Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 07: DIRECTORS
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY
Ethel de Long Zande (1879-1928)
PMSS Co-Founder & Co-Director 1913-1928

ETHEL DE LONG ZANDE Director
Co-Founder & Co-Director 1913 – 1928

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TAGS: Ethel de Long Zande, WCTU Settlement School, Hindman Settlement School, Katherine Pettit, Uncle William Creech Sr, co-directors, co-founders, Mary Rockwell Hook, Helen de Long, fundraising, hands-on learning, rural education, community health, Appalachian traditions, Luigi Zande, dulcimers, letter-writing, Nativity play, Chapel, Zande House, Alberto Zande, Elena Zande, May Stone, teachers, social reform, Evelyn K. Wells 

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Ethel de Long Zande (1879-1928) was born Ethel Marguerite de Long in October 1879 to George and Arabella M. de Long. At an early age, she demonstrated her lifelong love for family, humankind, the natural world, and intellectual and artistic studies. According to a 1928 article in Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School, 

At the age of eighteen, when youth clamourously demands freedom, she became [her family’s caregiver], the family at that time consisting of an invalid father, a delicate little mother and a child sister. Unwilling to leave them behind, and unwilling to forego the cherished plan of a four-year course at Smith College, she proposed to set up a home at Northampton [Massachusetts]. Thither the family moved in the summer of 1897, from Montclair, New Jersey, where she was born and had always lived. By availing herself of loan funds, by tutoring from her sophomore year on, by teaching in the Easthampton High School during her junior and senior years, Ethel made her way through college, constantly inspired…by the spiritual encouragement of her mother.

When Miss de Long received a B.A. in 1901 from Smith College she, along with many graduates of women’s colleges during this time, elected a career from the few occupations that society considered proper for educated women: teaching and social reform. She worked as a teacher at Central High in Springfield, Massachusetts, until 1905, then moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where she taught English at the Manual Training High School for another five years.

According to the 1928 Notes article, “she worked under two of the best superintendents in the United States, both men well-known in the educational world, Dr. Thomas Balliet and Mr. Calvin Kendall” during her ten years of teaching. “Professionally and personally these men were her admiring friends.”

Recounting Miss de Long’s interests, the article states: “While she loved nature with intensity, and books more than nature, she loved people essentially” and her family was at the center of her circle of many relationships. Her chosen subject was English.

To her teaching she brought [a] wealth of intellectual interest. She was…a born teacher. All the delight of intellectual give and take which she found in conversation, in the writing and receiving of letters, in discussion and debate, she brought into the classroom.

Miss de Long was still teaching English at the high school in Indianapolis when she was invited by May Stone and Katherine Pettit to become principal at the newly founded WCTU (Woman’s Christian Temperance Union) Settlement School in Hindman (Knott County), Kentucky. The WCTU settlement was the forerunner of Hindman Settlement School officially founded in 1902. Working alongside Katherine Pettit and May Stone, the co-founders of the WCTU Settlement School, she learned about the life of the mountain people and their pressing needs.

Around 1911 Miss Pettit was approached by a local mountaineer, William Creech Sr. “Uncle William” wished to donate land in a remote area of Harlan County for a new school that would address the local area’s lack of educational opportunities and moral guidance. This generous donation and mutually agreed upon mandate were enough to inspire Miss Pettit and Miss de Long to leave Hindman near Christmas of 1912 and to establish Pine Mountain Settlement School by 1913.

It wasn’t easy for Pettit and de Long, two women who grew up in more prosperous circumstances, to make the second start at Pine Mountain and to start a school in an even more remote location than Hindman. The record of their early struggles are, however, filled with the details of life in the remote location, but liberally punctuated by the exuberance, excitement and success of their efforts. During the first several years, with Uncle William’s assistance, they oversaw the clearing of the land and streams, planting of fruit trees, and construction of buildings using natural resources and aided by supplies hauled by men and oxen over the steep Pine Mountain.

Around 1913 Miss de Long recruited the architect, Mary Rockwell Hook, a graduate of Wellesley (MA) College who had studied design for one year in Paris under the guidance of Jean-Marcel Auburtin at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the distinguished National School of Fine Arts in Paris. Though Hook did not successfully complete the exam for graduation from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (nor did her male cohorts!) her training served her well. Her master plan for the School including the administration and classroom buildings and the cottages and dorms and their placement on the campus with respect to the farmland needs was a cooperative effort. Those efforts are now recognized as a National Historic Landmark site.

Around 1914 through the 1920s, Miss de Long’s younger sister, Helen de Long, who, with their mother Arabella, were frequent visitors to the campus, photographed the School and community activities and environment. Helen de Long’s Photograph Album is part of the Pine Mountain Settlement School collections, as are the books collected by the family. The Helen de Long photographs may also currently be viewed in the Berea (KY) College Hutchins Library Special Collections and Archives.

In addition to assisting with the physical design of the new campus, Ethel de Long was a tireless recruiter for money and for staff. Miss de Long used the fundraising skills she developed at WCTU Settlement School and the network of prospective donors that she had built while attending Smith College. Her contacts at Smith and other Northeastern women’s colleges were also valuable when it was time to hire well-trained and dedicated workers for the School.

As a result of the work of de Long, Pettit, Uncle William and their well-chosen staff and strong determination, intelligent planning, and compassion for the people of the region, Pine Mountain Settlement School blossomed and grew. Forty students were attending classes and receiving room and board on campus by 1915. From the start, the students not only gained a basic education, but also industrial training. Ethel de Long’s careful educational planning laid the foundation for educational programming in the first two decades of the School and was an inspiration to many of the educational programs that were developed later in the School’s history. Hands-on learning experiences in the areas of recreation, health, nutrition, and the preservation of traditional occupations, such as spinning, weaving, dancing, and music were integral to her planning. Ethel became accomplished at many of these creative skills, particularly the dulcimer.

In April 1918, Miss de Long and Luigi Zande, an Italian stonemason who had been working at the School, traveled to Norwich, Connecticut, to marry. The couple returned to Pine Mountain one day before the death of Uncle William Creech, the donor of land for the School, died. Both were able to help with his funeral preparation and memorial. That summer they lived temporarily in Pole House while Luigi built a little hillside cottage for his new wife. The building which came to be called Zande House is still in use on the Pine Mountain Settlement School campus as a staff dwelling. The Zande’s son “Berto” was born in Louisville, KY, on March 19, 1919, and named after his Italian grandfather, Alberto Zande. Four years later, the Zandes adopted an infant daughter Elena, who was born on December 28, 1922.

ETHEL DE LONG ZANDE Director: GALLERY

Throughout her years at the Pine Mountain School, Miss de Long continued raising funds by traveling the country and giving talks at schools and organizations, such as the Chautauqua (NY) Institution, Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, Buffalo (NY) Historical Society, Wellesley College Christian Association, Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), Smith College, and the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC.

She was noted by the Smith Alumnae Quarterly in 1929 for her “appeal and charm” when she spoke. A description of her presentation was recorded in the 1917 Proceedings of the 26th Continental Congress of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution as follows: “Miss de Long tells the story of the mountains so well, she illustrates her talks by singing the mountain ballads while playing them on a dulcimer.”

Miss de Long’s writing style was also impressive. The author of an article in Printers’ Ink 112 (April-June 1929), suggested that all “correspondents and students of letters” use one of her letters as an example of effective writing:

A letter which achieved such notable results is worthy of examination by all correspondents and students of letters. In the first place it is to be noted that Mrs. Ethel de Long Zande, author of the letter, was so thoroughly “sold” on her subject that the letter almost wrote itself. She let her own emotion appear in what she wrote and yet she composed with great restrain[t]. The letter is a model of simplicity, genuineness, and sincerity throughout. It takes in order all the steps necessary to the writing of a good letter, advertisement, or story – attention, interest, conviction, stimulation to action.

Ethel de Long Zande’s personal letters of correspondence along with those of her family were received by the Pine Mountain Settlement School collections on March 4, 2014, and have a comprehensive GUIDE TO THE DE LONG-ZANDE PAPERS. prepared by Dr. James Greene. who received the letters from Kendall Bassett, an early staff member of Pine Mountain. Bassett who was a close friend of Ethel de Long, her sister Helen, and their mother, Arabella de Long. received the de Long-Zande letters following Ethel’s death in 1928 and passed them to James Greene who was engaged in writing his dissertation, Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains (1982, FULL TEXT). Now, a Pine Mountain Settlement School trustee, Greene turned the correspondence over to the School in 2014. as directed by Kendall Bassett.

In her fundraising correspondence and speeches, Miss de Long described the hardships of the mountain people, but she was always careful to remain positive about their lives. She wrote in this way not only out of love and respect for the people, but also to make her letters more acceptable to wealthy philanthropists, according to Nancy Forderhase, in her article “Philanthropy and Antagonism: Kentucky Mountain Schools in the 1920s” in Border States: Journal of the Kentucky-Tennessee American Studies Association. 6 (1987): 41–51.

An example of this sentiment may be found in Miss de Long’s article, “The Far Side of the Mountain” in the October 1916 – March 1917 issue of The Survey:

The outside world, hearing of the southern mountains as the home of feuds and the distilling place for moonshine, reading of boys and girls who have no knowledge of books, or of modern achievement, considers the Appalachians the frontier of civilization; while we who know intimately the life of the southern mountaineers long to preserve the old standards of courtesy and behavior, the dignity and simplicity of the hills.

One of the most creative and beloved of Miss de Long’s efforts was the Nativity Play, which she and her students wrote around 1915. It became an annual community tradition and has been presented by the School every December since its introduction by Ethel de Long Zande.

The death of Ethel de Long Zande came much too early. She died on March 18, 1928, at the age of 49 after a brave struggle with breast cancer. Writing to one of the staff at the near-by Medical Settlement at Big Laurel just weeks before her death she said

I wish I had begun to feel that I was just resting! I still have too many rheumatic pains in my back, and too much trouble with breathing, to feel anything but sick. I consider that this is the first illness that I have ever had in my life, and don’t know how to take it very well. It seems so surprising not to feel better every day …

Letter to Anna Brockschlager, March 8, 1928.

An article by Frances Jewell McVey, “The Blossom Woman,” in the April 1934 issue of Mountain Life & Work 10 (page 4), quoted a friend who, at the time of Miss de Long’s death, described the efforts of Misses Pettit and de Long in this way:

Fifteen years of building into the mountain life of Kentucky this edifice made of dreams-come-true of two devoted women! What eye can gauge its proportions or what hand presume to set down its extent? I know only with what conscious purpose they made education in the Kentucky mountains their contribution to the whole cause of education, with what power they created a unique school at Pine Mountain, with what joy they have lived their days among the mountain folk. 

At the time of her death in 1928, a brass memorial plate was placed in the transept of the Pine Mountain Chapel, given by the Montclair Pine Mountain Association. It can still be found in that location and reads:

In Memory of the Radiant Leadership
and Inspiration
of
Ethel deLong Zande
in this School
1913-1928
Whatsoever things are true
Whatsoever things are honest
Whatsoever things are pure
Whatsoever things are lovely
Think on these things.

Ethel de Long Zande was buried just to the left of the Chapel nave that runs parallel with the road.  It is a strange marker. The choice of what appears to be a carefully selected boulder of mountain limestone has a curious anthropomorphic shape resembling a face. Two “eyes” seem to stare out over the valley as though this visionary woman still watches over the School that she so lovingly helped to create.

ETHEL DE LONG ZANDE Director: Children of Ethel and Luigi Zande

Alberto Zande was born on March 19, 1919, in Louisville, Kentucky. He spent his first ten years at Pine Mountain Settlement School where his mother, Ethel de Long Zande served as co-director of the School and his father, Luigi Zande, worked as a stonemason, builder, and teacher.

He attended North Carolina State in Raleigh and served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

From age 10 he lived in Asheville, North Carolina, where he married Juanita Arline Froneberger, daughter of Lawrence and Alma Froneberger, on January 11, 1941. They had three children, each born in Asheville: Angela C. Zande (b. April 5, 1949), Michael L. Zande (b. June 25, 1950) and Anthony Louis Zande (b. June 21, 1954). Alberto and Juanita were divorced in 1966 and Alberto wed Elizabeth Vashaw Bulloch on November 25, 1967.

Alberto became president of Southern Tool & Die Company, manufacturers of stampings, dies and special tools, at Asheville and lived in nearby Arden. He died on January 12, 1998, in Asheville.

Juanita Arline Froneberger, born on January 15, 1915, in Mecklenburg, NC, died on January 3, 2000, in Charlotte, NC.

Elena Zande was born on December 28, 1922, in Missouri and was adopted by Luigi and Ethel Zande as an infant. She was educated at St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland. In 1947 she married Barney Beigel at Santa Monica, California. The couple had two children: Roline Beigel and Margaret Beigel.

Elena Zande died April 1973 in Santa Monica, California.

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SEE ALSO:

GUIDE TO THE DE LONG-ZANDE PAPERS [Largely personal correspondence]

GUIDE TO DE LONG ZANDE ADMINISTRATIVE CORRESPONDENCE [Not included in GUIDE TO THE DE LONG-ZANDE PAPERS]

PUBLICATIONS BY ETHEL DE LONG

ETHEL DE LONG, “DOINGS ON TROUBLESOME“, Smith Alumnae Quarterly. (July 11, 1911)

ETHEL DE LONG, “MOUNTAIN MANNERS,” Smith Alumnae Quarterly

ETHEL DE LONG, “THE FAR SIDE OF PINE MOUNTAIN,” The Survey. 37 (3 March 1917) p. 627-630 [Online: Internet Archive]

LETTERS TO FRIENDS 1913 – 1928 by Ethel de Long (See: Dear Friend Letters -Index) (Promotional literature)

DEAR FRIEND LETTERS – INDEX (See above: LETTERS TO FRIENDS 1913 – 1928 for those by de Long)

RELATED

Ethel de Long Zande SMITH MEMORIAL CORRESPONDENCE

ETHEL DE LONG ZANDE PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM

GUIDE TO KATHERINE PETTIT CORRESPONDENCE

HELEN DE LONG PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM

HELEN DE LONG AND DE LONG FAMILY BOOK DONATION (Donated to Pine Mountain in 1942)

LUIGI ZANDE Biography

NOTES – 1928 – The September issue of Pine Mountain Settlement School Notes is devoted to a narrative about Ethel de Long Zande and the life she lived.

ZANDE HOUSE

TALKS:

ETHEL DE LONG, “THE PINE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL – A SKETCH FROM THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS” by Ethel de Long

ETHEL DE LONG, “SCHOOL AS COMMUNITY CENTER,” for National Conference of Charities and Corrections, June 7, 1915.

	Gravestone for Ethel de Long Zande, located on the front side of the Chapel. [IMG_1909.jpg]
Title	Ethel de Long Zande
Alt. Title	Ethel Marguerite de Long Zande
Identifier	https://pinemountainsettlement.net/?page_id=1696Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Creator	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Alt. Creator	Helen Hayes Wykle ; Ann Angel Eberhardt ;
Subject Keyword	Ethel de Long ; Ethel de Long Zande ; Ethel Marguerite de Long Zande ; Smith College ; Manual Training High School ; WCTU Settlement School ; Hindman Settlement School ; Katherine Pettit ; Uncle William Creech Sr ; Pine Mountain Settlement School ; directors ; co-directors ; co-founders ; Mary Rockwell Hook ; Helen de Long ; Berea College (KY) ; fundraising ; administration ; education ; hands-on learning ; rural education ; community health ; Appalachian traditions ; Appalachian music ; Appalachian dance ; Luigi Zande ; dulcimers ; letter-writing ; Nativity play ; Chautauqua Institution ; Sons of the American Revolution ; Daughters of the American Revolution ; Buffalo Historical Society ; Wellesley College Christian Association ; Northwestern University ; National Geographic Society ; Dr. Thomas Balliet ; Calvin Kendall ; Chapel ; Zande House ; Alberto Zande ; Elena Zande ; women’s colleges ; photography ; Ecole des Beaux-Arts ; Wellesley College ; May Stone ; George de Long ; Arabella M. de Long ; Notes from PMSS ; English ; teachers ; Nancy Forderhase ; Montclair Pine Mountain Association ; social reform ; Northampton, MA ; Montclair, NJ, Springfield, MA ; Indianapolis, IN ; Hindman, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Knott County, KY ; Wellesley, MA ; Paris, France ; Berea, KY ; Chautauqua, NY ; Buffalo, NY ; Evanston, IL ; Washington, DC ; Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd ; Evelyn K. Wells ; Mountain Life & Work ;
Subject LCSH	de Long Zande, Ethel Marguerite, — 1879 – 1928. Educators — Biography. Pine Mountain Settlement School, (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History. Education — Kentucky — Harlan County. Rural schools — Kentucky — History. Schools — Appalachian Region. Rural schools — Appalachian Region, Southern.
Date	2004-06-30
Publisher	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Contributor	n/a
Type	Collection ; Text ; image ;
Format	Originals and copies of documents, correspondence in file folders in filing cabinet ; album(s) ;
Source	Series 7: Director’s Files ; Series 7: De Long – Zande Papers
Language	English
Relation	Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 7: Director’s Files Is related to: LETTER 1915 – TRIP TO HINDMAN.
Coverage Temporal	1879 – 1928
Coverage Spatial	Pine Mountain, KY ; Northampton, MA ; Montclair, NJ, Springfield, MA ; Indianapolis, IN ; Hindman, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Knott County, KY ; Wellesley, MA ; Paris, France ; Berea, KY ; Chautauqua, NY ; Buffalo, NY ; Evanston, IL ; Washington, DC ;
Rights	Any display, publication, or public use must credit the Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Copyright retained by the creators of certain items in the collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Donor	n/a
Description	Core documents, correspondence, writings, and administrative papers created by or addressed to Ethel de Long Zande; clippings, photographs, publications by or about Ethel de Long Zande.
Acquisition	n/d
Citation	“[Identification of Item],” [Collection Name] [Series Number, if applicable]. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Processed by	Helen Hayes Wykle; Ann Angel Eberhardt ;
Last updated	2001-05-28; 2007-07-10; 2009-09-20 aae; 2013-10-17 aae; 2013-12-17 hhw; 2017-01-16 hhw; 2017-07-05 aae; 2020-11-13 hhw;
Bibliography	SOURCES Annual Register of the Alumnae Association of Smith College: Report for 1915-1916. Northampton, MA: Smith College, 1917. Print. de Long, Ethel. “Doings on Troublesome.” Smith Alumnae Quarterly. (July 11, 1911): 17-22. Print. de Long, Ethel. “The Far Side of Pine Mountain.” The Survey. 37 (October 1916 – March 1917): 627. Print. de Long, Ethel. “The School as a Community Center.” Presented at the 43rd National Conference of Charities and Correction in Indianapolis, IN, May 1916. In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction. 43 (1916). Print. DeLong, Thomas A. The Delongs of New York and Brooklyn: A Huguenot Family Portrait. Southport, Conn: Sasco Associates, 1972. Internet resource Accessed 2017-07-05.) Forderhase, Nancy K.. “Eve Returns to the Garden: Women Reformers in Appalachian Kentucky in the Early Twentieth Century,”The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 237-261. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23380765. Print. “IAWA Spotlight: Mary Rockwell Hook.” IAWA Newsletter. 4 (Fall 1991). Print. James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyd. Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1972. Print. McVey, Frances Jewell. “The Blossom Woman.” Mountain Life & Work. 10 (April 1934): 4. Print. Minton, Jennifer, and Harry Hinkle,“The Role of Women in the Development of the Settlement Schools.” Lexington, KY: KET Productions, 1995. http://www.ket.org/settlement/setschools_03.html (accessed 2013-10-17). Internet resource. Municipal Register of the City of Springfield for 1905. Springfield, MA: S. Bowles, 1905. Print. Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School. 11 (September 1928). Series17: PMSS Publications. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Internet resource. Printers’ Ink. 115 (April – June 1921). Print. Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Continental Congress of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, DC. 26 (1917): 948. Print. The Smith College Monthly. 13 (October 1905): 194. Print. Stoddart, Jess. Challenge and Change in Appalachia: The Story of Hindman Settlement School. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002. Print. Wikipedia. Ethel de Long Zande. Online source. Wolfe, Margaret Ripley. Daughters of Canaan: A Saga of Southern Women. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1995. Print. Miss de Long’s papers and images can be found in the following locations: Correspondence between Ethel de Long Zande and Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd. Alice Lloyd Caney Creek Community Center Collection, 1915-1954, located in the University of Kentucky Libraries: Lexington, KY. Correspondence with Evelyn K. Wells in Country Dance and Song Society Archives, Milne Special Collections, University of New Hampshire Library: Durham, NH. Pine Mountain Settlement School Photographic Collection, Berea College Southern Appalachian Archives in the Hutchins Library Special Collections & Archives: Berea, KY. “Zande, Ethel de Long, transcriptions of correspondence, 1914-1926.” Series 07: Directors. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Archival material. Greene, James. Guide to de Long – Zande Collection, March 2014. Series 07: Directors. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Internet resource. About Ethel de Long Zande Day, Carrie. The Love They Gave: A Tribute to Miss Katharine (sic) Pettit and Miss Ethel Delong, Founders of Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, Harlan County, Kentucky. Big Creek, KY: Carrie Day, 1982. Print.

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