Meet Nancy Reeder

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nancy Reeder a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nancy, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Maybe it started with my two grandmothers. Both had large families. Each of my parents were the ninth child born, both born in 1919, so by the time I was born my grandmothers were pretty old, but both were tough, taking care of their families as best they could.

One of my goals with storytelling is to share their stories. My storytelling performance, The Resilient Moon, is about my dad’s mom. Fifteen years ago, a cousin who researched our family history, showed me a newspaper article from 1925, about my grandmother. When pregnant with her 12th child, she took drastic measures to end her life, fearing she would not live birthing another baby. Her resilience could only go so far. I had never heard this story before. My performance relates her story intertwined with other women’s stories from the same time period, also including a poem by Charlotte Mew; the story of Artemis, a Greek goddess; and a folk tale called The Handless Maiden.

During my partner, Lonnie’s and my hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,600-mile trail through California, Oregon and Washington, I fell in Washington knowing I messed up my right elbow, maybe breaking it. But I didn’t want to turn back. So we kept going forward. I hiked for 73 miles to the next town. I did not have any pain, but the doctor said after viewing the X-ray, “Yep, you broke it,” He could not believe I hiked that section of very rough trail with this fracture. Yeah, maybe I am pretty resilient, just like my two grandmothers.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I believe my purpose in life has always been to teach and to tell stories. It began in second grade with Mrs. Ziegler when I decided to be a teacher like her. One of my stories is about that decision and how it almost didn’t come to be when I goofed off my first year of college and had to take a class in the summer to be able to return in the fall. I still wonder about my decision-making that year!

I finished college and became an elementary teacher for 23 years. That’s where I realized the power of storytelling. The story behind the concepts was always a goal for me to find and share with my classes. It also included my students writing and telling their own stories. Maybe that power of stories started with my 8th grade history teacher. She told us stories to help us ‘see’ history as it came to life through her eyes. Funny, I can still see her telling something.

I married young, was only nineteen. The marriage lasted many years, with good times, but when my husband left the house to go to work, I never was sure where he went or who he might be with. I felt like a failure, and for many years, could not end the marriage. Then something changed in me. I was trying to meditate, but wasn’t doing so well. My sister invited me to attend a spiritual retreat with her at Mt. Shasta, California. There, everything shifted! When I stood in that auditorium as the retreat began, I said to myself, “Should I be so bold!”

From there, a new life journey began where I ended the marriage and my teaching career at the same time to become a storyteller, now sharing stories with all ages. That was 1997. I received a master’s degree in storytelling from East Tennessee State University in 2009. I recall back when I was teaching third graders and loving every day, a parent who helped out in my classroom told me, “I see you writing a book, something like a journal.” I thought to myself, “What would I have to write about?”

In 2009, my partner, Lonnie and I hiked the Appalachian Trail. My book called Unsheltered, the story of our hike, will be published in the summer of 2025. “Tales from the Trail” is one of my most popular storytelling performances, revisiting my adventures on the Appalachian Trail. Lonnie and I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014. My PCT performance chronicles our 2,650-mile trek from Mexico to Canada. I am currently working on this book of our hike. In my “Grandma Gatewood Returns,” performance, I get in character as Emma Gatewood, who in 1955, became the first woman to solo thru-hike the entire Appalachian Trail.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Openness: One aspect of my journey is being open to whatever comes. Sometimes it is a surprise, and not what I expected. But flowing through it, even if it is difficult, always seems to turn out right for me.

Listening—I’m still working on this one—really listening to someone else even when I feel I know what I’m doing and don’t need other opinions.

Cooperation: Willing to cooperate and work together with everyone being heard. I often am the person who sits back and doesn’t say much at first. This may connect with the introvert aspect of my personality. But I have found in recent years, that my voice is important and needs to be heard, too. At the same time. I have to honor myself and the way I process information. I am the President Elect of the North Carolina Storytelling Guild, and recently another board member said at a meeting, “Sometimes I need to reflect (on a situation), and the next day when I’m in the shower, I have a clearer view.” I just nodded my head when he shared that. I, too, sometimes need that extra time, to express my concerns or my point of view.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

I forgive myself. Usually feeling overwhelmed relates to me taking on too much or doubting my abilities to handle what I felt I could do. As a storyteller and writer, I often find myself with lots of ideas and stories to work on. But as exciting as that is, it can feel impossible to complete. So then, I smile and laugh. I watch a funny show. I relax. And one of my favorite things to do is head outside and walk in the woods.

Nature for me has a positive effect. I go for walks where I can unwind and just listen. Very often I come up with solutions, or even start telling a story, allowing my sub-conscious to lead the way, and it becomes just what I needed.

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