Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PUBLICATIONS PMSS
NOTES 1946
January, May, November

NOTES – 1946

“Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School”
January, May & November

[NOTE: Text has been slightly edited for clarity.]

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GALLERY: NOTES – 1946 January

The words Humanity, Truth, Honesty and Self-Control are carved on the four stone pillars supporting the Schoolhouse at Pine Mountain.

TAGS: NOTES – 1946 JANUARY: 100th birthday anniversary, Mr. Manning, Big Log, Lean-to, Schoolhouse, Mr. Benjamin, Dr. Francis S. Hutchins, Brit Wilder, Mrs. Marguerite Butler Bidstrup, Henry Creech, Delia Creech, Rev. Lewis Lyttle, school song, lyrics, religion, linguistics, The Pine Cone, picnics, foodways, Little Laurel, Isaac’s Run, Shell Branch

TRANSCRIPTION: NOTES – 1946 January

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NOTES FROM THE
PINE MOUNTAIN
SETTLEMENT SCHOOL

PINE MOUNTAIN * HARLAN COUNTY * KENTUCKY

Volume XIX     JANUARY, 1946    Number I

OCTOBER 28th was a day which will long stay in our minds and hearts, the kind of day which few of us can expect to see again, when Pine Mountain School, with trustees, staff, friends, and neighbors, paid homage to the school’s founders, honoring the 100th birthday anniversaries of Uncle William and Aunt Sal Creech.

Simple invitations were sent all over Harlan County and “norated” up and down the nearby creeks — Greasy, Little Laurel, Isaac’s Run and Shell Branch. In automobiles, on horseback and on foot we went to invite our friends to “bring a lunch and stay all day with us.”

The day came, graciously perfect answer to many a prayer in our neighborhood. The foliage was at peak color, the weather “made by hand,” as one neighbor said. The guests came, hundreds of them, from miles away, a larger number than we have ever seen together on these grounds, and when we thought of the distances they had come (many miles of which were walked) and the difficulty of crossing our rough mountain road, we realized the tribute which was being paid to a great man and noble woman.

The morning service in the Chapel was led by Mr. [Charles N.] Manning, of Lexington, whom we know best as the Treasurer of our Board of Directors. Mr. Manning spoke on the subject of faith and the simple Christian method of “going about doing good” so nobly exemplified by the founders of Pine Mountain School, who with faith and works and unselfish love “forgot themselves into immortality.”

The picnic lunch in the Big Log Lean-to and under the trees nearby was a visiting time. Friends who hadn’t seen each other for years shared their baskets and their talk. It must have been just such a day as Aunt Sal and Uncle William spent many a time when a sanging picnic (gathering of the ginseng root), or a graveyard meeting, or a house-raising brought all the neighbors together.

The afternoon memorial program in the Schoolhouse was planned to be a simple folksy meeting with speaking and singing in the spirit of the old time gatherings. Guests and friends were welcomed by Mr. [H.R.S.] Benjamin, Director of the School, who expressed the hope that school and community would continue to be mutually friendly and helpful, and that together they might endeavor to fulfill the vision of Uncle William.

Dr. Francis S. Hutchins, President of Berea College, made the principal address, his theme being the need for a school which is the servant and friend of its community, and the working together of these two groups in a common task, toward a common goal.

Mr. Brit Wilder, grandson of Uncle William, and a member of the Pine Mountain School staff, told of his grandfather’s services as toothpuller, bonesetter, and herb doctor, in a country where there was no professional…

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…service to be had. He recalled that not more than fifty years ago a neighbor came to his grandmother’s house to borrow fire, in a country where electricity now furnishes light, and in some places heat and power. He closed his recollections with a little story of his grandfather: “On my way home from school I would always stop in grandfather’s store. I would just quietly walk in and stand around. Grandfather seemed to always know what I wanted, for after a little while he would hand me a cookie or a piece of candy, and say, ‘Now hit it home.'”

Mrs. Marguerite Butler Bidstrup, who was on our staff through all the early years, and knows this school as well as any living person, spoke delightfully of her friendship with Uncle William and Aunt Sal, and told of how she and Uncle William worked together on the accounts of his little country store and postoffice, when she “chawed” chocolate while he “chawed” tobacco.

Henry Creech, so long our neighbor, friend and advisor, spoke briefly while his wife, Delia Creech stood beside him. How well these two have carried on into today the work and spirit of Uncle William and Aunt Sal!

We missed Reverend Lewis Lyttle who was the mountain circuit rider in the early 1900’s and carried messages from Uncle William to the “quare women” at Hindman, and who helped to select the site for Pine Mountain School. Mr. Lyttle was ill, but sent his message by his children, the son a fine young soldier, the daughter a marine, both delightful representatives of that old man whose spirit is so much with us here at all times.

At the end we stood and all together, school and friends, sang the school song made by the class of 1944. There could be no more fitting words with which to close a memorial service:

Across these hills our fathers came,
Found this land and here did see
That man might live and love and dream
And strive his truest self to be.

The words by time made dear to us,
Humanity and sturdy truth,
Deep sprung from honesty, self-control*
These are the challenge to our youth.

For greater skill of hand and mind,
Joys of heart and friendships free,
For quickened feelings, truer aims,
For these our lives will richer be.

O guarding mountain staunch and strong,
Our hopes and spirits oft renew.
Help us and guide us in all our ways,
O keep thy children straight and true.

The day ended with a tour over the school grounds and buildings, where student hosts were waiting to welcome the guests. At the office was the very wedding dress of Aunt Sal, material for which was brought on horseback from Lexington, an eighteen days’ journey. There were also Civil War “GI” trophies from Uncle William’s Union army outfit, a curious lead button from his coat, and his gun.

At Aunt Sal’s house, Owen and Anne, great grandchildren, were waiting in costumes representing the old couple. Guests were invited to “come in and set awhile” by the open fireplace, which made the only light in the one-room windowless little log house, where Aunt Sal and Uncle William brought up nine children. The house holds much of the old gear, including Aunt Sal’s loom, churn and spinning wheel, Uncle William’s gun and the old pewter platter from which they ate bear meat and venison. From here the guests were bade god-speed, richer for a few hours spent in memory and tribute, and we trust with a deeper feeling of faith and friendship for the school which Uncle William and Aunt Sal dreamed and made possible.

* * *

*The words Humanity, Truth, Honesty and Self-control, are carved on the four stone pillars supporting the Schoolhouse at Pine Mountain.

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*  * *

Many of our friends have already seen the Centennial book “One Man’s Cravin'” title for which came from Uncle William’s own words, “I have heart and cravin’ that my people will grow better.”

Last summer we put together the selections made from old letters and records and carried them all to Henry Creech’s front porch, where on a memorable afternoon, warm with sunshine and sweet with apples, we read aloud the whole mass of material.

Our audience was not small. Several of the immediate family were there to help us judge the work, and sitting just outside the circle, still as mice and wide-eyed, were the grandchildren who come each year to spend the summer months with their grandparents.

On the night before the celebration twelve-year-old Bill came to us, covered with pleased confusion, to say he had something he’d like “kept” for him. “It’s a dollar,” he confessed. “I been saving ever since that day last summer, and I want to buy the book about great-grandad!”

On the following Monday the first lot of books arrived from the printers, and the first copy to be delivered, ordered and paid for in advance, was sent to William Leach, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

*  *  *

The last number of The Pine Cone our monthly newspaper edited and published by students, came out just after the celebration of the 100th birthdays of Aunt Sal and Uncle William, and was dedicated to them. We have asked permission to reprint parts of two articles, Our Time-flavored Speech by Billy Tye, the Editor, and A-plenty for All by Maxine Moses. Both students are seniors.

OUR TIME-FLAVORED SPEECH

The speech of our section has a flavor all its own and is enriched by fine old long-preserved English words. As an illustration of the latter, Chaucer, in Canterbury Tales, tells of the people of England making their pilgrimage to Canterbury to worship Thomas a Becket,

That them hath holpen when that they were sick.

The word holp may still be heard in many parts of Kentucky today. Another example, the old Devonshire word, yarnder, is commonly used and in certain districts has become yander. While the word fetch is fairly well-known, Kentucky is one of the few states in which it is commonly used. In many sections the word has grown into fotch, a good example of a word merely by substituting vowels. Other examples of such change unconsciously changed by a simple folk are kiver for cover, clem for climbed, writ for wrote, and fit for fought. A warm friendly greeting native to the state is howdy, which has been preserved from generation to generation.

Many are attracted by this rustic, time-seasoned dialect because it is soothing and pleasant. It represents the common man and is therefore appealing to the masses when spoken at lectures or used in political speeches.

This quaint picturesque language, though loved by thousands, is rapidly vanishing. Radio announcers, with different [pronunciations], influence greatly the mountaineers and farmers. Students from the state enter colleges in other regions; teachers from the North and East have their influence also. Boys from Kentucky have entered the armed forces and mingled with people from every nation on the globe, losing some of the native flavor of their dialect. May the day never come when strangers, traveling into the remotest parts of Kentucky, will not be able to hear some of these old words or, passing along may not be greeted on every hand by a warm, friendly howdy.

A-PLENTY FOR ALL

The crowd is coming out of the little log church-house and slowly making its way toward the meadow below. The younger children play joyfully along,…

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…forgetting the sermons and warnings against sin which they have just heard. For years the people of the community have gathered for their yearly “all-day meeting and dinner on the ground.” From far and near have come the families with their own favorite food to be spread out on the beautiful green carpet of the meadow. While the wives are laying down the spotless table linens and placing the food upon them, the husbands and children visit with their neighbors.

After the food is ready, everyone gathers around for the graces. These last for several minutes, and before they are over, the children are craning their necks to see where they will take their plates first.

First are the wonderful brown pones of bread. Some have made it in square pans and others in big round iron skillets, leaving the pones uncut. If you want some of this corn bread, you must break it with your hands. The corn bread’s nearest neighbor is two pones of cracklin bread. That also is uncut. In the large blue bowl are turnips cooked with a few spare ribs. At the other end of the table cloth are some shucky beans. These are always much better if there are a few pickled beets. Shucky beans, beets, and gritted bread are a fit dish for a king. Much hard work went into the making of that gritted bread. Slightly hardened ears of corn were rubbed up and down a bucket lid which had been roughed by making nail holes in it. This moist corn which was grated off was used instead of the ground meal. Don’t be led to think these people raise corn the year around, because that corn on the cob is pickled corn, but it is a good substitute for the fresh corn. Some of these nice green beans will suit the taste of anyone, but they too are deceiving you, for they have been in a barrel of brine since last summer.

Surely there is meat on the menu. Indeed there is and a fine selection of it too. There’s fried groundhog, roasted possum with sweet potatoes, fatback bacon, fried crispy brown, a bit of ham boiled on the bone, and there must be a dozen or two of chickens and ducks. Some of these are fried, one roasted, and there’s a pot or two of chicken in dumplings.

At the end the desserts are spread out. There is some homemade cider, which some woman pressed on the same bucket lid she used for gritting her bread. Cakes, pies, and puddings send out a wonderful aroma. The tall cake with its brown layers is an old-fashioned stack cake, which molasses is used to sweeten, and between the layers are stewed apples. Apple pies baked to a golden brown with a delicate flower or two imprinted by the tines of a fork, row on row of ginger cookies, pieces of sweet bread, individual pumpkin pies, and a huge peach cobbler are not going to be neglected.

At first there may be a few who are reluctant to partake of this sightly display of food, but if they show their reluctance, some one of these gracious hosts or hostesses will reassure them by saying, “Come on and eat. There’s a-plenty fer all.” Anyone will know by looking that there is “a-plenty fer all,” but maybe they don’t know that wherever they go in this beautiful state, there will always be a plentiful supply of honest-to-goodness, heartfelt hospitality for all.

Copies of the Centennial Booklet, ONE MAN’S CRAVIN’ composed of excerpts from early letters and collection of photographs of early days, are available at the School for $1.00 per copy.

* * *

Set up and printed by students of Pine Mountain Settlement School.

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GALLERY: NOTES – 1946 May

During the years over 200 boys and girls have taken the course in consumer cooperation at the School and have had the experience of working in a coop store, while the staff and student body have had the privilege of belonging to a consumers’ cooperative.

TAGS: NOTES – 1946 MAY: May Day, Morris dancing, skirts, clothing, Cooperative Group, Gladys Hill, Harmon Foundation, filming, medical care, cornshuck dolls, financing, food, education, needs, academics, music, medicine

TRANSCRIPTION: NOTES – 1946 May

P. 1

NOTES FROM THE
PINE MOUNTAIN
SETTLEMENT SCHOOL

PINE MOUNTAIN * HARLAN COUNTY * KENTUCKY

Volume XIX     MAY, 1946    Number II

MAY DAY is the great festival occasion for Pine Mountain, with Morris dancing in the early morning, country dancing around the Maypole in the afternoon, and a wonderful folk dance party at night. The girls think of it also, and especially, as the day for New Dresses. Weeks beforehand the sewing room is turned over to the business of designing, planning, cutting, sewing, and finishing May Day frocks, and we look forward to seeing what comes from there at last, with the same feeling New Yorkers must have waiting for the Easter parade.

Last spring there was no yard material to be had for any sum of money at all, and in any case exorbitant prices were out of the question for us. On several counts it was a time for using all the ingenuity our girls could muster. The results assured us that our pioneering ancestors’ resourcefulness is alive still in this new generation.

Several skirts were woven in the old-fashioned way on looms. Anne, Uncle William’s great-granddaughter, wove hers of cotton thread, an unusual sea-green color, with a pattern border of tomato red. Aunt Sal herself would have been proud of her grandchild’s skill, and Uncle William, who always deplored the fact that so many women were forgetting the homely arts, would have been glad to see that skirt. He said “Spinning and weaving’s good for their characters!”

Most of the girls used plain white feed sacks, and made their own designs, with dye block print, and embroidery. We have never seen such dresses. Even perfect strangers who could not know how much invention had gone into them, remarked upon their beauty. It was a rare treat to sit up high on the log benches above the dancing green, and watch that brilliant rainbow weaving the figures of Gathering Peascods and The Old Mole.

Vinia dyed her sack royal blue and embroidered bands of yellow and and rose daisies for the waist and hem. Betty Zane and Delores made their skirts of nile green, and Delores made a block print of wood, with red and black dancing figures on a strip of plain white which was stitched to the skirt near the hem line. Betty Zane smocked her skirt in soft violet and brown just below the band, and then added a ruffle of the material at the hem.

Beth‘s skirt was a sunshine yellow, decorated with a row of four-petaled flowers. She made the border by cutting the flowers from felt, gluing them to a wooden block, and then printing them in brown on a yellow strip, which was sewed around the hem.

They were proud of their skirts, and so were we who watched them. This year with yard materials available, we shall probably not see so many of the hand-dyed and handwoven products. But we wonder if these were not after all the very nicest and we are glad for the independent feeling of being free from store restrictions, and able to use, if we need to, the simplest materials for the most important occasions.

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PINE MOUNTAIN’S COOPERATIVE GROUP

by Gladys Hill, Supervisor

When I came to Pine Mountain we had no school store. School supplies were kept in a locked cupboard at the Schoolhouse and sold by a teacher somewhat as textbooks are sold at present. When Miss [Katherine] Pettit‘s friends wanted to send gifts she asked for tins of pure hard candy. This candy was served at the close of parties on Saturday nights, and once each week stick candy was served in the dining room as dessert. There was a country store nearby where those who had some money could buy candy, and each Saturday I had the pleasure of accompanying a group of girls to Nolans to do their shopping. This store proved to be a nuisance as the merchant often sold our boys tobacco and chewing gum, and several students were expelled for slipping off and going to the store to buy candy without permission.

Mr. [Glyn] Morris, the Director, felt that we should have our own store, and in 1933 we began selling candy and using the profit for the athletic equipment. In the fall of 1936 the Director approached me on the subject of cooperatives. I replied that I wasn’t interested and knew nothing of cooperatives. He said he had several magazine articles for me to read and had ordered some books. The books, by Dr. Warbasse, and others, came. I wrote to the Coop League, Antioch College, Berea College, and Mrs. J. C. Campbell of the Campbell Folk School.

In January 1937 we organized our cooperative. We worked out our own constitution, bookkeeping system and clerking procedure. The sophomore class, with nine members that year, took over the store. We moved into the basement room of the Girls’ Industrial Building, ordered eighteen dollars worth of lumber and built counters and cupboards. We sold our shares for 25 [cents] each, and that semester we had sixty-two members, a capital stock of $169.25, and sold $580.40 worth of goods. This was the hardest semester for us all, as we had to work out our store schedules, clerking procedure, and entire store administration as an experiment.

The membership grew from 62 to 102. We painted the store room in bright cheerful colors. We spent $20.00 for window guards and bought a heating stove. All of this equipment was paid for by coop members who voted to have the expenses taken from their rebate fund. We had soot storms occasionally, even after we junked our first old three-legged laundry stove. This store room was often flooded during heavy rains and the flood of 1937 brought us out at 4:30 A. M. in order to save our merchandise from damage.

We were just beginning to get our store adequately furnished when Old Laurel House burned. The morning after the fire, January 24th, 1940, the School kitchen was moved into our quarters, and we moved to the Schoolhouse, into a poorly heated, mouse-inhabited costume room, which was the only space available at the time.

Our new, and present quarters were planned in the new Laurel House, and we moved in in January, 1941. That year we had a large class, thirty-five — and not a very cooperative group. During the Christmas vacation we thought of dramatics as a last resort to instill into this group some feeling of team spirit and cooperation. We decided to write skits and used two hours of classtime each day in order to get them written. On February 22nd we put on our first skits. We found this an effective teaching method and have continued to use skits each year, following through developments in cooperatives over the world.

In 1941 the Harmon Foundation of New York City sent their photographers to film Pine Mountain School and also to make a moving picture of our Cooperative project. They came in the fall to make the film as we organized and worked out our program for the year. The children were quite pleased about the idea of being in “the movies” but we had our difficulties.

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The Deisel engine was on its last legs, and we many times got set up to film a difficult scene and the power would go off for the remainder of the day. Finally our movie “Let’s Cooperate” was finished. It is a color film and may be rented from The Harmon Foundation, New York City.

During the years over 200 boys and girls have taken the course in consumer cooperation at the School and have had the experience of working in a coop store, while the staff and student body have had the privilege of belonging to a consumers’ cooperative.

* * *

Jolene was in Miss [Grace M.] Rood‘s nursing group for eighteen weeks this year, and during the time assisted on several occasions in obstetric cases at the Infirmary. This spring she went to her home to care for her mother, who was pregnant, and on the verge of pneumonia as well.

Jolene administered sulfa drug, saw the pneumonia forestalled, helped her father to make arrangements for a doctor who was to attend the delivery, and did all she could to make things ready.

Very shortly after this the birth became imminent. The doctor, some five miles away, could not be secured on short notice, and so at midnight, two weeks before the normal time, Jolene delivered her own baby brother, with her father helping her. Both Jerry Michael and his mother are doing very nicely to date.

Jolene’s father has given her the doctor’s fee of thirty-five dollars and she plans to buy a wrist watch for her sister Jeanette, who graduates from Pine Mountain this spring.

* * *

CONVERSATION AT MILKING TIME

Although it was almost dusky dark, we could still see clearly the neat front yard, bare of grass and swept clean with a homemade hickory bark broom that stood sturdy and straight by the door of the porch. That was also swept, or rather scraped, clean. We were greeted by furiously barking dogs, and were almost at the door before we discovered a shy face, under a curly top, peeking around the corner of the woodshed.

The mop of curls belonged to a boy, who as he gradually emerged from hiding, looked to be about ten or eleven. There were two others hiding behind him, a girl, somewhat younger and another one, just past being a baby. The boy came out to call away the black and white dog, and they all shrieked, “Mammy, mammny! They’s company!”

Their mother was at the door directly, flushed and busy, but with no shred of poise lost, to greet us cheerfully. “I was wonderin’ if you fellers would show up. Come inside and set down.”

Inside was shadowy, but the changing lights from the blazing open fire showed us a big double bed in the corner, and the table to one side loaded with cornshuck articles in various stages of the making.

“Now set right down,” she insisted. “Son, you pull ’em up some chairs.”

The boy pulled up the chairs, cane bottom with hickory frames, and homemade and solid as the broom on the porch. “Rest awhile now, while I milk the cow. I’ll be right back.“

When she disappeared, some of the warmth and brightness went with her, but the children evidently understood their responsibility. We produced the usual topics, the weather, school, names and ages, which last were a dubious success.

We — “What are your names?”
Oldest girl — “His’s Glyn, mine’s Stella. Hit’s name is Esther.”
“How old are all of you?”
“He’s ten, I’m eight, hit’s five. How old be you?”

That hurdle somehow straddled, the boy took the lead, while the two little girls lapsed into rapt silence, one on each side of our small half-circle, gazing up at us with round unblinking eyes.

“That’s pappy’s gun,” he volunteered. “Pappy’s in the war. He’s acrost…

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…the waters.”
“Does anybody use it while he’s gone?”
“Yes’m. Mammy she does. She is a good shot.”
“Oh?”

“Yes’m. Hain’t no wayfarin’ man agoing to trifle with us!” His tooth-less-except-for-one-in-the-middle grin expressed several things. There was a deep pride in his mother’s prowess, perfect safety from evil-intending wayfarers, and there was a deeper kind of social security that comes from belonging to the right people.

“Pappy made the big bed,” he observed, encouraged by our interest. “Hit’s a built in.”
“Nice and soft too.”
“Yes’m hit shore is. Hit’s a goose feather tick. We’uns picked the feathers off’n mammy’s old geeses.” The featherbed was covered by a gay patchwork quilt, no doubt the mother’s handiwork also.

“We’uns aim to go to school a long time. Mammy said she reckoned we’ll go to Pine Mountain someday. Seein like hit’s the best school of all.”

We agreed enthusiastically. “Mammy is wantin’ us to make scholars.”

We watched the fire for a moment or two. Finally he began with the subject yet untried, the last and the best. “You fellers see the liberry table yit?”

We fellers had, but not very clearly in the flickering firelight, so with much care he stood up on his tiptoes, reached for the kerosene lamp in the rack over the mantle piece, and lifted it down, while we held our breaths, to a corner of the crowded table top. The “liberry” in this family was ever so much more interesting than the usual kind, for it was a lifelike assortment of little cornshuck people, and around the edges of the table were all sizes and kinds of baskets. Some of the poppets were standing bolt upright, supported by their crisp cornshuck skirts, some lay on their backs, staring straight up out of the larger braided baskets. Some were themselves holding the tiniest of baskets on their stiff little shuck arms. The boy’s eyes sparkled, and the attention of both little girls was drawn at last from steady contemplation of the visitors.

“This’ns the prettiest,” the older one remarked, with great care the tallest doll, which had flaxen silks for hair instead of red and brown like that of the others. “Hit’s name’s Lauriebell!” The baby echoed in a little croon “Lauriebell!” and reached out a chubby hand to grasp the blond tresses.

“Don’t handle that air poppet, honey!” the little boy cautioned as he gently drew her reluctant fist away from the attractive lady. “Hit’s mammy’s poppet, and she’s agoing to sell hit to the School.”

Baby’s face puckered. The boy hastily seized a small broom which had been propped behind a larger one by the fire. “Here’s your little broom to play with. You can git to sweepin’ jest like mammy!”

At that moment the mother’s bright flushed face lighted the doorway. Baby smiled and scraped the floor with her little broom. There seemed to be no more shadows anywhere, and even the night outdoors held no terrors.

PINE MOUNTAIN NEEDS

Medium size bandsaw ($125.00)
Turning lathe
Printing press
Encyclopedia – recent edition (Our latest is 1926, Britannia)
Used rugs, sheets, curtain material, aprons
Radio for classroom work
Woodworking and farm tools; square, handsaw, pincers, screwdrivers, hammers, etc.

* * *

Printed by Pine Mountain Print Shop

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GALLERY: NOTES – 1946 November

The fact that the school is accredited and is given “A” rating by the State Department of Education speaks for itself regarding the standard of work being done. – Margaret Motter

TAGS: NOTES – 1946 NOVEMBER: Sarah Vitatoe, poem, Margaret Motter, Glyn A. Morris, Mr. [William] Hayes, farm jeep, Dr. Elizabeth Henderson, Henry Creech, J.S. Crutchfield, C.N. Manning, H.R.S. Benjamin, linguistics, farm program, Creech Memorial Hospital

TRANSCRIPTION: NOTES – 1946 November

P. 1

NOTES FROM THE
PINE MOUNTAIN
SETTLEMENT SCHOOL

PINE MOUNTAIN * HARLAN COUNTY * KENTUCKY

Volume XX     NOVEMBER, 1946    Number I

I stand on the bridge and view a simple edifice
Built of stone quarried from our [mountains,]
And set in among hemlock, redbud, dogwood, and pine trees;
Made beautiful by a wall of ivy that covers its walls and porticoes,
Crosses that stand upright on its three gables,
And a high black bell that echoes through the valley — and through my mind
I love this building as a friend.
In [earlier] days I listened restlessly to music and to speakers,
Thought nothing of the vines and flowers arranged gracefully
Below the cross on the altar.
Now a hymn goes softly through my mind,
And I unconsciously give thanks
For the feeling of reverence that envelops me,
For the music I have learned to love,
For the sermons which once were mere words,
For the beauty and simplicity that has Our Chapel.

Sarah Vitatoe — Class of 1945
Sophomore at Berea College.

_______________________________

There is always a peculiar joy in returning to a place where one has invested a part of oneself. It was therefore with no little enthusiasm that I planned to resume work at Pine Mountain after a lapse of fourteen years. Despite the warning of friends and relatives as to the inevitable changes I’d note — with the implication that I’d be more or less disappointed — I find myself fitting into the program of yester-years and gaining a tremendous satisfaction thereby.

“What are your impressions of Pine Mountain after all these years?” is the question I’ve been asked. It is not easy to give a fair and true evaluation of the entire school program with the limited opportunity I have had for observation and study but I shall attempt to give an over-all picture as I see it.

In the first place, what of the school plant? Many of the buildings are about the same but there are numerous additions: a new Laurel House; West Wind, the dormitory for older girls; improvements in Zande House, the directors home, and Country Cottage; Jubilee House, the doctor’s residence; farm buildings — milk house, chicken houses, and silo. A modern workshop replaces the former one.

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Here is provision for woodwork, auto-mechanics, weaving, science, and printing. In addition we are blessed with R. E. A. power, a far cry from the feeble Delco plant that in the past put forth such heroic but often futile efforts. Furnaces also provide safer and infinitely more comfortable living conditions and the installation of fully-equipped bathrooms seems almost to be the ‘consumption devoutly to be wished!’ Farming and the general work are made more effective by the noisy but useful school truck, jeep, station wagon, and tractor. Truly “the ways of the world are a-comin’ ” — up Greasy!

It is gratifying to note that the grounds are well-cared for. Those ever-useful cinders still play an important part in road-making. Stone banks along the Creek serve to protect the farm land in time of flood. Planting of cover crops prevents winter erosion. Passing through the grounds we note that Big Log lean-to is still kept ready for picnics and the play ground, formerly useless after dark, is now provided with light so that evening recreation is possible. A natural amphitheatre has been made the charming setting for the traditional May Day.

But what of the academic program? As one might expect part of it is similar to work of former years but the organization of the school has greatly changed. There seems to be more purposeful planning of curricular offerings and a wise program of counseling. Another change is the departure from traditional formal grading. For some years Pine Mountain has given no grades or credits. Instead the instructor evaluates the pupil from various angles (attitudes, efforts, and actual results) and the pupil evaluates himself by writing a letter to his parents at stated times. Vocational training is being given more attention and it becomes a happy balance both for the especially studious pupils and those who prefer working with their hands. Educational movies once a week and other movies about once a month are also a very helpful addition to the school program. This contrasts with the days when limited electricity made such things impossible. The fact that the school is accredited and is given “A” rating by the State Department of Education speaks for itself regarding the standard of work being done.

I have learned with regret that most of the old ballad singers are gone and that some of the ‘fotched-on’ music has replaced much of the native music heritage. It is good to see that Pine Mountain still encourages the preservation of the cultural background of the mountains; and the pleasure of the pupils in the singing and dancing is ample proof of the wisdom of retaining some of the old customs. I am also happy that the school still features the special days — Fair Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas week, Easter, and May Day.

During these first months I have been greatly impressed with the work program. In earlier years half the students worked all morning while the rest attended classes. In the afternoon the program was reversed. This marked a separation between the two groups. Now the work time has been so shortened that all students work and go to school together. Perhaps some tasks are not done quite so thoroughly as in former years but it seems to me that satisfactory work is being done. I am amazed at the amount which is accomplished with just a few adult supervisors who work along with the students. There are constant emergencies; corn to be cut and stored in the silo; forest fires to be fought. Always there is a spirit of willingness to help — a feeling of responsibility to the community of which each is a part.

[Aside] from the academic or vocational training and the practical experience gained from various parts of the work program, a student at Pine Mountain still gets that intangible something that is such a big factor in real living. “Character is caught rather than taught.” Thus the pupil who receives citizenship training, who attends the…

P. 3

…inspirational services in our lovely chapel, or tries to solve his perplexing questions in the informal Inquirers’ Class or with a counselor, [gradually] see for himself the secret of abundant living. The Citizenship Committee which was in embryo the last month I was here, now attempts to handle students problems and is a wonderful opportunity for training in self-government. Student participation in morning and evening chapel services is another way in which boys and girls gain self-confidence.

Having taught during these intervening fourteen years under systems of public instruction both in Maryland and Kentucky, I am convinced that Pine Mountain has much to give that other schools cannot offer under the present educational set-up. In the average public school despite attempts to the contrary, there is still a vast amount of standardization of [conformity] to a certain pattern. With a smaller and more select group such as we have, and with children living in the school, it is possible to give each pupil more individual attention and to permit him to develop in his own way.

Though I have noted many material changes here these features remain largely unchanged; the ever-enthusiastic and hopeful boys and girls; the staunch friendly neighbors and ever-widening community to be served, the deep underlying spirit pervading Pine Mountain through the years; and our guarding mountains. These I hope, will abide forever.

MARGARET MOTTER
Head of the English Department

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Friends who have known the school over a number of years will be interested in news of Glyn A. Morris director from 1931 to 1942. After three and one half years of service as an army chaplain, serving in Europe with the 1109th Engineer Combat Group, he has become executive secretary of the Council of Southern Mountain Workers with headquarters at Berea, Kentucky. We are pleased that after the first of the year the Morrises will be neighbors of ours. Mr. Morris will be connected with the public schools of Evarts, a Harlan County coal mining community. Because of his years of work at Pine Mountain he will bring to his new position wide understanding of the problems and progress of education in this county.

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Last spring the Board of Trustees authorized the purchase of a civilian jeep to replace our 1929 tractor. The tractor had reached the point where no amount of the most skillful tinkering could coax it into action. For more than a month during the spring planting the jeep worked hard all day and sometimes, with the aid of headlights, far into the evening, pulling plow or disc harrow as Mr. [William] Hayes and the boys prepared the fields for summer crops. By the time the main crops were in the ground, the jeep was already a veteran in farm service. It was ready to tackle something new. This seemed to be the opportunity to revive the clinics which have been discontinued in recent years for want, among other things of a vehicle sturdy enough to travel our roads. Since July Dr. [Elizabeth] Henderson has held one clinic each week, going on one Tuesday to Pine Mountain’s community center on Line Fork and the next to Napier, about seven miles down Greasy Creek where for the last few miles the road and creek are one. Her slight figure at the wheel of the jeep has become a familiar sight hereabouts. As the only doctor serving an area of 350 square miles she must answer many appeals for help.

Different manners, customs, and even ways of [pronunciation] form the basis of misunderstandings between differing groups everywhere. Many confusions occur here especially before new students come to know our ways or while new workers struggle with a strange speech that makes ‘far’ of ‘fire’, ‘flare’ of ‘flower’. or ‘tare’ of ‘tower’. A sophomore, working for the 100 per cent membership…

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P. 4

…in the Coop Store which is the goal of every Cooperative class approached a very new freshman with her sales talk. “Wouldn’t you like to take a share in the Coop Store?” she asked. The freshman was shy but firm. “No ma’am”, she said. “I’d like to take a bath at Big Log.”

One day a young man appeared at the school truck which was in Harlan for the weekly shopping. With him was a reluctant, sobbing little brother of thirteen who had been accepted at Pine Mountain. Very unwillingly Sam’l parted from his big brother and settled himself in the back of the truck amid boxes, crates, and barrels of groceries. When the truck stopped to unload at the school kitchen he was discovered halfway through a loaf of bread under the conviction — as he told his questioners — that “They starve a feller at this here school.” By Christmas he had gained twenty pounds and was so attached to Pine Mountain that though freshmen are usually eager to go home for vacation Sam’l refused, preferring to stay to take part in vacation work and fun.

The farm program this summer was, of necessity, adapted to the scarcity and high cost of feed for farm animals. Eleven of the twenty arable acres were planted in corn. Visitors were amazed to see the ensilage corn which grew to a height of seventeen feet [before] it was cut and stored in the silo. Seven acres provided [more] than enough to fill the silo to the top. The corn planted for feed was shelled and ground, the fodder fed to the cows, and the stalks chopped up for bedding the cattle. The rest of our acreage furnished us with a variety of fresh vegetables for the table and about 500 gallons of beans for winter use.

Side by side with the distinction of owning one of the two silos in Harlan County, we have the new distinction of part ownership of the county’s only threshing machine. With our good neighbor, Henry Creech, we have purchased a small, second-hand thresher which has already proven its versatility by threshing with equal ease dried seed beans and timothy hay. After a demonstration on Fair Day several farmers expressed their interest in its use to lighten their labors. We hope that it will be of real service in the community.

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The fund for the Creech Memorial Hospital which had its beginning last fall at the time of the Creech [Centennial] celebration has shown a steady, healthy growth until it now totals $8,463. We are pleased with this, but it is only a small part of what we will need if we are to have the hospital of which we dream. [We] realize our inadequacy anew each time the hospital is called to serve beyond its capacity.

One day recently all of the ten beds were filled when about four in the afternoon a mother who had walked six miles brought in two little boys for the overnight hookworm treatment. No sooner were readjustments made to accommodate these three than another mother brought in her four for the same purpose. One patient was hastily discharged, an extra bed brought in, mattresses were laid on the floor, and nineteen people slept in the hospital that night. No wonder a former doctor writes, “I hope you do not often have nineteen patients in at a time or you will have to change your walls to rub- ber.” We wish he could “change our walls to rubber” so that we might expand to meet the growing demands for medical care.

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Pine Mountain is a boarding high school, Christian, but non-sectarian, for the boys and girls of the mountain counties of south-eastern Kentucky.

J. S. Crutchfield, Pittsburgh, Pa., Chairman of Board of Trustees.
C. N. Manning, Lexington, Kentucky, Treasurer.

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H. R. S. Benjamin, Resident Director.

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Previous:
NOTES – 1945
Next:
NOTES – 1947

See Also:
ARTHUR W. DODD 1946 General Statement of History and Philosophy of PMSS for Staff
BUILT ENVIRONMENT Guide
EDUCATION Guide
FARM AND FARMING Guide
EDUCATION Consumer Cooperative Curriculum
EVENTS MAY DAY Guide

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NOTES Index