Dr. GRACE HUSE Correspondence

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Staff
Series 14: MEDICAL
Dr. Grace Huse, PMSS Physician, 1919-1924
Medical Settlement at Big Laurel
Correspondence, 1921-1924

(left to rt) Dr. Grace Huse, woman with baby, Harriet Butler, and older woman. Home is decorated with magazine pages and crochet. [X_099_workers_2498_mod.jpg]

TAGS: Dr. Grace Huse, correspondence, medical clinics, Miss Maya Sudo, typhoid, Lynch Mines Hospital, donations, budget, endowment, fundraising, Marguerite Butler, Harriet Butler, Medical Settlement Big Laurel, Dr. Alfreda Withington

Dr. GRACE HUSE Correspondence
October 7, 1921 – November 29, 1924

[Note: Letters from PMSS staff in the PMSS Collections are carbon copies, typewritten, unsigned, and meant for the Office files. The original signed copies were sent to the correspondents. The initials at the bottom left of most PMSS letters indicate the writer (along with initials of the secretary). For example, “EZ” are the initials for Ethel de Long Zande, and “KP” refers to Katherine Pettit. The following list of contents is in chronological order and not necessarily in the order of the image numbers.]

1921

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October 7, 1921. EZ (Ethel de Long Zande) to Dr. Grace Huse in St. Louis, MO, offering condolences “for the sorrow that is besetting you all. … We miss you very, very much.”

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October 10, 1921. Evelyn K. Wells, PMSS Secretary, to Dr. Huse in St. Louis, MO.

“Miss Pettit has asked me to drop you a line, asking if you could possibly let us have your correspondence with Miss Williamson about the clinic, or notes of your decisions about it. … We all think of you often, and much as we miss you here, we are all glad that you can be where you ought to be just now.”

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October 13, 1921. EZ (Ethel de Long Zande) to Dr. Grace Huse.

“[The clinic] is to be held on October 31st and November 1st, and there are two doctors and Miss Williamson coming. Miss Sudo [Maya Sudo, nurse] is a treasure. She has made examinations of all the children and we are getting permission so that there will be no delay. Then we shall have Miss [Anna K.] Peters and Miss [Anne Ruth] Medcalf (nurses) to help afterwards.”

1922

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N.D. Memorandum from Dr. Huse, stating rules for using the Doctor’s horse, Billy, and for calling for Miss Peters at Big Laurel to come to Pine Mountain. Also, advice on how to determine the severity of a child’s sickness. “Pulse is much more an indication of sickness than temperature in children.”

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N.D. Unsigned memorandum, providing “Doctor’s Directions in case of typhoid. If a case of thyroid should break out this side of the mountain, everyone in the school, except those who have been inoculated in the past year, must be inoculated at once. Send for Squibbs’ typhoid inoculation from the State Board of Health in Louisville. …”

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January 16, 1922. K. (Katherine B.) Wright (teacher) to Dr. Huse in St. Louis, MO, asking her to stop in Lynch, KY, on her return to PMSS, to review the Lynch Mines Hospital. It is headed by Dr. Martillus Todd who visited PMSS to propose a free clinic in Lynch for people in the PMSS area. Miss [Lucretia] Garfield (teacher) and Miss Wright had visited the hospital, backed by the Lynch Co.; Wright describes its condition, equipment, and staff in positive terms. Mentions Dr. Wright, Tip Harris; describes Dr. Todd’s background.

huse_g_bio_008 and huse_g_bio_009 – Two pages.
January 24, 1922. (Sender’s name is unknown because the last page is truncated) to Dr. Huse in St. Louis, MO, [008, page 1] expressing the School’s need for Dr. Huse but that she is currently “in the right place.” Tells about visiting Mrs. Nolan and hearing positive things about her hospital stay. Tip Harris’s recovery is uncertain; needs radium treatment. A gift of $7,000 was donated to the Chapel; difficult to find a building site and make plans suitable to everyone. The School also received $5,000 for the Endowment Fund.

[009, page 2] Praises the work of Miss [Maya] Sudo, “a treasure,” who “had been up all night with Lorraine Redwine who has pneumonia….” Six children went to Louisville to have their tonsils removed and eyes, ears, and teeth checked and were given parties, and other treats. Tells about “your Down-Greasy children” who applied for PMSS: Two failed to stay: Virgil Boggs, Dillard Day. Cilles Turner arrived late, but Dorothy Day “seems to be contented, she and the little Harrises. Frank is a regular father to them….” Tells about Henry Creech and Ben Golden banning shooting matches. Mentions Miss M. (Marguerite) Butler and Berto (Zande).

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February 27, 1922. EZ (Zande) to Dr. Huse in St. Louis, MO. Dr. Huse returned a $25 check for travel expense to Zande, who writes that she will “apply for our February expenses, which are about three hundred per cent larger than our funds.” Zande hopes Dr. Huse and Butler will return in April. Encloses a draft of a sheet that is kept for each child and asks Huse to added spaces for health data.

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March 15, 1922. EZ (Zande) to Dr. Huse, thanking her for additions to the record sheet for children. Miss Peters will be returning on Friday.

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March 28, 1922. “To the Workers at Pine Mountain, from the Executive Committee.
When there were just two houses at Pine Mountain, and as we sat around the fire after the children had gone to bed, we visited nightly with the whole staff, everybody was in pretty close touch with things at the school and in any ways we could pull together more effectively than we can now. For instance, everybody knew when we were particularly poor, and when any sums of money came in over which we particularly rejoiced. Everybody knew what a hand-to-mouth struggle life was.

“We have thought now that you might like to have in black and white certain facts that are daily realities here, which you may have escaped knowing because of the lack of intimate contact.

“Although we now have a pretty complete plant at Pine Mountain we are really a desperately poor school, even more than we were in our early growing days. There are many times when we do not know within two days of the [?] to send out salary checks, whether we shall be able to pay them. Our last fall’s grocery bills have not been met.

“Our yearly budget, covering expense of running this school, the Medical Settlement, and Line Fork, is $50,000.00.
Our annual subscriptions amount to about $13,000.
Our annual income from endowment is about $1,275.
Making a total income of $14,275.
And a balance to raise of $35,725.00

“We try to add something to our endowment yearly, but business conditions outside are both favorable just now for a very general appeal. We ought, therefore, all to work together to increase the number of our annual subscribers or secure money gifts. If you don’t want to approach people yourselves, and could give us the names of people who might be interested because of your connections with the school, we would be glad to try to interest them from here. We feel that if you are all clear on the actual financial standing of the school, you can give people a better impression of it, as a work that needs support as well as enthusiastic interest. Don’t go away without literature which you can use.

“If you have any suggestions as to the more economical running of the school, let us talk about them at our next meeting. Certainly, we must do without anything that is in the nature of a luxury, and hold ourselves down only to essentials, until we have a much larger proportion of our annual expenses guaranteed from one year to the next. While we, personally, and as a school, dislike to talk poverty, we believe it is necessary if the constructive work the school is doing is to go on, that we let people know of the school’s struggle for existence, which matches pretty well the severity of our neighbors’ struggle for existence.”

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April 20, 1922. EZ (Zande) to Dr. Huse in St. Louis, MO, asking her advice about hiring a possible teacher for next year who has rheumatism and must avoid dampness. Mentions having a “dogwood winter.”

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April 27, 1922. KP (Katherine Pettit) to Dr. Huse and Miss Butler in St. Louis, MO, sending an article from Outlook by Dr. Taylor.

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August 4, 1922. (Unsigned) to Dr. Huse at Big Laurel, Ky, informing her that Marguerite Butler’s Fair program includes a health exhibit and a baby show by Huse.

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August 31, 1922. (Unsigned) to Dr. Huse. Mentions Dr. Grant’s coming to PMSS [for a clinic?]; no reply from Dr. Stucky; Linda Neville cannot come; wonders if Dr. Todd in Lynch could do the tonsil operations.

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December 14, 1922. (Unsigned) to Dr. Huse. Asks for Huse’s confirmation that Huse’s salary ($60) should be used to pay Dr. [Llewella?] Merrow.

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December 29, 1922. (Unsigned) to Dr. Huse, asking her to pass Saraliz’s glasses prescription on to Miss Pettit who will get them “given by the Howe people in Louisville.”

1923

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April 5, 1923. EZ (Zande) to Dr. Huse, ℅ American Express Company, Florence, Italy, sending Huse the rest of her vacation check money. Lists the children’s activities; Miss (Florence) Reeves and Miss Vallette are in quarantine.

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[No year, likely 1923.] A list “For Office”: Forwarding address for Dr. Huse and Miss Butler in St. Louis, MO, sailing address, and addresses in Europe for April through August.

1924

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May 24, 1924. EZ (Zande) to Dr. Huse in St. Louis, MO. Zande is anxious for news from Huse and Butler. Provides Medical Settlement updates: Dr. [Alfreda] Withington returned, “much better and eager to get back to work.” Visited Mrs. Alderman, “who seems to be making friends fast in the community and to be very well liked.”

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November 29, 1924. KP (Pettit) to Miss Harriet Butler and Dr. Grace Huse in St. Louis, MO, describing her “annual visit to Big Laurel.” She spent two nights with Dr. Withington and had “a nice time with all the workers,” including Mrs. Alderman. Six women met her at the home of Betts and Till Harris, who led them up the mountain. Next she will visit Line Fork for a week. “…the women have planned a day on the top of Pine Mountain where they say there is a mile of level rock with holes in it.” Describes the Chapel dedication and Thanksgiving service.

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N.D. CROSS REFERENCE SHEET for “Huse – Grace. See Clinic material in State Bd of Health.”