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Mrs. Nelson was born Carrie Lee Dotson in Wise, Va., in the Cumberland Mountains of Appalachia, the ninth of 10 children, and she grew up in an area known as “Dotson Holler.”

In the past three decades, only 15 people have completed Cantrell’s Barkley Marathons, a 100-mile venture over unmarked terrain in the Cumberland Mountains in eastern Tennessee.

By early afternoon Saturday, more than 80 Letcher County residents lined up outside an unassuming house overlooking the once-booming coal town of Jenkins, tucked into the shadow of the Cumberland Mountains on the Virginia border.

The youngest of 14 children, Ms. Ritchie grew up in Kentucky’s Cumberland Mountains, where her family had lived since the 18th century.

It related how the barrier of the Cumberland Mountains stymied expansion in the 1700s.