A Medley of Days Past

CHRISTOPHER HARRIS

COMMONWEALTH JOURNAL

Across the Bluegrass State, from Somerset to Owensboro, Gabrielle Gray is associated with the musical arts. Yet a wordsmith has toiled beneath the surface, her fingers dancing across typing keys as a banjo player’s might over a set of strings.

And those two artists within her are not at battle but instead find harmony with one another.

“Writing notes for a symphony, which I’ve done, is very similar to writing words in a book, because in a symphony, you have all these different voices,” said Gray, a music educator, violinist and composer. “You have the woodwinds, the strings, the brass. Everybody’s got a voice, everybody’s got a say-so, and in a book, it’s almost the same.

“There’s a crescendo and decrescendo,” she added. “There’s the apex; you’re taking everything to a conclusion that is supposed to make what you’ve just heard or read memorable.”

Gray, a native of Somerset, made a name for herself beyond Pulaski’s borders by serving as executive director of the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Ky., from 2003 to 2015, and founded the ROMP Music Festival in that

See BOOK on A5

Gabrielle Gray, author of “To Each the Other Sent,” is pictured at a book signing earlier this year in Somerset. It is the first novel written by the Somerset native

Submitted photos

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community celebrating the bluegrass sound. However, she’s best known locally for creating the Master Musicians Festival in 1994 — an event that has only continued to grow and evolve here in Somerset, turning into one of the community’s major summertime economic engines and attractions.

Gray’s latest effort, however, is a book — “To Each the Other Sent,” a deeply personal work of historical fiction that represents her first published writing.

It’s not the first time she’s written a book, however — Gray said she’s tried her hand at “about four or five novels” over time. “This is the first one that I’ve really tried to get out there,” she said. “I haven’t published any of the others, so I think I might go back and see if they’re good enough now.”

Gray had a story to tell that she wanted to get out there, however, and so went to the effort of self-publishing “To Each the Other Sent,” a work of historical fiction based on Gray’s own family. It was published on February 14 — “by no accident, because it’s a love story,” she noted. “Several love stories.”

That’s because it follows the paths of Gray’s parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents, a sweeping story spilling down her family tree, set against the backdrop of American history.

“It’s primarily about my two sets of grandparents, but it also covers their parents ... and how they met, how they fell in love, the era in which they loved, which was tumultuous, and just really turbulent times in our nation,” said Gray. “... One of my grandparents was from the Atlanta area, Norcross, Georgia. That was at the height of lynching and the Atlanta race riots. They went through all that. She grew up on a plantation, and so I just wanted to capture that history, because it was really crazy.”

That grandmother, Roberta Medlock, met and married George Mattingly, both children of the 1880s. It took a “joyride” by Mattingly, a native of Marion County, Ky., to get to Georgia to meet her though.

“He had a friend that had bought one of the very first Model A (cars) and so of course it took forever to get there, and they had to figure out things like, where did they get the fuel?” said Gray. “Of course there weren’t any gas stations.”

It was her father Ben Mattingly who truly inspired Gray to write the book, however, and his poem titled “Amazing Innovation.” Around a century ago, Ben Mattingly was named by popular vote “the Poet of the City of Louisville,” which Gray observed was the equivalent of the prestigious Poet Laureate position. But the poem in question was one of much deeper significance for Gray’s family history.

“He had written this poem to convince my mother to marry him,” said Gray. “... It’s exquisitely written. It’s just an epic poem.”

After her parents had died, Gray spent time going through their things, and came across a book of his poems that they’d previously had published while he was still alive.

“And everybody said, ‘Wow, look at this,’” said Gray. “And so the whole story is based on that premise that’s laid out in that poem.”

Gray has created a website for the book, featuring an excerpt, reader comments, and photos of the real people who are described in the book. A description of the story on the website reads as follows: “What is family legacy? Is it property or cash? Or is it more intangible and spiritual? In this multi-generational novel describing the real-life merger of two devout Southern families, a legacy is built over time through affection and struggle. From the decades following the Civil War through the Great Depression, these families made it the fundamental philosophy of their lives to right the wrongs of racism, bravely go to battle against epidemic disease, caretake their workers through the Great Depression, and through it all, storm the heavens with music.”

Gray said that “a whole lot of research” went into the book, but she had a lot of autobiographical data to go on when filling out the story and trying to make it as authentic to the actual people as possible.

“I wasn’t there to hear their conversations. However, I had their letters and I had their diaries. I had all these primary sources of information,” she said. “I had their photographs, so I knew how they dressed. I had six big boxes of data, primary source documentation, that had been passed down from both sides of the family, and I just connected the dots. “If I needed to make up dialogue, and of course I had to make it up, but I knew how they spoke to each other from the letters they wrote to each other, and also how their descendants, i.e. my parents, spoke about them and the tales that they told,” she added. “So I had a lot to go on.”

Gray said she started working on the book on her father’s birthday, September 20, in 2020, during the Covid period. She received some interest from other publishers, “but they wanted me to cut it down” and to not include the photographs, “and I didn’t want to do that.’ ... I’m not out to make any money, I just want to tell a story.”

The book can be bought on Amazon, or via a link from toeachtheothersent.com. It’s available in hardcover ($28), paperback ($17) or on Kindle ($6.99). It’s also available at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro and at Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville. Gray is eager to bring some books to Somerset soon for purchase.

Gray keeps tabs on her old Pulaski County home, and the way that Master Musicians Festival has developed over time, turning from her original showcase for music written by local children to be performed by established artists into a two-day event headlined by the likes of Willie Nelson, Counting Crows, John Prine, Wynonna Judd, Blues Traveler, The Wallflowers, and this year’s ticket-toppers, The Kentucky Headhunters and Jamey Johnson.

“I’m thrilled that it’s still a really vibrant (thing in the community),” said Gray. “It’s more than a cultural event, it’s an economic event. It’s going great, and Tiffany (Finley) is a wonderful (executive) director.”

Gray hopes that not only will people buy and read her book, but that once they do so, they’ll get in touch with her, send her an email, and share their thoughts about it.

“I welcome any comments — good, bad or indifferent,” she said. “If I sell thousands of books, I couldn’t pay back what I have in it, so it’s not about money, it’s just about connecting with people and telling them a really good story, a story about people that I adored. Everybody’s got a family, everybody’s got a family story, and it’s just so cool that people will read the story about our family. I’m so honored by that.”