Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 05: DIRECTORS
Series 17: PMSS PUBLICATIONS
DEAR FRIEND Letters 1915
(June 11 and November 11, 1915)
TAGS: Dear Friend Letters 1915, parents desire education, importance of manual training, Ethel de Long letter on need for PMSS, William Creech letter on progress of PMSS
INTRODUCTION
The year of 1915 is marked by the construction of Far House I to serve as a dwelling for staff and more students. It was nearly finished by August of the year. Laurel House I continues to be constructed. Visitors begin to be interested in the School and drop in on the workers. John Fox Jr. visits the School and comments that he “…has never before seen such a well behaved group of children.” The barn fund is large enough to commence the construction of the Barn and a small log cabin, “The Cabin” or “Little Log,” for the farmer. Poultry farming begins and gardens grow and canning becomes a major part of activity at the School.
Theology is introduced as part of the program with a new itinerant theology student, Mr. Hughes, who also provides assistance with playground activity and civic lessons. William Creech writes a letter to the Friends of the School and notes the enrollment in August is up to forty.
CONTENTS: DEAR FRIEND Letters 1915
June 11, 1915, pages 1 – 2
Parents want schooling in books and manners for their children; importance of manual training; education serves the mountains and America; Dear Friend letter signed by Ethel de Long ;
November 11, 1915, pages 1 – 2
Letterhead lists administration ; letter written by William Creech ; pleased with progress of School ; describes houses that have been built ; farm and pasture ; about 40 children at School ; School is the only chance they have ; other communities want schools ; children can become good examples for their parents ; the School gives me hope for my people ;
GALLERY: DEAR FRIEND Letters 1915
“DEAR FRIEND” LETTER – June 11, 1915
“DEAR FRIEND” LETTER – November 11, 1915
TRANSCRIPTION: DEAR FRIEND Letters
“Dear Friend” Letter, June 11, 1915
Page 1 [dear_friend_1915-06_001]
PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL, INC.
PINE MOUNTAIN, HARLAN COUNTY
KENTUCKY
Dear Friend “yon side the mountain”: —
Please follow The Trail of the Lonesome Pine and ride through the close-gathering hills, at once so untamed and so gentle in their beauty, to the gates of the Pine Mountain Settlement School. You will find us “sentinels of the alphabet”, indeed, guardians of the three R’s, not only because we are theoretically concerned that Kentucky’s percentage of illiteracy be decreased, but also because fathers and mothers here at the “outposts of civilization” want us to “larn the children books.”
Never think of the mountain people as mere acceptors of opportunity carried to them by a superior, benevolent class. A mountain mother, asked the other day if she made her children go to school, answered, “Lord, they haint to make, they cry to go!” So, summer and winter alike, we teach reading and writing because children “delight in their books” and parents “crave a chance for them.”
It is their insistent behest, also that we teach “mannerly ways” to the flock intrusted (sic) to us. “Hit’s a sight what manners my young uns have got from ye,” commented a mother recently. Yet it is only in “fotched on” forms of courtesy that we can instruct. To travel in the hills is to marvel at the innate courtesy you find everywhere, from the smallest damsel bringing you a blossom with a shy, “Here’s a pretty for ye,” to the gentle-voiced old lady who urges you, “Stay and make us…
Page 2 [dear_friend_1915-06_002]
…a visit. I’ll kill a hog for ye.” Pretty behavior comes from the heart; the rustic manners of the hills are the first evidence, to a stranger, of the high heritage of this stock.
It is the faith of our founder, Uncle William, that “hit’s better for folks’ characters to larn ’em to do things with their hands.” Manual training, with us, is no mere device to give children discipline once supplied by the old-fashioned home. We are the old-fashioned home. You find us dependent on the children for our garden planting, for our clean clothes, for our bed-making and for our daily meals; and because we have trained them to these tasks and to thought for the household, we can trust them, even as they trust us. Day by day they grow more competent, and more resolute in mettle, because real responsibilities are theirs. Faithful to their scrubbing and their grubbing, they slowly develop sturdiness of character.
Pine Mountain runs from “Praise the Lord” to “Hell’s Point.” Such being our geographical limits, you cannot expect all in our community to be good, ambitious, “standing-up folks.” But as you sojourn in the hills, the belief grows in you that our country’s wealth here is only half-guessed; that this is a field for large constructive service; that schools such as ours do no less for the mountains than for America.
“Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.”
Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ethel de Long.
June 11, 1915.
“Dear Friend” Letter, November 20, 1915
Page 1 [dear_friend_1915-11_20_001]
[Letterhead with list of Executive Committee, Treasurer, and General Advisory Board]
November 20, 1915.
To all the friends that have holp
the Pine Mountain Settlement School,
I was seventy years old the 30th day of last month, and I’m seein that goin on that I’ve craved to see for many years. Somethin like two years ago I wrote solicitin aid and assistance for the school which we was goin to try to build. Since that time the work has progressed mightily under the management and supervision of Miss de Long and Miss Pettit. I have invested all I have in the school and it gives me great satisfaction to see the change that’s been made. I don’t begrudge nary dollar that I put into it. The good people a helpin us had done a great thing for us, in helpin the poor and needy.
[Caption for photograph: “A Pole House excellent furnished in an old-fashioned way.”]
We are making great headway. There has been two good houses built, beside an old log house rebuilt out of the fragments of old log houses somethin like a hundred years old; and a Pole House excellent furnished in old fashioned way to accommodate our visitors. One good barn nearly complete; one stone tool house; one House in the Woods used for school and sufficient in size to accommodate a good audience for speakin or church service. The frame is agoin up of a large buildin and we hope it can be used by Christmas. We are getting the farm in pretty good shape and will soon be able to make a good deal of support for the school, in farm produce. We are clearin off and fixin to fence a cow pasture. If we can get moeny enough we will soon be in good shape.
The school has got on hand about forty children from five years old and up, most of them destitute of any means whereby they could support theirselves and with no chance to get any trainin either for labor or education, all bright children, little boys and girls. Without the assistance of this school I don’t seen any chance for them to ever make anythin out of theirselves. I visit the school…
Page 2 [dear_friend_1915-11_20_002]
-2-
…nearly every day and I think the children progressin nicely. They don’t look any like they did when they come to this school, barefoot and almost naked. They look now well cared for and wear garments nice and clean, a thing they never knew before. They are doin awful well. We’re in hopes we can get money so we can fetch in 150 of just such children as we’ve been ahandlin. We want to teach them books and agriculture and machinery and all kinds of labor and to learn them to live up as good American citizens. We are trying to teach them up so they can be a help to the poor and to the generation unborn.
[Caption for photograph: The Far House.]
People of other communities are payin us visits and are so pleased with the work here that they want us to start a school over on Cutshin about fifteen miles from here. On account of the vile work and drinkin carried on in that country amongst children, I think if we had a school there like this, it would be a great blessin to the children there. I think this is all the school that you and Miss Pettit and Miss de Long and me can manage, but I would be glad if somebody could go to help them.
I hope our good friends will come forard and help us all they can to make better people out of our wild mountain people that has been raised up here in ignorance and almost regardless of law. Their fore-parents has laid the pattern for them of drinkins, killins, whorins and abomination in the sight of God. (Hit’s rough to say, but hit’s the truth and I think hit ought to be said.) I see no chance to teach the old but if the children can be teached up in a better light they can lay an example even for their parents.
I don’t look after wealth for them. I look after the prosperity of our nation. The question of this world is naught. We are born into it naked and we go out naked. The savin of the soul is what we should seek. I want all younguns taught to serve the livin God. Of course, they won’t all do that, but they can have good and evil laid before them and they can choose which they will. I have heart and cravin that our people may grow better. I have deeded my land to the Pine Mountain Settlement School to be used for school purposes as long as the Constitution of the United States stands. Hopin it may make a bright and intelligent people after I’m dead and gone.
[signed] William Creech Sr.
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