DEAR FRIEND Letter 1940

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PMSS Publications (Published by the School)
Dear Friend Letter 1940
Published 2017-06-30 aae

DEAR FRIEND Letter 1940 March 10

TAGS: Dear Friend letter 1940, publicity mailing, fundraising, Glyn Morris, blessing song, Laurel House I fire, insurance, Girls’ Industrial Building, Christmas celebration, dancing floor, “mush and milk” meals, PMSS as a community resource, an appeal for donations

TRANSCRIPTION: DEAR FRIEND LETTER 1940

  Page 1 [1940Mar10GlynAMorristoFriend.jpg]

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

GLYN A. MORRIS, Director
C. N. MANNING, Treasurer, Lexington, Ky.

March 10, 1940

“For health, and strength, and daily food, We praise thy name, O Lord!”

Pine Mountain has sung this blessing around the tables of the Laurel House dining room for nearly twenty-five years. We are beginning our yearly letter with these words because they speak of mercies for which we are just now peculiarly grateful. For on January 23, during a merciless cold spell of protracted sub-zero weather, Laurel House, our dining-room and laundry building and the residence of twenty girls and three workers, burned to the ground. Though fire squads sped to their posts, frozen water pipes made the hose useless, and within an hour the destruction was complete.

[Photograph of Laurel House I with caption: “LAUREL HOUSE LAST DOGWOOD TIME.”]

But adjustments were made, and within twenty-four hours the Girls’ Industrial Building was set up as a dining room and kitchen for the rest of the year. Insurance will be collected in full, though it will not rebuild the building. And as the family is complete and unharmed, even though it must live under a tremendous strain for the rest of the year, we have health and strength and food and are grateful.

With Laurel House went the center of school life—the great dining room that was the scene of the Christmas festivities that nightly added to the decorating of the room, as carollers and wassailers brought wreaths and ropes of green; the dancing floor for Saturday night country dance parties and neighborhood set-runnings and May Day performances at which the community gathered, for it was the largest room for miles around. Here too many a “mush and milk” meal has been eaten by vote of the children who wanted to raise money in this way for needs beyond themselves—from “the…

Page 2 [1940Mar10GlynAMorristoFriend2.jpg]

…poor little starving Belgians” in 1916 to relief for China in 1939. We have been fortunate beyond words in having such a place in the first quarter-century of the school’s life where ideals of beauty, community life, gaiety and unselfishness could make their mark; and those ideals are ours forever.

[Photograph of winter scene with caption: “WINTER AT PINE MOUNTAIN.”]

But we have a job that does not let up though the center of the school goes in a fire. Through its quarter-century of service Pine Mountain is rooted in the region and is schooled to a wider service now possible. It is a welcome resource in the larger community. Broadly and deeply it touches life here from teaching a girl how to sew and buy wisely or a boy how furniture is made to providing hospitalization for the community or making possible special practical training for local teachers and community leaders.

Such is the work your gifts make possible. As you know, one cannot balance a budget in the face of urgent needs. We always look to your response to this spring letter for the help that keeps Pine Mountain open for a hundred mountain boys and girls; and this year, perhaps you will not only send us what we need for that, but put in something additional to help us furnish the new Laurel House as well.

[Photograph of student with caption: “NOEL MENDS A WALK.”]

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Glyn Morris

Return to DEAR FRIEND LETTERS Index