managed to get suspended – one of her favorite stories! An instructor caught Wyrick smoking (an indecent behavior for women in the 1920’s). When she refused to tell the teacher who gave her the cigarette, she was suspended from school for a week. Her father, being extremely embarrassed by her conduct, made her tell their neighbors that she was given a week off from school because she was so far ahead in her studies! Although she never smoked again, she always told her father that she hadn’t quit her bad “habit”. In spite of this incident, she was very appreciative of the education that she received at Sue Bennett, and later established a scholarship fund there from her earnings as an author.
She married Lohren F. Martin, Sr. on November 23, 1929 and moved to his family’s farm on Muddy Gut Creek in Laurel County. They had five children, one of whom died as a toddler. During this time, Wyrick primarily ran the household and farmed. However, she also worked outside the home during the auctions at the Dean-Planters Tobacco Warehouse in London. After her husband’s death in 1976, Wyrick moved to Corbin, where she quickly became involved in the community. She was instrumental in beginning a library for the Senior Citizen’s Center by gathering books herself and soliciting donations for books from many of the Corbin merchants and residents. She also volunteered in the Adult Literacy project and taught several people to read because she found so much enjoyment in reading herself.
Wyrick began her writing career in 1978 at the request of the editor of Corbin Times Tribune. Her first newspaper columns described her experiences while traveling in the Holy Land. She quickly expanded her columns to tell stories from her childhood as well as stories passed down through her friends and family. Her unique style allowed the reader to peek in at life during a simpler time when neighbors lived, worked, laughed, cried, and worshipped together. As a result, her columns were an instant success. She coined the term “Factual Folklore” to describe her writing - tales based on fact which have been passed down through the generations. In a 1999 interview with the Lexington Herald, Wyrick said that, “Factual folklore is my link between folklore and history. It's the history that wasn't written down, but should have been.”
She placed a great value on education and even attended writing seminars when she was in her eighties. She was particularly interested in seeing young people further their educations, and often participated financially as well as motivationally in their college careers. Several college writing classes visited her home, where she encouraged the young writers and answered their questions. As recently as June, 2003, she addressed The Chitwood Club in Indiana about her writing career.
Mabel Martin Wyrick will be remembered not only as a successful author and an entertaining person, but as an intelligent, insightful individual who truly cared about her fellow citizen. She had the unique ability to walk in someone else’s shoes and to reach out to them with just the right touch at just the right time.
She was preceded in death by her parents, both of her husbands, one daughter, Willa A. Martin, one son, Norman C. Martin, and four siblings, Kenneth, Ernest, Clyde, and Ruth Williams.
She is survived by one son, Lohren F. Martin, Jr. and his wife Arvilla of Ft. Myers, Florida and Lexington, Kentucky; two daughters, Shirley M. Chandler of Louisville, Kentucky and Mary L. Cheek and husband Norman of Brookville; her special “adopted” daughter, Mary Sue Baker and her family, husband, Don and their children of London, Kentucky; one brother, Benjamin H. Williams, Jr. of Ideal, Georgia; one sister, Nellie Taylor of Brooksville, Florida; thirteen grandchildren, several great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.
Funeral services were conducted October 15, 2003. Burial followed in the Pine Hill Cemetery, which overlooks her former home on Muddy Gut Creek. Memorial donations may be made to Hospice of Hamilton, 896 Northwest Washington Blvd., Hamilton, Ohio 45013.
