Anne Shelby onstage as Aunt Molly Jackson

photo by Judith Hensley

Mary Magdalene Garland Stamos-- Aunt Molly Jackson

The Lone Pilgrim

Songs and

Stories of 

Aunt Molly Jackson

a one-woman show written and performed by Anne Shelby

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The Lone Pilgrim 

. . . is based on the life, writings, and songs of Aunt Molly Jackson, a granny woman, singer and union organizer from Southeastern Kentucky who lived  through the booms and busts, the strikes and blacklists, the hunger and violence of the Eastern Kentucky coalfields in the 1920s.

Aunt Molly tended the sick, birthed babies, rallied the miners, and wrote songs – like Poor Miners Farewell, Hungry Ragged Blues and Hard Times in Coleman’s Mines. 

Invited to come to New York by writer Theodore Dreiser and other members of the Dreiser committee, she became a well-known member of the New York City folk music scene that included Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie.

Anne has performed The Lone Pilgrim at the University of Kentucky, at Pleiades Theatre in Louisville, at Appalshop,  Hindman Settlement School, Lincoln Memorial University, and other venues.

To contact Anne about scheduling a performance of The Lone Pilgrim, e-mail her at oneida4792@aol.com.