She grew up in Ward's Gap in the early 1900's. Vera lived in a small cabin with five sisters, one brother and her parents. A few years before her death in 2004, Vera shared with Oma stories of the harsh life in the mountains. Now her daughter-in-law, Oma, is writing a book preserving Vera's stories of growing up and living in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In this segment of WFDD's Real People, Real Stories, guest commentator Oma Boyd retells one foreboding story of what Vera described as, 'a bad sign'.