Diana Reese is a writer and blogger for the Washington Post and contributor to “She the People”. She just posted a great article about Grandma Gatewood that you should read.
By Diana Reese January 5 at 2:12 PM
She The People
Grandma Gatewood survived domestic violence to walk the Appalachian Trail alone at 67
Even now, six decades later, Emma Gatewood’s story still resonates.
Grandma Gatewood, as she became known, was the first woman to hike the entire 2,050 miles of the Appalachian Trail by herself in 1955. She was 67 years old at the time, a mother of 11 and grandmother of 23. She’d survived more than 30 years of marriage to a brutal husband who beat her repeatedly.
Gatewood hiked the trail carrying a homemade knapsack and wearing ordinary sneakers — she wore out six pairs of them in 146 days from May to September. She brought a blanket and a plastic shower curtain to protect her from the elements, but she didn’t bother with a sleeping bag, a tent, a compass or even a map, instead relying on the hospitality of strangers along the way and her own independent resourcefulness. She’d sleep in a front porch swing, under a picnic table or on a bed of leaves when necessary, and she ate canned Vienna sausages, raisins and peanuts plus greens she found on the trail and meals offered by strangers.
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Grandma (Emma) Gatewood 