Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PMSS Publications (Published by the School)

Dear Friend Letters 1921, March 28, 1921

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CONTENTS: Dear Friend Letters 1921, March 28, 1921

Dear Friend Letters 1921 consists of one 2-page letter that includes the following subjects: Students donated money for children of “Near and Far East” ; students requested and received famine rations one day a week in March to add to their donations ; donations totaled $82.00 ; Pine Mountain students also need help ; three of the 7 Callahans are still at school ; John Callahan was victim of revenge killing ; 94 children at the School ; donations are needed for infirmary and each child ; signed by Ethel de Long Zande ;

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GALLERY: Dear Friend Letters 1921

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TRANSCRIPTION: Dear Friend Letters 1921

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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Miss Katherine Pettit
Mrs. Ethel de Long Zande

TREASURER
C. N. Manning
Security Trust Co.

PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL, INC.
PINE MOUNTAIN, HARLAN COUNTY
KENTUCKY

March 28, 1921.

Dear Friend:

This Easter Monday Pine Mountain has been proudly giving, for the children of the Near East and the Far. One hears of the magnificence of kings’ gifts; you would like better the simplicity and the fine, careless rapture of our children’s gifts. After everybody had emptied his pockets a month ago the sum total was so small that our children could not stop thinking of the needs of the pitiful countries, so they asked for famine rations one day each week in March, that they might send the difference. We could not resist their appeal for just a little chance to help, even though it meant giving up necessities. Rice and water cocoa it was, then, for four Friday dinners, and never was giving more graciously done. At noon, everybody talked about how good the bowls of rice were, though some were almost choked by our plenty as they thought that the seventeen cents they were saving would provide nearly six meals for a Chinese child. Ardent little boys said, “I weren’t nary grain hungry at supper time,” and even those who confessed to very empty feelings about four o’clock, scorned to eat more supper than usual. So, at the rate of seventeen cents each meal, we have sent away $82.00 today.

And now we wonder if anyone will eat famine rations for our children, that bodies, hearts, and minds may be nourished and cherished. Never were needier givers than these! There are still in school three little Callahans of the seven their father brought us nearly five years ago to ‘raise toward humanity.” They are fatherless now as well as motherless, since John was shot in revenge because he had testified to a man’s lawbreaking. More than a score of other little orphan boys and girls look to the school as their “certain stayin’ place,” a true alma mater, to say nothing of the fortunate ones who have parents and homes, even though they have to leave them for the sake of an education. Ninety-four children altogether!

Pine Mountain wants for its boys and girls frugal living, but a most glorious chance, to learn well and lustily, to play blithely, and to feel rightly, — to partake of the spendors of liv-…

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…ing as well as of its toil. We cannot give them the chance they ought to have without more help, — $1,000 more a month in annual subscriptions. We still have two wards and a nurse’s room in our new infirmary to pay for, each one costing $500. One ward has already been given as a memorial to a mother; it would be fitting if the other three could also be memorials.

Think what $1, $5, $10, given annually, means in the education of a child. $150 pays for a year’s scholarship; $3,000 endows one. Won’t you let us transmute your dollars into something shining for a stout little heart, that another child may follow a gleam?

Very sincerely yours,
[signed] Ethel de Long Zande

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