Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 02: GOVERNANCE
Katherine Pettit and Ethel de Long
Report to the Board
May 24, 1913

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TAGS: Director’s report to the PMSS Board, Ethel de Long Zande, Katherine Pettit, Mary Rockwell Hook, land survey, Big Log, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Arnold, Fedelandral Department of Agriculture, Mr. Bryant, UK Agricultural Department, Philip Norcross, reservoir, Miss Norma F. Stoughton, Miss [Clara] Davis, Fitzhugh Draughn, Bertha Creech Lewis, food preparation, William Creech, Mr. McSwain, Berea College, Frick Company saw-mill, Elizabeth Hench

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GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report May 24

TRANSCRIPTION

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[Letterhead]
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MISS KATHERINE PETTIT
MISS ETHEL DE LONG

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

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

May 24th, 1913.

Miss Pettit and I want to tell all our Board Members how affairs are going with the Pine Mountain School, once a month. We are really started now, and there is much that you ought to know about.

Miss Pettit came over the tenth of April and I followed on the tenth of May. We are living in a frame house of five rooms loaned to us by a neighbor, who is also letting us have an old storehouse. We are using the storehouse to keep all our supplies in and could hardly manage without it, for we are so thoroughly in the country that we can’t buy anything, but must depend upon our own resources. The house is full to overflowing, and our guest room is the front porch. 

When our land was surveyed there proved to be two hundred and thirty acres, instead of one hundred and eight. Some of it has already been cultivated, but most of it is in timber, and very fine timber, too. We have splendid coal on the land and very good building stone, both of which will make valuable assets for us.

The people over here cut during the winter beautiful poplar logs for our house, and about sixty thousand feet of timber for flooring and ceiling, the timber and the labor both being their donation to the School. Their warm welcome and hearty co-operation are very inspiring. Of course they can hardly wait for us to get a school building, but it will be at least a year before we can begin such a building.

Last week, Miss Mary Rockwell, a Kansas City architect, who is giving her services, spent the entire week here helping us plan the grouping of buildings and getting us started on the log house. We feel ourselves most fortunate in having her, not only because we have no money to pay a professional architect, but also because her wide knowledge of various architectural types, gained from years of life in Spain and Italy and very extensive travel, has given her buildings a real distinction.

Mr. Burgess, who is in charge of all buildings at Berea, Mr. Arnold from the Federal Department of Agriculture, and Mr. Bryant from the Agricultural Department of State University, were here last week also, to give us their advice on the best use of our land and the best disposal of the buildings we hope to have in the course of time. We expect very soon Mr. Philip Norcross, an engineer from Atlanta, to come and give us directions for building a reservoir and septic tanks. He, like all the other counselors, is giving his services.

Our family at present consists of Miss Pettit and me, Miss Stoughton, the secretary, Miss [Clara] Davis, the trained nurse, Fitzhugh [Draughn] whom you may remember as one of our Hindman boys, and Uncle William Creech‘s granddaughter, Bertha, who helps in the kitchen. Some neighbor children drop in to help nearly every day, and they are certainly getting training along very necessary lines from Miss Pettit and Miss Davis. I wish you could see Miss Pettit making them clean up the yard. A piece of string three inches long does not escape her, and…

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…an egg shell she can see at a distance of fifty yards. I often think, how inwardly surprised the silent and acquiescent children must be over our desire for a clean yard.

We are expecting two boys from Berea to be here this summer and help with the building. June 14th Mr. [Horace] McSwain, who is just graduating from the Department of Agriculture at Berea, will come to begin his duties as superintendent of our farm and forestry work. He has had a great deal of experience in farming and several years work in managing a saw-mill, which is a great advantage for us, since a large part of our work for the next year must be in getting timber ready for new buildings. He has had a course in forestry and will go over our School land at once, getting the trees that are ripe cut down. He will also get our bottom lands drained ready for planting. The other work of the summer will be Sunday School work, under Mr. McSwain’s charge, a Saturday afternoon club for boys and girls, Miss Davis’ work, and the building of our seven room log house which we hope to have ready to live in next winter. The men are ready to put in the foundation for that now. We hope to get an experienced builder to supervise the construction of the house, for the men whom we can get here, though their wages are high because of the new railroad towns springing up across the Mountain, are not good workmen.

We want to co-operate with the public schools when they open the first of July. There are three district schools within a radius of four miles and we hope that we may have a good teacher who will stay a week about in each place assisting the country teacher with the reading, writing and numberwork which are most poorly taught, and with singing and handwork. The public school authorities are anxious to co-operate with us and would be very glad if we would choose the teachers, but we think our first plan better. A young woman just graduating from Radcliffe has offered her services for next winter, and she will probably take up this line of work. We could not possibly afford next year to engage a teacher for this work.

We are about to place an order with the Frick Company of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, for a saw-mill. The only saw-mill anywhere around here is so dilapidated as to be almost useless, and we feel that the best economy for us is to have a mill of our own, since we shall probably be needing it for several years. The Frick people are giving us splendid discounts, but we shall be under very heavy expense for hauling, since we must pay seventy cents a hundred for hauling for everything that comes to us from the outside world.

I want to tell you of the salaries we are paying, so that you can know something of our monthly expenses, but am unable to tell you what the housekeeper we hope to get from Berea will receive. We feel it is necessary to have someone especially for this work, and since we can find no volunteer to undertake it we have written to Berea to see if anyone just graduating from their Domestic Science Department will undertake the work. With the inefficient help we can get from the children here, someone must give her entire time to this work.

Farmer’s salary —- $75.00 per month
Nurse’s salary ——   41.67 per month
Secretary’s salary —  45.00 per month
Miss de Long  ——- 133.33 per month
Fitzhugh Draughn — 40.00 per month and board
Bertha Lewis ———   7.00 per month and board

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Fitzhugh will be able to run the saw-mill when it comes, and is valuable to us in many ways. He left a very good position at Jenkins, Kentucky, to come here to help us. 

I want also to tell you our needs:  

Bed linen
Table linen
Blankets
Telescope organ
Sewing machine
Washing machine
Clothes wringer
Fine tooth combs

Tooth brushes
Something to heal the itch
Aprons, for children of various sizes who come in to help us
Towels
Sewing material, and several bolts of unbleached muslin.

Besides this we are most anxious to raise money. The subscription cards are now ready and may be obtained from the Secretary, Miss [Elizabeth] Hench We of course are interested in large gifts, but we know so well the value of small contributions that we want every Member of the Board to realize just how worthwhile we feel the interest is of people who can give only a dollar a year. We would like to have a mailing list of three thousand people who gave us a dollar a year. Miss Hench also has letters describing the country over here and our plans for a school, which she will mail to any address you may wish. We shall soon have a leaflet printed which you may get from her to put in letters. We hope every Member of the Board will do everything possible to help us with the financial end by distributing the subscription cards yourselves or by writing to the Executive Committee names of people whom it would be wise to see personally. I shall see as many people as possible this summer and shall do what I can at various summer places where I can get a personal introduction, probably mostly in the Adirondacks. If any of you can suggest a summer place where you know some of the guests I should be very glad to try to go there if you think it worthwhile. We must raise the money this next year for the buildings we ought to put up next summer, that is, a school house, the dining room building, and the dormitory.

If there are any things you want to know about the Settlement not covered in this letter, please write to us and ask. We want you to be in as close touch as possible with our work. We appreciate to the full your interest and faith in the School, and want you always to feel free to give us advice, and, whenever you can, come to see us.

Very sincerely yours,
[Unsigned; apparently Ethel de Long]

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GALLERY: GOVERNANCE de Long BOT Report May 24

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See Also:
GOVERNANCE – An Overview
GOVERNANCE Guide

GOVERNANCE Directors Annual Reports to BOT GUIDE

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