Arleene Salyer-Oliver

My name is Arleene Salyer -Oliver, and the object that I brought with me today is a little gray rock. It's about an inch and a half long. It was a rock that came from my father's at the farm that my father grew up on. My father has passed away, but he recently had his 100th birthday, so we had a big birthday party for him and my sister went down to Paducah and trespassed on some land and scooped up pockets full of rocks so that we would always have a piece of that land.

It was very symbolic to me, because I know how important the land was to my dad and to his family, because, of course, at 100 years old, he grew up during the Depression era, so in order to keep the farm, my grandfather would work the farm to get stuff for the family, but then he also was a peddler, but the land was so important to him. That's why this rock's kind of important.

It was important that she brought that back, and she brought back rocks for my dad's grandchildren and great grandchildren. Knowing how important the land was to them and how much hard work they put into keeping it during a time that a lot of people were losing their land down there, it's very special to me, very cool.