ADMIN GENERAL 1919 Correspondence External

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 6: Administration – General and Financial
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE EXTERNAL 1919

ADMINISTRATION GENERAL Correspondence External 1919

TAGS: Administration General Correspondence by Year 1919, general correspondence, Ethel de Long Zande, Katherine Pettit, Burkham Memorial School House I fire, fires, Leon Deschamps, Perfect Acre, Luigi Zande, Alberto Zande, Miss V.W. Buffum, Mrs. Waller Bullock, hiking, Big Black Mountain, Wild Flower Weekend

General Correspondence, arranged by year and month, includes miscellaneous correspondence related to the operation of the School. The correspondence centers on the recent fire and destruction of Burkham School House I and the loss of four children and one staff member. Since this tragic early fire, Pine Mountain has lost four more buildings, including, Boy’s Industrial, Laurel House I, Open House, and Burkham School House II.

The correspondence includes fund-raising notes, thank-yous, travel invitations, personal notes to friends of the School, and other miscellany related to the built environment and inventory of the School.

For additional correspondence, see the individual Director files by year. Note that the original material is very fragile and damaged. Some correspondence is incomplete or a fragment due to damage.

CONTENTS: Administrative General Correspondence External 1919

EZ = Ethel de Long Zande

KP = Katherine Pettit

1919 January 27 To Harriet Butler [nurse at Medical Settlement] at the Girl’s Training School, Gainesville, TX,. from Ethel Zande. alerting her to the destruction of Burkham School House by fire.

1919 January 30 To Mrs. T.S. Bullock from ? thanking her for a donation for new Burkham School.

1919 February 8 To Miss Florence Lilian Bush in Misenheimer, NC, for sending a package of “warm clothing” … “especially for the warm underwear…” for children following the destruction of Burkham School House I. Reports that “…We are starting our plans for rebuilding immediately. In place of the schoolhouse which was burned we are going to build three buildings; a house for our twenty-four boys, a schoolhouse and an office building…”

1919 February 18 To Mrs. Edwin M. Bulkley, Englewood, N.J. regarding destruction of Burkham School House I. :…we are getting out rock for the foundations of three smaller buildings to take the place of the one which has gone…”

1919 February 18 To Miss Lillian G. Bullard, 39 Macon Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. thanking her for the recent donation following the destruction of Burkham School House I. … “Logs are being snaked down the mountain to the sawmill and rock is being gotten out for the foundations of the new buildings to take the place of the one that is gone….”

1919 February 20 To Mr. Stuart M. Buck, Bramwell, West Va. from Katherine Pettit. “We were so glad to know that you have thought of us and we are so glad to have your help as we buckle down to new problems, with many old ones still in the solving. Pine Mountain for a time lost some of its joyousness, but out of the fire has come a stronger vision of what we can mean to the mountains. .. We are rebuilding, of course, and even now are getting logs out of the woods and cutting stone for foundations.” [Handwritten note at bottom by Ethel Zande? Wells? You have prob. not heard that less than a mo[nth] ago we suffered a great loss in the fire wh. destroyed our Sch. Bldg. and the lives of 4 boys & a worker. The news sheet coming to you in a few wks. will tell you more of it. In the meantime we are so glad …etc.]

1919 February 20 To Mr. Butler [John Butler? father of Marguerite Butler, staff at PMSS] from KP [?]. Notes how much the School appreciates his daughter and thanking him for his support. “People who carry on their work with such efficiency in times which are hard for all of us, are very necessary just now, and you daughter is one of them…”

1919 February 21 To Harriet Butler from PMSS Secretary in response to Butler’s reply to Ethel Zande note regarding the fire and destruction of Burkham School House I. Reports on the health of Ethel Zande as she prepares to give birth to Alberto Zande in Louisville. Notes that Frances Lavender is with Mrs. Zande. “…Plans for rebuilding were put into action before the Zandes left, and we are hauling logs and cutting rock now. Miss (Mary) Rockwell, the architect, is to be in Louisville the last of this month for consultation…”

1919 March 4 To Miss V.W. Buffum, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tenn. from Katherine Pettit inviting her to come to PMSS to tutor and for a Black Mountain Wildflower Weekend [First mention of the annual event ?]. She notes that she hopes that Miss Buffum “…will be here to control Mr. [Leon] Deschamps‘ perfect acre work!”

1919 March 12 To Mrs. Margaret Buell, Treas. Ashland Woman’s Club, Ashland, KY. from PMSS. Sends news of the recent fire and destruction of Burkham School House I and the steady support of the club of PMSS.

1919 March 12, 1919 To Mrs. Henry I. Budd from PMSS thanking her for her recent donation to the School after the Burkham School House I fire and destruction.

1919 March 18 To Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Burke, Hawthorne Place, Summit, N.J. from PMSS. Thanks them for their donation and adds, “… children are giving a play for the end of the school year, — Hiawatha scenes in real primeval forest. This year, though we work under added burdens and always with the sense of a great loss — school must go on as usual.”

1919 March 19 To Mrs. John Bullitt, 215 Aberdeen Ave., Wayne, PA, from Katherine Pettit. Pettit notes, “Our mutual cousin Nannie Barbee, sent me the contribution of a dollar from you some time ago, but I have only just received from her your name and address…” Thanks her for donation.

1919 March 25 To Miss S. K. Burgess, Dedham, Mass., from PMSS thanking her for her recent donation to the school “…it helps maintain our moral…” after the loss of the Burkham School House I.

1919 April 3 To Miss Florence Lilian Bush in Misenheimer, NC from Katherine Pettit regarding Bush’s proposed trip to PMSS. Pettit discourages Bush from coming to the School due to the stressful conditions following the fire and destruction of Burkham School House I. She invites a later trip to the School.

1919 April 22 To Mr. James W. Bullock, St. Paul Building, Cincinnati, OH from PMSS thanking him for the recent donation to the school through Mr. [Philip] Roettinger, a member of the Board of Trustees of PMSS, for the rebuilding after the fire and destruction of Burkham School House I.

1919 May 14 To Mr. ? Burgess, Berea Kentucky, from Ethe Zande. The note requests if Mr. Muncie, a friend of Burgess, could come to PMSS and supervise the construction work at the School. “It will be some time before we are ready to rebuild the schoolhouse, but would Mr. Muncie be free at all, later on?” She also notes that if Burgess comes later in the summer “I can show you my baby boy, and I think you will be the gainer for having waited …”

1919 June 9 [fragment] To Mr. Butler [John Butler, father of Marguerite Butler, staff] from PMSS. Thanking him for donation to School. Notes that “You would be amazed at the size of the children we have put into the garden this year, — an army of the very least ones, doing good work, hour after hour these lovely June mornings …”

1919 June 12 To Miss Eina M. Bunnell, 396 Second Ave. S., St. Cloud, Minn., from Ethel Zande. Asking for annual donation. She says of life in the community, “The pity and the beauty of life in the mountains is strangely mixed so that we can never forget the one in the other.”

1919 June 12 To Mr. and Mrs Edgar J. Buttenheim, Hastings on Hudson, New York, from Ethel Zande [?]. Reminds donors of the annual subscription. Repeats the sentiment: “”The pity and the beauty of life in the mountains is strangely mixed so that we can never forget the one in the other.”

1919 June 27 To Miss Eina M. Bunnell, 396 Second Ave, S., St. Cloud, Minn., from Ethel Zande. Apology for earlier note regarding her donation.

1919 July 9 To Mr. Stuart M. Buck, Bramwell, West Va. from Ethel Zande. Thanking him for his check to PMSS. Reports on the work going on at the Medical Settlement: “I wish you could know the reception our medical staff is getting, as they begin their work in their little settlement at Big Laurel, four miles away. Can you think what a doctor and nurse are going to mean to this community when they have had to ride twenty miles for a doctor before, and then pay twenty-five dollars for the visit? The tale of their first two months is a moving one, — trachoma, goiter, all the problems of neglect and ignorance. The neighbors are giving all the time they can spare from laying by the crop to hewing logs for the doctor’s house. … We have had a most interesting gathering on the Fourth of July. There must have been close upon two hundred people who traveled up and down creek for the sake of a day’s recreation at the school.”

1919 August 21 To “My dear Min” [Mrs. Waller Bullock] sister of Katherine Pettit from Pettit admonishing her that the bandages that were sent had not arrived. Notes that June is the “leanest month” and that any donations may be given to Mr. Manning [Board of Trustees] to be sent to the School office.

1919 October 16 To “My dear Min” [Mrs. Waller Bullock] sister of Katherine Pettit from Pettit forwarding a letter from Mary Stacy who asks Pettit for seed from an unidentified flowering bean vine. Pettit suggests the Lexington Garden Club.

1919 November 1 To Marguerite Butler from Ethel Zande. A letter saying how sorry the school is for her “… prolonged inactivity, it is a perfect shame! But we are all thankful as we can be that you aren’t disabled for life.” Ethel Zande notes how complicated her life is with her ailing mother and her duties as a new mother. Asks Marguerite to go to the Inter-church World Movement conference in Lexington as “it is something we should be in on,” and tells her that her duties for Christmas arrangements have been handed over to someone else.

1919 December 2 To Marguerite [Marguerite Butler, staff] from Katherine Pettit [?] asking her “Will you get material for the Santa Claus costume, plenty of stuff for the bag too, in case we should want to use one? And incidentally, have you the wig, or was it with the other Santa Claus stuff in the schoolhouse? I am so hoping that you had it again, but my mind is a perfect blank. Please get material for the whole costume and get it made up. We have just had ten dollars given us to use for a regular jollification, and I am going to use as much of it for this purpose as is necessary because I believe that we really ought to have a good one.”