'Nance Dude' performance planned before festival

By Lisa Majors-Duff

This play is based on the sad and sobering story of Haywood County's real-life Nance Dude, who was convicted of killing her 2-year-old granddaughter, Roberta Putnam, in 1913.

Allegedly, Dude was forced to leave the home of her son-in-law with the child and told she could not return until she had given the child away. She wandered the roads of Haywood County for three days, failing to find anyone willing to take the child.

Returning to her son-in-law's home, she found the door locked and heard her son-in-law's voice assuring her that she would never be admitted until she did what she had been told to do.

In desperation, she took the child to a nearby mountain and placed her in a cave, covering the entrance with rocks. Returning home, she told her son-in-law that she had given the child away. Roberta's body was found two weeks later.

Dude served 15 years of hard labor, and upon her release at age 80 from prison returned to her home in Western North Carolina to live out her days as a social outcast, shunned by family and friends. She lived in a one-room shack on Conley Creek in Jackson County, supporting herself by selling split kindling to summer residents. She died at age 104.

Westall is a graduate of Berea College and Duke University and has both performed and directed in productions at the Burnsville Little Theater, the Parkway Playhouse, and the Carolina Theater Company.

The play was written by local teacher, folklorist and storyteller Gary Carden, who is also the author of numerous other plays, including "The Raindrop Waltz," which based on his childhood in Jackson County; and "The Uktena," which is based on an ancient Cherokee myth. He also wrote the script for and performed in the PBS special "Blow the Tannery Whistle." He is the author of several books including his newest, "Mason Jars in the Flood."

Carden based the play "Nance Dude" on the book "The Legend of Nance Dude" by Maurice Stanley, professor of religion and philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Both Carden and Stanley will be on hand following the performance to answer questions and promote discussion of the issues raised by the play. The performance will last about 50 minutes.

"The tragedy did not happen somewhere else, but right here in our own backyard. It generally raises the question, 'What does this tragedy tell us about ourselves?'" said Carden.

This is part of a series of performances across Western North Carolina made possible by a grant from the N.C. Humanities Council. Other performances will be Saturday, April 28, in Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville at 7 p.m.; and Sunday, April 29, in Swain County Center for the Arts in Bryson City at 2 p.m.

Back to Archive: 04/26/01.