Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 04: ADMINISTRATION
Ethel de Long Zande Report to Board of Directors
October 6, 1913

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TAGS: Ethel de Long Zande, fundraising literature, Pine Mountain Settlement School promotion, promotional literature, advancement literature, writings, talks, literary production, first Laden Trail Road appeal

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GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report October 6

[The first report to BOT was dated September 6, 1913.]

TRANSCRIPTION

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PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL
PINE MOUNTAIN, HARLAN CO.,
KENTUCKY

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MISS KATHERINE PETTIT
MISS ETHEL DE LONG

TREASURER
C.N. MANNING
SECURITY TRUST CO.
LEXINGTON, KY.

October 6th, 1913.

I wonder if it will be possible to tell you of the month of September without gaining the inconvenient reputation of being the “writin’est woman”. So many important things have occurred to this new six months’ old School that its sponsors surely must be informed of its September history.

First, as to financial matters. In July it seemed to us an almost impossible burden to raise the two thousand dollars needed for timber when we had to work for current expenses and the building fund. In fact, when it was necessary to decide the matter definitely we had raised less than five hundred dollars for timber and could secure it only by an agreement to pay the remaining fifteen hundred before February first, nineteen fourteen. Even on these terms we could not have bought it except for the owner’s keen interest in the School, for he has sold us the boundary at half the price offered him by the new lumber company and has inconvenienced himself considerably by waiting for the money. The best part of the story is that Miss [Viola] Sullivan, our Massachusetts Board Member, has just written us that she herself will be responsible for the remaining fifteen hundred if she cannot raise it. We now have, without incurring any debt, a permanent timber supply which ought in future to bring us some revenue also.

We are sending out this week an appeal for ten thousand dollars to use in building the school house. I suppose our only way of getting it will be in a multitude of small sums, but we believe if we all work together that we can raise this amount during the winter so as to be ready for building early in the spring. Please help us in every way that you can. Do you know any people to whom we may send this appeal or whom a personal letter from us or from you might interest ? If you want extra copies of the appeal or of the leaflet giving Uncle William‘s reasons, send to Miss Elizabeth Hench, …Talbott Avenue, Indianapolis.

The largest sum that has ever been given to this School came to it unsolicited just a week ago through one of our Lexington Board Members, Mrs. Morton, an anonymous gift of six thousand dollars to be used for some special purpose. It will go for the building of a family house containing kitchen, dining room, laundry and sleeping rooms for some of our girls. You will understand the delight we feel in being able to build this house at the same time with the central settlement building and in the fact that this largest gift came from Kentuckians.

“It was your shoot again’ story that brought it to you”, wrote Mrs. Morton to Miss Pettit, and perhaps you will like to hear this lucky tale. Several of us went over to a “funeralizing” on Cutshin one Sunday last month, some walking, some on nags. About the time the third preacher said “My remarks may be somewhat scatterin’ but I promise ye I’ll confine my-…

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…self within Genesis and Revelation”, the walkers had to leave in order to get home by dark. They came over the “moonshiners’ trail” from the waters of Cutshin to the waters of Greasy, and as they walked up the Creek, past the little school house where a quiet Sunday evening meeting was going on, past the homes where a few left-behinds were doing the night work or were ready to come out to the fence for a talk or a hospitable offer of a particularly fine muskmelon, Miss Pettit remarked on the lovely calm of the day, which required the word Sabbath, she said, fully to express it. Half an hour later I came up the Creek with the horseback party — several girls and boys and Lewis Turner, notorious for his meanness and at present “warred up agin his seven brothers and most of his neighbors.” The girls saw a man skulking in the bushes on the hill with his gun pointed directly at Lewis. They began to call to each other to ride up away from Lewis, but before we had time to leave him more than a dozen feet behind, the man fired. Lewis had no gun but he was equal to the occasion. He laughed and cried “Shoot again!” Dave shot again, and after every “shoot” Lewis called “Shoot again!” all the while spurring his horse to get to his own gun. Looking back we saw him leap off his horse at his own door. In no time he was out with his box Winchester that everybody knows will “shoot a steel ball straight through a great log,” answering the challenge with shot after shot. And from down Greasy, just around the bend came Dave’s defiant answering shot. Then from the woods up Greasy, where one of Lewis’ brothers lives, came more shots, and another brother fired his gun half a dozen times. Then it began up Little Laurel Creek all over again, the challenge and the defiance, and instead of Sabbath there was primitive, feudal strife, splendidly summed up in that mocking, fearless “Shoot again!”

While two of our Board Members have been of such large financial help, Miss Hench, the Secretary of the Board, has taken the responsibility of managing the printing and distribution of our literature. Since we have decided to send each quarter some report or circular about the work to everyone on our mailing list, Miss Hench’s services to the School represent much time and thought.

We are glad to report that Dr. Willis H. Butler of the Old South Church in Boston has consented to serve as a Trustee. We hope to find trustees as suitable in New York, Chicago, Louisville and Philadelphia, so that at our next Board Meeting we may have the full quota of members. The date for this Meeting will be January 3rd, the place Lexington, Kentucky, and we hope that many of you will be present.

We plan to get out a Pine Mountain School calendar to be ready for the holiday sale. The University Press of Cambridge is helping us to use our pictures and other material effectively. We shall send you each a sample copy as soon as they are printed, hoping that you will be able to sell some for us.

In the effort to get ten thousand dollars in annual subscriptions for our running expenses I must spend most of this winter travelling. We have at present only $470.50 coming in through these subscriptions. Of this amount something over $150 was secured in my three weeks of speaking this August, besides $741.69 in cash. While these are not large sums in comparison with the needs of the School we feel that, considering we must build up our friendships among total strangers, it was an extremely worth while trip and will lead to large helpfulness in the future. I am…

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…sending you a schedule of my probable dates and shall be glad for help in using all the time effectively. I am trying to get appointments to speak before D.A.R’s, literary and philanthropic societies, social clubs, church and missionary organizations.

Although our volunteer teacher went back to her regular work in August, school is still going on, with Miss Ellen Merrill of Plainfield, New Jersey, giving her services. She teaches the little children in the morning and beginning today has the older ones in the afternoon. As she must leave early in January and there are a number of pupils in the “dees- trict” schools who are begging us to teach a winter school, since theirs close January first, we hope to find another volunteer for three or four months of winter teaching.

This last month we have been working on the grounds, ditching the low places, cutting the weeds and underbrush from the Creek bank so that it will not overflow the bottoms, and changing the course of the stream so as to save valuable pieces of land. We have had at least two hundred thousand feet of fine lumber cut from our own forest. We wish you could see Columbus [Creech] with his two yoke of oxen bringing down the magnificent chestnut logs to the saw mill. We feel that this month will count very largely next spring.

We achieved our first social success on Saturday last when we christened our new basketball set, given by Mrs. [George] Hazen of New York. We invited everyone to a sweet potato roast, and everyone came, bringing “taters”, chicken, squirrels, even fresh honey and a fine live turkey. While some roasted the squirrel and chicken in hunter’s style over great fires, others played ball. Lewis Turner of “shoot again” fame played in the same game with the men he is “warred up agin”. The greatest enthusiasm appeared in the fathers of families, men who have ten or twelve children, and so joyfully did they play that the young folks said “Hope those old men don’t come next week, so’s to give us a chance.” After supper some of the boys and girls ran sets, “Caging the Bird”, “The Wild Goose Chase”, etc. There could not have been a more charming scene, the new moon just rising over the long line of Pine Mountain and the gay, flying figures dancing on our beautiful playground, while the banjo strummer picked and the dancing boys half chanted, half sung the orders for the figures,

“Balance ei-eight – Keep ’em stra-aight!”

“Killicrankie is my song,
I sing and dance it all along,
From my elbow to my toe,
     How much further can I go ?”

We have had also in the last week a meeting of our Local Advisory Board. We then determined to make a great effort to get a good graded road over Pine Mountain from the railroad so as to reduce our enormous hauling expenses, which now amount to seventy cents per hundred pounds. A dozen citizens plan to appear before the fiscal court in Harlan Town next Tuesday to petition for funds for this purpose and they have asked me to make a speech, presenting the case for the School. We decided also to try to secure everyone’s co-operation in getting our land in order as…

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…cheaply as possible and believe we can count on each citizen’s free labor at least two days in every year. This will save the School several hundred dollars annually and will also be evidence of the community’s interest to our outside friends.

We shall report to you each month as to the ten thousand dollar building fund. Do you not think Uncle William’s reasons which he gave to us of his own accord are the most effective appeal a school could possibly have ?

Yours sincerely,
[Signed] Ethel de Long

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GALLERY: GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report October 6

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See Also:
ADMIN GENERAL 1913 Correspondence External October 10 – Fundraising letter to Mrs. George Hazen from Ethel de Long

GOVERNANCE – An Introduction
GOVERNANCE Directors Annual Reports to BOT GUIDE
GOVERNANCE Guide

Return To:
ETHEL DE LONG ZANDE Writings and Publications
GOVERNANCE 1913 Directors Annual Reports to BOT