Editor’s Note: Western North Carolina is rich with untold stories—many resting quietly in local cemeteries. In this Tombstone Tales series, we explore the lives of people from our region’s past whose legacies, whether widely known or nearly forgotten, helped shape the place we call home.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — In a North Asheville cemetery off Lynn Cove Road, the headstone of Wilma Dykeman Stokely marks the resting place of a writer who helped change how the region talked about the French Broad River and what was being poured into it.
Dykeman Stokely, often described as the “First Lady of Appalachian Literature,” is buried in the Beaverdam Baptist Church Cemetery, on the grounds of what was once Beaverdam Baptist Church…