Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part miniseries on local author Rachel Smalley and her forthcoming book Tufted: The Stitch and Story of Catherine Evans Whitener. Click here to read Part 1, which tells the backstory of the book.
Rachel Smalley grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains. As a child, she would sit with her Granny and listen to stories about her own childhood in a place called Grassy Fork Holler – stories that have stuck with Rachel throughout her life.
Stories about making do. About women who were resourceful and tough. About a way of life that might not make it into many Hollywood scripts, but is deeply true and authentically inspiring.
When Rachel first heard about Catherine Evans Whitener decades later, something clicked. A 15-year-old girl in Northwest Georgia, a bedspread, and an idea that became an industry.
“[My Granny] and Catherine would have understood each other instantly,” Rachel says, “They were bound by the same landscape, resourcefulness, and grit.”
Now Rachel has written Tufted, a children’s picture book about Catherine that launches in Fall 2026. She’s spent years researching, writing, fundraising, and working with historians to get Catherine’s story right. (Read the full story of how the book came to be in Part 1.)
But Tufted isn’t just about one book or one girl. It’s about something bigger: bringing Appalachian stories into the light.
A word worth reclaiming
Rachel has a term for women like Catherine and her Granny. She calls them “Hillbetties.”
It’s a deliberate reclaiming of “hillbilly,” a word that’s been used to diminish and dismiss people from the region. Rachel wants to flip it around. To honor it and show what these women are capable of. What they have built and are building now.
“I’m a big proponent of Appalachian storytelling,” Rachel says. “Especially anytime you can bring the story of someone who had such a tremendous impact on the economy of Appalachia the way [Catherine] did.”
Catherine’s tufting stitch didn’t just create bedspreads. It gave women across Northwest Georgia a way to earn money during the Great Depression. It built Dalton into the Bedspread Center of the World, and eventually the Carpet Capital. Before Catherine died, the carpet industry was worth a billion dollars.
That’s the kind of impact that deserves to be remembered. Celebrated.
But Appalachian voices, especially women’s voices, are too often left out of mainstream publishing. Rachel wants to change that, one story at a time.
A blueprint for dreamers
Rachel has lived in Dalton for over 30 years. She’s taught in Whitfield County schools and knows the kids in this community. She knows what they need to see.
“A lot of kids in our community don’t necessarily have the opportunity to maybe get a four-year college degree,” Rachel says. But Catherine’s story shows them something important: “To see the way Cathy took something that she was just really passionate about and had a great love for, and turned it into something.”
You don’t need venture capital. You don’t need a graduate-level education. You need curiosity, passion, and perseverance.
Catherine was twelve when she first saw a candlewick bedspread, and fifteen when she made her own. That’s the age when kids start imagining what might be possible for them. When they start wondering, “what is my life going to look like?”
Rachel hopes they’ll see Catherine and think: maybe me too.
Community storytelling
Rachel has always seen this project as bigger than herself.
She worked closely with historians from the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society and the Bandy Heritage Center throughout the writing process to ensure every detail was accurate. She hosted a luncheon for what she calls “the matriarchs of the Historical Society” and read them the manuscript, inviting their feedback.
The book has a number of community partners, including the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia, Dalton State College, the Creative Arts Guild, Believe Greater Dalton, and the Junior Achievement Discovery Center.
Rachel has worked with Anna Adamson at Believe Greater Dalton to secure funding to provide copies of Tufted to sixth graders in Dalton City Schools and Whitfield County. Now they are looking for donors to help give the book to students throughout the region. The Junior Achievement Discovery Center, with its focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, is partnering to help make it happen.
“I really have tried to see it as a gift to the community,” Rachel says, “and not like a vanity project.”
This is a community coming together to tell its own story. And just like Catherine taught her “thimble and needle ladies” without gatekeeping, Rachel has invited the community in at every step.
All the profits from Tufted will go to the Appalachian Historic Preservation Fund, which Rachel established through the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia as a way to support more Appalachian storytelling. She is already working on other stories from the region, and she hopes the fund can help bring more of these voices into print.
Carrying the legacy
There’s a thread that runs from Catherine Evans Whitener to Grassy Fork Holler to the Dalton youth who will hold Tufted in their hands next year.
It’s a thread about stories mattering. About seeing yourself reflected in history. About knowing where you come from so you can imagine where you might go.
“Catherine showed us that Dalton is somewhere an idea can become an industry,” Rachel says.
Rachel’s story shows us something, too: that one person, believing in a story, can spark something much bigger than herself.
When the book releases in Fall 2026, Rachel won’t just be an author. She’ll be carrying forward a legacy of innovative, hardworking Appalachian women who brought their talent and passion to make their communities better.
For more than twenty years, Rachel has felt a calling to bring Catherine’s story into the town she calls home. Now that calling is coming to fruition.
“I really just kind of want to play a role in sharing it.”
Sounds like something a Hillbetty would say.
About Tufted and the Appalachian Historic Preservation Fund
Rachel Smalley’s children’s picture book Tufted: The Stitch and Story of Catherine Evans Whitener launches Fall 2026 and tells the story of Catherine Evans Whitener, whose tufting stitch launched Dalton’s bedspread and carpet industries. Rachel is working to provide copies to sixth graders through a partnership with Believe Greater Dalton and the Junior Achievement Discovery Center. All profits from Tufted support the Appalachian Historic Preservation Fund, which exists to bring more Appalachian voices into publishing. Follow Rachel’s journey on Instagram at @readrachelsbooks.
