Nancy Emmaline Callahan Dollar, a six-foot-tall,
charismatic, pipe-smoking Cherokee woman
who lived to be 105 years old
B
eing my age and growing up in
DeKalb County meant hearing amaz-
ing stories about Granny Dollar (Nan-
cy Emmaline Callahan Dollar), a six-foot-tall,
charismatic, pipe-smoking Cherokee woman
who lived to be 105 years old. Three years ago,
after reading some articles about her, I decided
to write the novel.
Douglas Brandon, the DeKalb County histo-
rian, played a huge part. He uncovered every
article and story he could find that even re-
motely mentioned her, and the task of piecing
together a realistic depiction of her incredible
life seemed plausible.
It all began in 1928 when the Progressive
Farmer Magazine featured a full-page article
about her. After that, she was thrust into the
limelight of celebrity status as other reporters
and journalists often sought her out. She loved
the attention.
There was only one problem—the Progres-
sive Farmer article was MIA. The only known
actual copy of it was last seen in 1971, but no
one knows what happened to it. Most of the
stories written about her mention it and some
even share tidbits from the article, but for all
practical purposes, it appeared to be lost to
history.
Knowing I could not do this project justice
without the original work, I set out to find it, if
it still existed. The folks at the Northeast Com-
munity College Library came to the rescue.
They contacted every library in the country
until they found what they were looking for
at the Raleigh, North Carolina Public Library.
The Progressive Farmer was located in Raleigh
before relocating to Birmingham, and they
had every issue on microfilm.
Neal Wooten, with
the help of local
historians, wrote a
book about Granny
Dollar, a legend in
DeKalb County.
CULLMAN COUNTY SENIOR MAGAZINE
SPRING 2020 | 9