Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Staff
August Angel, Teacher 1934-1942
August David Angel (1908-1996)

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TAGS: August Angel, Miami University, Edgewood Inn, Mary Anne Smith (Mrs. Stanley Plattenburg), Glyn Morris, Alice Carter Shera, students, teachers, printshops, PMSS publications, Susie Hall Angel, Ann Angel Eberhardt, Keating School of Linotyping, Michael Anthony Angel, Patrick Nicholas Angel, WWII, Pine Mountain Association of Alumni and Friends

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AUGUST ANGEL Staff

August Angel: Volunteer Playground Assistant 1933
Teacher (Biology, Mechanical Drawing, Printing) 1934-1938, 1940-1942

August Angel’s story begins when his father, Augustin Anghel, immigrated to America at the turn of the century to work on the railroads and in the steel mills. Augustin’s original plan was to save his earnings, return to Romania, and spend the rest of his years on his farm with his wife, Maria Lichirie. Instead, in 1907, Maria came to America to join her husband.

Approximately one year later, October 1908, August was born in Syracuse, Indiana. Eventually, his parents moved to Farrell, Pennsylvania, and then Cleveland, Ohio, two steel mill towns in which August spent most of his youth. It was a time when the family struggled to make ends meet and August supplemented the family income by working at various jobs.

Beginning in 1929, August attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. For income, he worked during the summers as a handyman at Edgewood Inn in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and as a boatswain on Great Lakes freighters. August earned a B.S. in education from Miami University in 1933.

Mrs. Stanley Plattenburg, wife of the Rector of the Episcopal Church in Oxford, (formerly Miss Mary Anne Smith, who was a teacher at Pine Mountain Settlement School in 1926), suggested that August request an application for a position at the School, which he did in June 1933. Glyn Morris, director of the School, responded that there were no openings for the coming year, but he sent an application form for August to complete and submit for future consideration.

AUGUST ANGEL Staff: Teaching At Pine Mountain, 1933-1938

Meanwhile, Mrs. Alice Carter Shera, a Miami University student and a member of a women’s group that was interested in helping mountain people, asked August to drive her to Pine Mountain Settlement School for a visit. While there, Glyn Morris offered August a teaching position, which August accepted. (Mrs. Shera was promised a teaching position upon completion of her studies at Miami U. She later returned to teach arts and crafts.) According to Glyn Morris’s report to the PMSS Board of Trustees and the Advisory Board for August 1933,

Mr. August Angel, a young man with a very interesting background, recently graduated from Miami University at Oxford, Ohio….[He has been hired] as a volunteer instructor in Printing, and assists in playground and organized games and athletics.

For the next four years, 1934 to 1938, August served as a paid instructor in science and printing at the School. He assisted Glyn Morris in setting up the first print shop in the Office building for students to receive hands-on experience in a useful trade. The shop provided all the printed material that was needed at the School, such as The Pine Cone, Chapel programs, special event programs, staff and student stationery, office stationery, pads, business office materials, and Notes. Several books were also printed, including the first edition of At Home in the Hills (1938), a collection of John Spelman‘s linoleum cuts, and the hand-bound A Pine Mountain Study in Civics (1937) by Everett K. Wilson. Eventually, the student shop was moved to the Draper Building (which replaced the burned Boys’ Industrial Building in 1936).

GALLERY: August Angel at Pine Mountain 

In 1936, August was married to Susie Hall from Viper, Kentucky, and a graduate of Pine Mountain Settlement School, in the School’s Chapel by Rev. Glyn Morris.

AUGUST ANGEL: Return to Pine Mountain, 1940-1942 

After over four years at Pine Mountain, August accepted a high school teaching position with the Dayton (Ohio) Public School System, where the first of his three children, Ann Marie Angel (Eberhardt), was born in 1940. A few months afterward, August and Susie, longing to recapture the spiritual qualities they had known at Pine Mountain Settlement School, returned to the School, August to teach printing, and Susie as housemother.

In 1941, Glyn Morris arranged for August to attend the Keating School of Linotyping in Chicago, Illinois, for six weeks of training. The school was sponsored by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. While there, August wrote the following letter to Glyn Morris dated June 11, 1941, expressing how Pine Mountain had influenced his life:

Dear Mr. Morris:
Every once in a while a person gets to thinking about himself and his place in the sun. Since coming to Chicago I’ve had plenty of time to sit back and check off my worth to the world. I want you to know that my return to Pine Mountain a year ago has given me that assured feeling that there I’ve found my little place. In a letter from Sue she writes that she can hardly wait for the time to return to the campus.

Though I haven’t spoken to Sue regarding such feelings I know for certain she is crazy about the school. When I say school I don’t mean the impersonal thing, I mean those things of good report, get-togethers, friends –you, A.W. [Dr. Alfreda Withington?], Mrs. Morris, Miss [Gladys] Hill, others on the campus and some of the friends of the school who come year after year — Miss [Abby] Christensen, Mrs. [Mary Rockwell] Hook.

These things and friends, the high ideals of the school, its beauty of location, its work and dignity for same, are some of the things I am thankful for that I’m a member of the community there. Thanking you and Mrs. Morris again for letting Sue and me return to live, I am,
Respectfully,
August

GALLERY I: Letter from August Angel to Glyn Morris, 1941

AUGUST ANGEL: After Pine Mountain, 1942-1996

Susie and August’s second child, Michael Anthony Angel, was born in the School’s Infirmary in 1942. Soon after, the family departed Pine Mountain when August found employment with the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1944 August left for U.S. Army training and deployment to Europe as a member of Counter Intelligence Corps during and after the final months of World War II.

Returning home as a war hero for taking part in the capture of a well-know Nazi, August and his family settled in Pennsylvania where his father was living and, in 1949, Patrick Nicholas Angel was born. Over time, August established two successful businesses in Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, a print shop and a community meeting hall.

After the Angel children left home for college (Ann and Patrick) and the U.S. Marines prior to college (Michael), August and Susie moved to Susie’s hometown of Viper, Kentucky, where August founded another print shop. He again became involved with the Pine Mountain School, printing for the School at cost, as well as printing the second edition of At Home in the Hills, for a Pine Mountain fundraising effort. He was also active as a treasurer for the Pine Mountain Association of Alumni and Friends.

In 1985 Susie and August were honored at the School’s annual homecoming with a bronze plaque that read: “To August and Sue Angel, with love, from Alumni and Friends.” According to the Annual Report of the 1985 Homecoming, the Association’s newsletter,

Seeing the sparkle in Mike’s (August and Sue’s grandson) eyes as he listened to his grandfather and friends tell tales of the school’s early days, and being present in the restored room at West Wind, where we went to lovingly hang a small bronze plaque…, was to us the most poignant moment of all.

August and Susie spent their last years enjoying life on a farm that was shared by their sons and grandchildren in London, Kentucky. August died in 1996 and Susie in 2006.

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GALLERY II: Student Workbook by August Angel, 1942

[For transcription, see Workbook for Students of Printing.]

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     See Also:

BIOGRAPHIES
ALICE CARTER SHERA Staff 
ARCHIVE: ABOUT Ann Angel Eberhardt (Keeper)
CALEB SHERA Student 
PATRICK ANGEL Board
SUSIE HALL ANGEL Student, Staff 
FRED J. BURKHARD Staff

AUGUST ANGEL Correspondence

Christmas at Pine Mountain Settlement School GUIDE

EDUCATION Printshop
WORKBOOK for Students of Printing
PUBLICATIONS PMSS

FRED J. BURKHARDT Friends in the Cayman Islands 1938

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Title	August Angel
Alt. Title	August David Angel
Identifier	AUGUST ANGEL
Creator	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Alt. Creator	Ann Angel Eberhardt ; Helen Hayes Wykle ;
Subject Keyword	August Angel ; August D. Angel ; August David Angel ; Romania ; Pine Mountain Settlement School ; Miami University ; Edgewood Inn ; boatswains ; Great Lakes ; freighters ; education ; teachers ; Mrs. Stanley Plattenburg ; Mary Ann Smith ; Episcopal Church ; Glynn Morris ; Alice Carter Shera ; Arthur Dodd ; Abby Christensen ; Mary Rockwell Hook ; print shops ; printing ; Workbook for Students of Printing ; Office ; Susie Hall ; Chapel ; Ann Marie Angel ; Dayton Public School System ; housemothers ; Michael Anthony Angel ; Infirmary ; Keaton School of Linotyping ; Mergenhaler Linotype Company ; linotypes ; Isaacs Run ; Old Laurel House ; Civilian Conservation Corps ; At Home in the Hills ; John Spelman III ; linoleum cuts ; A Pine Mountain Study in Civics ; Everett K. Wilson ; Draper ; Boys’ Industrial Building ; U.S. Army ; Counter Intelligence Corps ; World War II ; Patrick Nicholas Angel ; U.S. Marines ; PMSS Alumni Association ; Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Syracuse, IN ; Romania ; Farrell, PA ; Cleveland, OH ; Oxford, OH ; Catskill Mountains, NY ; Dayton, OH ; Chicago, IL ; Pennsylvania ; homecomings ; London, KY ; homecomings ; Annual Report of the 1985 Homecoming ;
Subject LCSH	Angel, August David, — 1908 – 1996. Angel, August — Biography. Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History. Harlan County (Ky.) — History. Education — Kentucky — Harlan County. Rural schools — Kentucky — History. Schools — Appalachian Region, Southern.
Date	2008-10-23
Publisher	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Contributor	Ann Angel Eberhardt
Type	Collections ; text ; image ;
Format	Original and copies of documents and correspondence in file folders in filing cabinet ; Miscellaneous documents, booklets, and images ;
Source	Series 9: Staff/Personnel
Language	English
Relation	Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 9: Staff/Personnel
Coverage Temporal	1908 – 1996
Coverage Spatial	Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Syracuse, IN ; Romania ; Farrell, PA ; Cleveland, OH ; Catskill Mountains, NY ; Dayton, OH ; Chicago, IL ; Pennsylvania ; London, KY ;
Rights	Any display, publication, or public use must credit the Pine Mountain Settlement School. 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 of August David Angel ; clippings, photographs, books by or about August David Angel ;
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	2007-07-12 aae ; 2008-10-27 hhw ; 2013-12-07 aae ; 2014-03-14 aae  ; 2014-11-14 aae ; 2015-08-21 aae ; 2021-12-20 aae ; 2023-04-26 aae ;
Bibliography	Sources Angel, August D. Trivia & Me: An Octogenarian Mirrors His Twentieth Century : a Tale of Decades of Capricious and Impulsive Acts That Produced Neither Polish nor Wealth but Ending in a Contented Lifestyle. London, KY: August David Angel, 2007. Print. Annual Report of the 1985 Homecoming, the official newsletter of Pine Mountain Association of Alumni and Friends. Pine Mountain, KY: Pine Mountain Settlement School,1985. Archival material. Angel, August. Workbook for Students of Printing. Pine Mountain, KY: Pine Mountain Settlement School, 1942. Archival material. Pine Mountain Settlement School Archives. Series 7: Director’s Reports – Reports to the Board of Trustees and Advisory Board of Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Archival material. Pine Mountain Settlement School Archives. PMSS Staff Database. Computer file. Spelman, John A. At Home in the Hills: Glimpses of Harlan County, Kentucky, Through the Media of Linoleum Block and the Woodcut. Pine Mountain, Ky: Pine Mountain Print Shop, 1939. Print. Wilson, E K. A Pine Mountain Study in Civics. Pine Mountain, KY: Pine Mountain Settlement School, 1937. Print.

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