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["Vernon John Burky was born to a Swiss family in Helvetia, West Virginia in 1925. He grew up speaking Swiss on his family farm, where his parents raised animals and managed a sawmill, and his grandparents operated a cheese house. They made Helvetia cheese, a type of Swiss cheese, similar to Emental, that was made throughout the Helvetia community and a staple in the diet of residents. As a child, Burky raised chickens and tapped maple trees on his family farm. As an adult, he was an active winemaker, a common pursuit in the Helvetia community. During his working years, Burky worked as a truck driver for a saw mill and a coal company. He learned to play fiddle as a child and started playing in the Helvetia Star Band, the local dance band for generations and the namesake of one of the villages two dance halls. He still plays in the group, which performs regularly for Helvetia square dances and events. Yeah; just kept that smokehouse full of smoke all day and night. Theyd put a big hunk of wood on it; it wouldnt burn but it--they had fire under it and it would sit there and smoke that little room half as big as this. They just smoked up tight. They had the sausage on rods; nothing could come in or get up on there. There it would sit; it was just dried up real solid and my uncle was--I stayed with my uncle when I was in high school. And he said, hey Vernon; come over here. (Laughs) He had rheumatism and he couldnt move around. He was in bed all winter. Go up there to the smokehouse and get me a link of that sausage. (Laughs) And Id go up and clip one of them off and bring it down. Hed get a hold of one piece and put the rest under the pillow and hed start eating that. He wasnt supposed to have red meat because of rheumatism.This interview is part of a series of interviews conducted with foodways practitioners in Helvetia, West Virginia, as part of the Helvetia Foodways Oral History Project in partnership with the Southern Foodways Alliance. Learn more: https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/helvetia-west-virginia/"]

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["\"I'm gonna try an old tune here that Jenes Cottrell used to play-- an old fella from Deadfall Run up in Clay County.\" West Virginia old-time musician, local historian, and collector Jim Costa performs \"Cherry River Line\" on banjo at the West Virginia Humanities Council MacFarland-Hubbard House, January 25, 2017.Jim Costa is a native of Summers County, and an accomplished traditional musician, storyteller, and local historian. He is also an avid collector and expert of 18th and 19th century farm tools and objects of rural life, including Hammons family fiddles, spinning wheels, cast iron cookware, and blacksmith tools. Costa has been building this collection throughout his life, and he restores many of the old tools and instruments himself. In addition to his public presentations on music and material culture, Costa appeared in the 1987 John Sayles film Matewan. Listen to the full tape of the concert here: https://soundcloud.com/user-521885027/west-virginia-folklife-presents-jim-costa-with-zoe-van-buren-12517Concert poster by Ratbee Press: http://www.ratbeepress.com/"]
["Dave Bing is a fiddler and fiddle maker from Melissa, West Virginia, outside of Huntington. He now lives in Harmony in Roane County, West Virginia with his wife. As a young man, he spent time learning from many elder fiddlers in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, including the Hammons Family of Pocahontas County. Dave Bing has been a member of numerous old-time bands such as The Bing Brothers with his brothers Tim Bing and Mike Bing, Gandydancer with Gerry Milnes, and The High Ridge Ramblers with Mark Payne and Andrew Dunlap."]

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["Ray Fought is a self-taught fiddler and fiddle maker living in Parkersburg, West Virginia."]
["Frank George (October 6, 1928  November 15, 2017), a Bluefield native, was a banjo player, fiddler, and piper, who also played piano, organ, hammer and lap dulcimer, and was a walking compendium of West Virginia traditional music history and jokes. He was the recipient of the 1994 Vandalia Award, West Virginias highest folklife honor.  Jane George (November 11, 1922  February 19, 2018) helped launch the craft revival in the Mountain State through extensive fieldwork with traditional artists, educational programming, and by co-founding the Mountain State Art & Craft Fair at Cedar Lakes. She also hosted Mountain Heritage weekends and Kanawha County Parks Mountaineer Day Camps to teach young mountaineers about their cultural heritage, founded two Scottish dance troupes, and served as a 4-H agent in multiple counties. She was the 1993 Vandalia Award recipient. "]