NOTES – 1939

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PUBLICATIONS PMSS
NOTES 1939
October

NOTES – 1939
“Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School”
October

GALLERY: NOTES – 1939 October

…[H]ave you ever walked through a forest that is soon to be mercilessly cut while life is at it fullest? Almost it seems that the trees themselves…already know their fate and await their end in a sad loneliness.

TAGS: NOTES – 1939 OCTOBER: Greasy Creek, Macie’s [Mason’s] Creek, Perry County, Viper KY, “Hen” Turner, Rockhouse, Leslie County, Stoney Fork, Line Fork, Berea College, road-building, Good Health Association, Pine Mountain Institute, Uncle William Creech, Ethel de Long Zande, Miss Katherine Pettit, Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards

TRANSCRIPTION: NOTES – 1938 OCTOBER

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NOTES FROM THE
PINE MOUNTAIN
SETTLEMENT SCHOOL

PINE MOUNTAIN * HARLAN COUNTY * KENTUCKY
Copyright, 1939, by Pine Mountain Settlement School, Inc.

Volume XII     OCTOBER, 1939    Number I

THIS summer a friend and I walked the trail over which so many Pine Mountain students from Perry and Leslie Counties have walked, from the headwaters of Greasy Creek, where the school is located, to where Macie’s Creek empties into the North Fork of the Kentucky River at Viper. I should like to share with you some of the impressions of this trip.

Greasy Creek is a main thoroughfare as creeks go, and after resting a moment at “Hen” Turner‘s little blacksmith shop we turned up Rockhouse, glad for the seclusion and coolness of the less open thoroughfare, although at that hour the sun was only faintly penetrating the early mountain mists.

Along Rockhouse the quietness is never broken by the motors of the logging trucks which weave from one side to the other through the waters of Greasy carrying out what little useful timber remains scattered here and there along its watersheds. The increasing pressure of life in the mountains demands its final toll of timber and from this there is no escape. Far up the creek on the porch of the first house rows of shucky- beans caught our eyes, drying against the time when their flavor will be blended with that of the hog lying in his shaded hole on “yon side” of the paling fence. Pausing to rest, now that the noise of our own efforts in climbing the trail had ceased, the quietness and solitude pressed very close. The absence of people and the sound of a hoe striking rock on the hillside told that the family was in the cornfield. A cowbell, plaintive and far away, quickened the imagination stirring up memories that weighed down what was seen. For a brief moment there flooded over us a profound intimation of the loneliness that is the substance of life here. We tried to empty from our thoughts, almost morbidly one by one, the things which such loneliness would forbid our having; and there was a melancholy strain in what remained.

As I thought of a child coming to Pine Mountain from these hills, I asked myself, “How can we ever know the distance in time and experience such a child must traverse?” Now I understand better the yearnings of some of our boys to forsake the bustle and routine of the school and find again the Nirvana of a lonely mountain hollow.

On the crest of the ridge where the creek heads up we sat down to rest. A mule, a boy, and a man with a gun passed by, and my companion remarked, “A man don’t feel right back here lessen he has something over his shoulder.” Looking down into the hollow, we could see the last house on the creek. It was from here, one day the winter before last, they carried…

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…Noah Spark’s wife to the mouth of Greasy on a stretcher and then up the rocky creek bed in a truck. Twenty-one gallstones were removed that night. She had seen neither doctor nor nurse until after they brought her out, because the pain was no longer bearable.

Near the mouth of Roan we paused to give election news, already two days old, to an eager citizen who must wait to have all his news “norrated”. Soon we were on the main trail again, for Cutshin gathers waters from many branches. In the summer, flowing leisurely, it pauses in places where the winter torrents have worn holes beside large rocks on sharp bends making a cool, deep pool of green water where bass loll. Turning off on the right hand fork we passed an old mill, the logs hand hewn and silvered in the sun. Inside the mill and below us was the patterned wheel worn smooth by rushing waters. Moved by the regularity of its use among the people, we saw even more keenly the role that the water-wheel played — a rite more necessary for existence than that for the soul.

For a long distance we saw no house as we wound through the hollows following the drying creek-bed to its head. We could hear only the hum of the insects and the occasional call of a bird. So we were surprised to hear the sound of children’s voices and to come suddenly upon a clearing. But the mountains are like that, easily concealing in their fastness unknown numbers of seldom penetrated hollows in which some man and his wife have made their home where children are reared. The narrow span between the ridges on either side almost literally marks off the area of their life and their imagination, cutting them off from the world outside. The voices came from a little one-room school; and there in the midst of thirty-odd children was Alice, their teacher, who had graduated from Pine Mountain four years ago.

Once we stopped at a log cabin for a drink of water. We were strangers; so there was silence as we drank from the unrinsed gourd the water now low in the family water bucket. We thanked them and then went on. But it was not easy to shake off the gracious quality of that moment, which for the time being almost embarrassed us with its reality. We were strangers, and without knowing where we were from or where we were going, they permitted us to share with them the unwashed cup from which they drink. How fundamental is life here in the mountains! You take for granted the water which flows into your kitchens without an effort on your part. But here it is different. Water is life. I felt a strange brotherhood with the unknown man who gave us a drink — and I recalled too — Uncle William [Creech] stressed in his plea to Miss [Katherine] Pettit and Mrs. [Ethel de Long] Zande that there was water here at Pine Mountain.

All through the journey we were reminded again and again of those who had walked this same trail to Pine Mountain — and of their accomplishments. They came seeking to overcome disadvantages so overpowering that many have not yet had the vision or the will to break away from them.

On Stoney Fork of Leatherwood second growth timber — now doomed as the logging tracks reach up the winding valley below — gives indication of what once was everywhere. Few places like this remain near here. Great oaks, maples, and poplars spread their shade over the steep, rocky trail. Much has been written about trees. But have you ever walked through a forest that is soon to be mercilessly cut while life is at its fullest? Almost it seems that the trees themselves, like Jephthah’s daughter, already know their fate and await their end in a sad loveliness.

Beneath their shade that morning, two boys behind a mule and sled had followed the three mile trail from their home in a clearing above to the lumber camp below. There they sold what vegetables the sled would carry. Here was a part of two hard earned entrance…

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…fees that came to Pine Mountain not long ago. We wondered how many others were earned so eagerly.

AT BEREA

Last week we visited the three latest Pine Mountain students to arrive at Berea College. We are proud of all three, but I should like to tell you about June, because she is one who knows part of the journey I have just told you about. As a child she walked each day the six mile round trip from her home up the creek to the elementary school at the mouth. Then she came to Pine Mountain where she spent much time working with the “Community Group” and in our small hospital. Now she is at the Training School for Nurses at Berea where she is excelling in that which Pine Mountain has always stressed — working with one’s hands.

A ROAD IS BUILT

Between Pine Mountain and “The Cabin” on Line Fork a newly made stretch of road extends for several hundred feet. It leaves the old wagon road, which follows the jagged, rocky creek-bed under the thick rhododendrons, for higher ground. The men from Line Fork and Bear Branch dug it by hand. They gather each Saturday to continue the road-making until they are certain that the school doctor and his helpers will be able to drive to “The Cabin” all year around for a weekly clinic.

GOOD HEALTH ASSOCIATION

Now there are 180 paid members in “The Good Health Association”, and most of these memberships represent whole families. The school has tried to limit its service to an area of about 300 square miles which is part of a much larger area where there is no doctor, but the steadily increasing number of patients in the small Infirmary represents a real problem. We are troubled that our over worked nurse who gives so generously of herself has several times recently had to give over her small room to some patient whom she could not turn away.

PINE MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE

In the rural sections of the mountains, eight out of ten children who start in the first grade do not get to eighth grade; so Pine Mountain continues to be concerned with this problem. During an entire week in the past month, all of the fifty-seven one and two room teachers in this county met at Pine Mountain where, together with leading citizens of the county and a staff of state and national leaders, as much light as possible was brought to bear on this problem. The teachers were guided through ways of making their schools more practical and more sensitive to the needs of mountain boys and girls. A suggestive one-room school was set up. It included a kitchen with a stove, woodworking, reading and art corners — with adequate equipment — all of which could be purchased for less than twenty dollars. A county-wide program was planned by superintendent and teachers, and already there are evidences here and there of the constructive influence of the Institute.

At the end of the week an elderly teacher who had had a tendency to discredit the experts and any help they might give him said, “Hit looks like if a man don’t get down to work on this school-teaching business, he’d better git him another job.”

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

“Take a Pine Mountain student and put him amongst another group and you can pick him out in no time” is part of a father’s proud evaluation of Pine Mountain’s work. This gives confidence and tells a lot. But, because of our deep sense of obligation to those whose gifts make Pine Mountain possible the school is constantly trying to see its work objectively. In a detailed analysis recently made of 226 representative American schools by the Cooperative Study of Secondary School Standards, Pine Mountain (even though it was handicapped by the fact…

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…that reorganization of the library at the time of the evaluation undoubtedly lowered the score considerably) ranked 81 on the scale of 100. The highest sectional norm in America is 65.

COMING CALENDAR

With this issue of the “Notes” comes the last of the quarterly calendars, with woodcuts by John A. Spelman III, printed here at Pine Mountain. Before the end of this year we hope to send you a complete calendar for next year, somewhat similar in pattern to the one sent two years ago. These may be used for Christmas gifts or greetings. If you feel you can use more than one copy, won’t you let us know soon so that we may plan to print as many as you need?

WE NEED

Woolen blankets
Sheets
Bath towels
Dish towels
Bed spreads
Christmas gifts for boys and girls of high school age
An electric refrigerator for the Infirmary; it has none at present

 *   *    *

Thirty cents will feed a student for one day.
Ten dollars will feed a student for one month.

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NOTES – 1938
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NOTES – 1940

See Also:
MEDICAL Guide
PUBLICATIONS PMSS Calendars Guide
RYGI RURAL YOUTH GUIDANCE INSTITUTES Guide By Year

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