The Clarks: An Account of a Real Displaced Family

During our interview with Dr. and Mrs. Perdue, they told a story about one of their neighbors, the Clarks. The Clarks were one of the families that was displaced from the Shenandoah National Park region. When Charles and Nancy Perdue first met the Clarks, they thought they were just nice, ordinary people who they bought fresh eggs from down the road. Then they discovered they were displaced from the mountains and were very surprised.

Before the Perdues had met the Clarks they had only heard the stereotypes and had never met someone that had been truly displaced from their home in the mountains. Finally meeting someone that had been displaced, they became interested and began to wonder.

Soon, they were totally engrossed in the subject of the displacement of people from the Shenandoah area during the Great Depression. To this day, they are still looking through old documents and census records, working on the same subject in the archives of the University of Virginia.