This Novel Was a Family Affair

Pete Crow accomplished a lot in his 82 years. Beloved professor for 35 years at Ferrum College in Virginia. Committed outdoorsman who hiked the Smokies and the Swiss Alps. Environmentalist who helped stop construction of the New River dam in the 1970s. Public health proponent who made mission trips to Honduras. An opponent of racial injustice who accompanied his wife, Beth, on a visit to South Africa, where they collaborated with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 

But in retirement he pursued a personal dream: publishing a novel based on a character called Old Joe Grady. He’d worked on stories about Old Joe for years and would tell them on hiking trips to induce young campers—including his two kids—to keep up.

Pete Crow was a retired Ferrum College professor. (Family photo.)

Old Joe was Crow’s alter ego. He was curious about the world, learned from common people, and strived “to stay alive until he dies.” That means he wants to be perpetually, intensely engaged with life, not just surviving day to day.  The novel was called Staying Alive in Bear Country.

In the stories, Old Joe (he got the nickname as a young man) has a close call with a black bear while camping, learns that his ancestors owned slaves, befriends a Korean War veteran with PTSD, and has other experiences that match Crow’s life. Crow read some of the stories on public radio and received a positive response.

He’d already published a non-fiction book in 2007 about life in Appalachian coal towns titled Do, Die or Get Along. After Crow retired from the Ferrum English department, he and his wife moved to Raleigh, NC, and he looked for a publisher for Staying Alive in Bear Country. 

He signed a contract with Black Rose Writing, a Texas-based independent publisher, on May 26, 2025. (Full disclosure: Black Rose is my publisher, too.) But Crow, who’d had health problems in his later years, died two months later at age 82. Doctors think he’d developed Multiple Myeloma.

The family refused to let Crow’s dream disappear. The book still needed polishing and Black Rose publisher Reagan Rothe advised them how to proceed. This would pose a challenge because all the family members had jobs and the Black Rose publishing process imposes multiple deadlines.

Pete’s son, Rob, a defense attorney in Oregon, worked with a Ferrum College professor to polish the manuscript and meet each deadline in the publishing process. Crow’s wife of 48 years, Beth, who works in youth missions for the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, painted a watercolor of a black bear that became the novel’s book cover. Daughter Amy, a public school teacher in Raleigh, designed promotional and publicity materials for the book. An author website, petercrowauthor.com, was created.

They met all the deadlines. The family was so invested in the book’s success that they attended AuthorFest, a writer’s conference in Nashville sponsored by Black Rose Writing, the publisher. They were at the conference when the book’s publication date fell on July 30, 2026. Fittingly, that was the one-year anniversary of Pete Crow’s death. 

I attended the conference and was happy to become acquainted with Beth, Rob, and Amy. At first I was simply happy to meet somebody from North Carolina, my home state. When I heard their story, I knew I had to tell it. It’s a great example of pulling a positive outcome from a mournful situation.

As Rob wrote in the acknowledgements, “Reading Dad’s book and helping get it through to publication has been a cathartic way to cope with his sudden death, despite also being at times an overwhelmingly emotional experience.” 

It sounds like Old Joe is still passing along wisdom, even in death.