Ann Miller Woodford

Portrait of Anne Miller Woodford With A Black Background
2021 Portrait of Anne Miller Woodford

Photo By Andre Daugherty

Background Information

In 2018, Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) started the African American Experiences in the Smokies (AAES) project. This project focuses on the experiences and stories of African Americans in the Smokies and surrounding areas to bring visibility to a historically overlooked population.In December 2021 the AAES project conducted an oral history with Ann Miller Woodford, an artist, author, speaker, and historian from the town of Andrews in Cherokee County, NC, one of the gateways into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In the oral history, Woodford discusses her childhood growing up in Andrews, her familial history in the area, her work as an artist and writer, and her return to the region as an adult. As a multifaceted creator, Woodford aims to “make the invisible visible” through her work by educating audiences about Black history in what she calls ‘far western North Carolina.


Who is Ann Miller Woodford?

Ann Miller Woodford was born on January 31, 1947. She grew up in a community called Happy Top in Andrews, a town located in Cherokee County, NC. Her grandfather, William Cleveland “Cleve” Miller, established the community in 1912 after leaving his hometown of Cumming, Georgia with his mother due to the ethnic cleansing that took place there. After taking up a job working on the railroad in the Blue Ridge area, he built the first house in the Happy Top community. Cleve Miller’s cousin, William Bowens, joined him in Andrews and named their community Happy Top because it was a happy place to be. As moonshining was popular in the Smokies region, Bowens would make a beer like beverage called home brew for outdoor community gatherings that were full of music and dancing where he played the mandolin.1 Happy Top was a Black community during Woodford’s upbringing, but over time it has grown all the way down to the edge of Andrews because white people also love the name Happy Top.

Woodford’s father, Purel Miller, worked as a builder and her mother, Margaret Ann Miller, worked as a domestic. As the middle child of three daughters, Woodford grew up going to a one room school called Andrews Colored School that only had one teacher.2 When she began going there around 1953, there were about 20 children going to the school. The number of students reduced significantly after many families migrated out of Andrews to Ohio because the tannery in Andrews closed. According to Woodford, many African American men in the community worked at the tannery and after it closed, many had to work as domestics which they felt called for emasculating tasks. Woodford was the only student in her grade from second to eighth grade.

Woodford attended the school for eight years and for the final half of those years she was taught by a Black woman from Asheville named Ida Mae Logan. Logan encouraged Woodford’s artistic abilities, submitting her work to various contests, including state fairs and scholastic awards, many of which she won. Woodford began creating her oil paintings with gifted used art supplies with which she painted on dry wall because there was no place in the area to purchase canvases.

1 The mandolin is a stringed lute instrument.
2 The school later became Andrews Negro School and only went up to the eighth grade. The Black school in Murphey only went up to the 10th grade. Woodford explains in the oral history that this was a tactic to prevent African Americans from getting a high school diploma.

High School in Asheville

Woodford had to go to Allen High School in Asheville, NC because African American children could only be educated up to an eighth-grade level in Andrews. Woodford explains in the oral history that this was a tactic to prevent African Americans from getting a high school diploma. Allen High School was a Methodist Church boarding school for African American girls who were taught by both Black and white teachers. The teachers encouraged and prepared the students to go to college. Woodford joined the school’s choir which allowed her to travel across the country to various churches. She graduated from Allen High School in 1965.

African American Communities Connected Through the Church

According to Woodford, African American communities in far western North Carolina were primarily connected through the Baptist churches during the 20th century. African Americans from places like Waynesville, Canton, Sylva, Bryson City, Hazel, Andrews, Murphey, and Franklin would all gather to worship and connect. A group called the Waynesville Missionary Baptist Association would organize events and meetings that required Black people from different towns to travel and gather in various locations in the region.

On Not Visiting the Smokies Growing Up

Woodford and her family did not visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park when she was growing up because they did not feel it was safe to do so. Below is a quote from the oral history in which Woodford explains why she did not grow up visiting the park: “We didn’t go places like that because even back then we heard that there were separate, badly designed places for people to stop through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park all the way into the Blue Ridge Mountains. All of that kept us from going anywhere like that because of fear of racial problems. White places had outhouses or bathrooms… but in our places they would only have maybe a table. Maybe you even had to take your own trash with you because you didn’t want to do anything that would cause a problem.

So, no we didn’t grow up there. However, you must know the whole area around Cherokee County where I grew up had sundown towns. Those sundown towns had signs up that said if you’re Black you better not be caught there after dark because you wouldn’t be protected. So, anything could happen to you… we knew that.”In the 1930s when Great Smoky Mountains National Park was being developed, Superintendent J.R. Eakin was aware of African Americans’ discomfort with visiting the park. Many parks in the South aligned with local segregation laws. While Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not known to have had segregated picnic areas, Eakin did attempt to create segregated spaces in the park. In 1941, he wrote to the Department of the Interior stating that African Americans made up “two-tenths of one present of total travel” to the park.3 He suggested the solution of designating picnic and campgrounds for African Americans to make them feel more comfortable visiting the park. While these designated areas were never created, this letter speaks to the long history of African Americans discomfort with outdoor spaces in the United States. However, there were ‘colored’ designated toilets at Newfound Gap and Forney Ridge in 1942.

Eductation and Career

After graduating high school, Woodford attended Ohio University where she received multiple scholarships. She graduated cum laude with a degree in Fine Art in 1969. After graduating, Woodford taught art for the Pittsburg public school system, and she also lived in New York City working as an airline stewardess at one point. She then moved to Columbus, Ohio where she began one of the first African American greeting card companies called Purel Ann Inc. for which she designed greeting cards, stationary, and playing cards. Woodford developed a partnership with the United States Air Force Exchange Service to sell her products.

Woodford returned to Andrews from 1979 to 1982 and taught art part time for the Cherokee County school system, she was the first Black teacher to be hired. She then went on to move to California where Woodford was able to exhibit and sell her artwork in Los Angeles. While there, she connected with Esther Rolle, an actress known for her role as Florida Evans on the television show Good Times. Woodford partnered with Roe to produce dolls that the artist created. The United States Air Force Exchange Service purchased the dolls and sent them across the country and the world.

Returning to Andrews

Prior to moving back to Andrews, Woodford would travel home every year. She returned to Andrews to live in the early 1990s after living in California for nine years to care for her mother who had become ill. While there were not many Black businesses in Andrews, there were in the surrounding counties when Woodford was growing up. When she returned home, she realized that Black entrepreneurship was no longer present in the region. So, Woodford gathered up a group of women to discuss uplifting the Black communities in the region and she founded an organization called One Dozen Who Care. The organization held a weekend event called When All God’s Children Get Together.

During the event, much history was shared and Woodford realized there was a need to record and preserve the stories of African American people in the region because not much had been written about them. This inspired Woodford to begin her research to write When All God’s Children Get Together: A Celebration of the Lives and Music of African American People in Far Western North Carolina.4

Since moving to Andrews, Woodford has curated exhibits and her own work has been on display. In 2021 she curated a historical exhibit for the Smith-McDowell House Museum in Asheville. The exhibit was named after her book and featured some of her paintings.

Woodford’s artwork had also been on display at several venues across western North Carolina such as her Black in Black on Black exhibit at the Asheville Center for Craft in 2021 and the 2022 exhibit Ann Miller Woodford: The Artist as Storyteller at Western Carolina’s Mountain Heritage Center.


3 This letter is also discussed in the AAE project resource brief about Daniel White, the Blackalachian to discuss African Americans and the outdoors.
4 When All God’s Children Get Together: A Celebration of the Music and Lives of African Americans in Far Western North Carolina was published in 2017.


 

Research Resources


PBS North Carolina Specials: Finding Your Roots Season 8. PBS, 12 Jan. 2022, video.pbsnc.org/video/discussion-finding-your-roots-season-8-2uqshu/. Accessed 14 Mar. 2023. Web Series.

Oral History Interview with Ann Miller Woodford (2021), African American Experiences in the Smokies project, Collections Preservation Center, Townsend, TN.

Woodford, Anne Miller. “Ann’s Tree | African American Art and Books | Ann Miller Woodford | Artist, Author, Speaker.” Annstree.com, 14 Mar. 2023, annstree.com/. Accessed 14 Mar. 2023.

When All God’s Children Get Together: A Celebration of the Lives and Music of African American People in Far Western North Carolina. 18 Jan. 2021, www.amazon.com/When-All-Gods-Children-Together/dp/0988811006. Accessed 14 Mar. 2023.

Last updated: March 14, 2023

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