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What It Means to Be ‘God-People’ in Appalachia

What It Means to Be ‘God-People’ in Appalachia

Last updated on: April 11, 2026 at 8:25 am by Mary Pezzulo

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What It Means to Be ‘God-People’ in Appalachia 2026-04-11T08:25:40-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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We are God-People

A gray brick railroad tunnel, with a trail running through it.

We are God-people. Even if we don’t know all of the details, we need never fear death, because our Father will make it right for us. | Tunnel Number Eight, photographed by Mary Pezzulo.

We went on an adventure– Adrienne, Jimmy’s boy, and me.

For a long time, I had been promising Jimmy’s boy that we were going to visit the Hellbender Preserve in Bloomingdale, to see the historic Lincoln Bridge and the railroad tunnel. When the day came, I packed up the car with snacks and water and went to collect him. He came out of his house, carrying a tablet in a stout blue protective case. He’d borrowed it from one of his older brothers, in order to take photos of our hike.

“This tablet has GTA on it,” he said, with a lurid grin. “It’s not GTA three or four, it’s GTA FIVE! It’s rated MATURE! You’re God-people, so I won’t tell you what GTA is about. You wouldn’t like it.”

I smiled at his use of “God-people” for “Catholics,” and at his notion that I hadn’t heard of GTA, an intensely violent video game.

“You shouldn’t play GTA. It’s a bad influence. Now, let’s get going! It’s a wonderful day for a hike!”

The park was about half an hour from our house. I pointed out interesting scenery while Jimmy’s boy played games on the tablet– Adrienne glanced over his shoulder every so often, to make sure he was only playing Roblox and not GTA. About halfway through Wintersville, when we drove past the gun shop, we found ourselves talking about death. Jimmy’s boy opined apropos of nothing that he hoped when it was time to go, he died in his sleep so it wouldn’t hurt. Then he related to me what he’d learned about Heaven and Hell, when he visited his grandmother’s house and went to church with her.

“I’m good sometimes and bad sometimes, so I guess I’d end up right in the middle,” he confessed.

I found myself telling an eight-year-old Protestant boy about purgatory, and how it may be that a soul in the middle is perfected, as the main arterial of Steubenville stretched out into a country road through glorious budding trees. We also talked a little about the people who believe in reincarnation, and the people who believe that nothing at all happens after death. Jimmy’s boy opined that he’ll just have to find out which is right when it happens.

I thought again of his wonderful turn of the phrase. “You are God-people.”

We are God-people. Even if we don’t know all of the details, we need never fear death, because our Father will make it right for us.

“I think almost everybody makes it to Heaven,” I said. “I think God is loving and gives everybody a good chance.”

When we finally got to the park, Jimmy’s boy handed me the tablet and asked me to carry it in my purse. “Mom mom would kill me if I broke it.” And we walked down the trail beside Cross Creek, drinking in nature.

Jimmy’s boy wanted to know about every plant and wildflower. He was excited to know which could be foraged for food, if we were in the wilderness and not a metro park with a foraging ban. He was excited to crouch close to the ground and watch two little bees gathering nectar from a delicate trout lily. He watched the crick flow beside us silently, listening to the sound of water over stones.

Eventually we got to the Ghost Wall. This was a flat shale cliff where Irish workmen, the Fardowners and the Corkians, carved their names, when they came here to dig the railroad tunnels. It’s known as the Ghost Wall because the shallow letters carved into the shale seem to appear and disappear as you view them from different angles. Jimmy’s boy and I spent some time looking for letters in the rock, and then he asked for the tablet. He asked how to film a video, and I showed him, and he hit “record.”

“This is the Ghost Wall,” said Jimmy’s boy, carefully moving the tablet to catch the letters at different angles. “I call it the spooky wall. The workers carved their names in the wall when they came to make the tunnel.”

“Very good,” I said. “That’s great storytelling. You sound professional. Now, let’s go to the bridge.”

We hiked a little ways to the Lincoln Bridge over Cross Creek.

Jimmy’s boy found a good vantage point on top of a rock, and asked for the tablet again. “Tell the story of the Lincoln Bridge.”

I stood in front of the camera and waved my arms like a tour guide, relating the tale of how Abraham Lincoln was riding a train through Tunnel Number Eight on Valentine’s Day, 1861, on the way to the inauguration. The train came to a wooden trestle bridge on this very spot, which was falling apart from all the flooding lately, so the engineers had the First Family get out and walk before they drove the train across, just in case it fell. Lincoln was holding hands with Willie and Tad right in the middle of the trestle bridge when he slipped and fell on his knees– avoiding a spill into Cross Creek, narrowly. One of his first executive orders when he got to Washington was to build a stone bridge over Cross Creek for the war effort. Now, the bridge is not a railroad bridge but a bridge for hikers to take as they tour the park.

Jimmy’s boy stopped the camera, and walked with me up the old stone steps to the top of the bridge.

“I’m scared of heights,” he said.

I am as well, though I didn’t like to admit it. “I’ll stay with you. The fence on the bridge is nice and high. You couldn’t possibly fall.”

Jimmy’s boy came to the top of the bridge. He photographed the water running smoothly under one side, and coming noisily out the other. Then we came to the mouth of Tunnel Number Eight: the old brick-lined railroad tunnel, now used for hiking. It’s quite a long tunnel. You could just see the light at the other end, a dot of daylight in a great dark circle of night.

“They say it’s haunted,” I said. “Some of the workers died in that tunnel, in industrial accidents. Do you believe in ghosts?”

Jimmy’s boy smiled excitedly, and swore he didn’t believe in ghosts.

I used my phone as a flashlight, as we walked forward, Jimmy’s boy filming with his tablet, narrating everything he saw. It was a bit more frightening than when I’d been there in November. The wind blowing through the tunnel felt more ominous and cold, when the sun had been summer-warm a moment ago outside. And because of the heavy rain we’d had lately, the roof of the tunnel was dripping. Rainwater had found its way through the shale rock. It dripped between the bricks in the ceiling of the tunnel, raining on us, as we were plunged into darkness.

Jimmy’s boy held his tablet away from the rain, and turned on the camera again. “Hold the light in front of me.”

I worked the lights as he worked the camera, and we walked forward.

We are God-people. The miners who labored in this tunnel were God-people. God sees the names they carved in the rocks. The Lincolns and the train engineer were God-people, and the people who built the stone bridge were God-people. The people who turned this railroad track into a hiking trail are God-people. Jimmy’s boy and Adrienne and I are God-people. The families I’ve come to know in Labelle are God-people. All of us humans are God-people, made in the Divine Image, and the Father remembers our names. We walk on the earth for a little while and then we disappear into the dark, but the Father will make it right. The day is coming when the souls of all the dead will rise up into the light again, and all shall be well, because we are God-people.

The wind whipped our hair and clothing as we emerged from the tunnel on the other side, into the beautiful glow of an Appalachian April. Jimmy’s boy turned off the tablet and went scampering further down the trail, up to where it cuts off at the road.

It felt as if we had been to church, or to Heaven itself.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

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