Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 05: GOVERNANCE – BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Elizabeth Hench Joy Stock Company Limited Letters 1933
Ayrshire cows at PMSS. Taken by Bill Hayes. [hayes_IMAG0157.jpg]
ELIZABETH HENCH Joy Stock Company Limited Letters 1933
TAGS: Elizabeth Hench, Elizabeth C. Hench, Board of Trustees, Joy Stock Company Limited, cow letters, 1933, Emerson, Compensation, cow hides, milk, Rejoice, gift receipts, Joseph Lincoln, Head Tide, future cow needs, Andy Gump comics, bulls, cows, Elizabeth Hench, Carlisle PA, fundraising
GALLERY
Cow Letter by Elizabeth Hench, Jan 1933.[ hench_0014.jpg]
TRANSCRIPTION
January 1933 [hench_0014.jpg]
19 Pomfret Apartments
Carlisle, Pa.
January, 1933
Dear Friend:
Before the Civil War, Emerson wrote Compensation and proved that an excess of one quality balanced an absence of another. Nature never plays favorites. Cow hides were firm and good when Grandmother came into possession of a cow-hide trunk for her first important journey, usually her wedding journey. Tradition and pioneer stories, popular until about five years ago, are full of cow-hide trunks, tanned with the hair on the outside.
But, the firmer the hide, the poorer the cow was as a milk producer. Now that the cow is bred for milk, the hides are flabby.
REJOICE is a grand cow for milk, but I doubt if her hide would be worth much. However, she and you have kept the Milky Way visible at Pine Mountain. The total of your checks for 1932 was $170; great, I say, considering the A.D. The grand total since 1920 is $3397. Unfortunately, since REJOICE was born and reared in a barnyard and was taught by her mama that it is proper to lick the trough clean, $170 will not quite support her throughout 1933. last year she licked up $222 worth of food.
“A cow has no conscience,” says Joseph Lincoln in Head Tide. “She wouldn’t care if she made her friends miserable; she wouldn’t feel the least bit wicked or sorry for them.”
The whole thing reminds me of an elephant about whom we used to sing when I was in college:
“For the elephant ate all night
And the elephant ate all day,
And every cent of his earnings went
To keep the beast in hay,
Till he tore his hair in wild despair
And piped his lachrymal glands.” etc.
But I refuse to tear my hair or to pipe my lachrymal glands because I know REJOICE will have food every day in 1933.
From one for whom the subject of cows is never dry,
[signed] Elizabeth Hench
P.S. I was glad to see that Andy Gump was recently chased by a bull. That animal and all the bulls and cows in the Comics are certainly lurid.
Back to:
ELIZABETH HENCH GUIDE Joy Stock Company Limited Letters 1927-1933
See Also:
ELIZABETH HENCH Trustee
