GOVERNANCE 1913 Directors Annual Reports to BOT

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 04: ADMINISTRATION
1913 Directors’ Annual Reports to BOT
Katherine Pettit, PMSS Co-Director, 1913-1928
Ethel de Long, PMSS Co-Director, 1913-1930
SIA: BOX 17 A-B

GOVERNANCE 1913 Reports and Letters to BOT

Katherine Pettit at Big Log. [kingman_046b.jpg]

TAGS: Governance, directors’ annual reports to BOT 1913, PMSS Board of Trustees, Katherine Pettit, Ethel de Long, Mary Rockwell Hook, planning, construction, William Creech, sawmill, reservoir, farming, forestry, railroad, roads, temperance, grounds, Harlan County Court petition, government agents, Berea College, students, institutional governance, progress reports, fundraising

GOVERNANCE 1913 Directors Annual Reports to BOT

Katherine Pettit, PMSS Co-Director
Ethel de Long, PMSS Co-Director

INTRODUCTION

The year 1913 was the opening chapter of Pine Mountain Settlement School. In the Directors Annual Reports to BOT 1913, many references to the planning and the vision of the Directors Katherine Pettit and Ethel de Long and the physical construction of the settlement may be found.

[NOTE: Trustees’ letters that are not an official part of the Annual Report may be found on pages for the individual trustees’ correspondence.]

CONTENTS: 1913 Directors’ Annual Reports to BOT

May 24, 1913 (3 pp., de Long) — See “Subjects” and “Transcription” below. See Also: GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report May 24

July 9, 1913 (2 pp., de Long and Pettit) — Go to: GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long and Pettit BOT Report July 9 for full transcription. No images are available.

August 4, 1913 (3 pp., Pettit) — See “Subjects” and “Transcription” below.

September 4, 1913 (2 pp., Norma F. Staughton, Secretary, for Pettit) — See “Subjects” and “Transcription” below.

October 6, 1913 (4 pp., de Long.) — Go to: GOVERNANCE 1913 BOT Report October 6

October 31, 1913 (2 pp., de Long) — See “Subjects” and “Transcription” below. See also: GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report October 31

SUBJECTS

[MAY 24] Mary Rockwell Hook, architect ; architecture ; land survey ; coal for school ; poplar logs ; Big Log ; Mr. Burgess ; Mr. Arnold, Fedelandral Department of Agriculture ; Mr. Bryant, Agricultural Department of State University [UK] ; Philip Norcross ; reservoir ; septic tanks ; Miss Norma F. Stoughton, Secretary ; Miss [Clara] Davis, nurse ; Fitzhugh Draughon ; Bertha Creech Lewis, kitchen ; food preparation ; William Creech ; Mr. McSwain, farmer, forester ; farming ; forestry ; Berea College Department of Agriculture ; public schools ; Frick Company saw-mill ; Sunday School ; salaries ; housekeeper ; Domestic Science Department, Berea ; Elizabeth Hench ; Executive Committee ;

[JULY 9] [NO IMAGES AVAILABLE – See “Contents” above.] gift of mules from Mr. Durrett ; Mr. McSwayne, Berea farmer ; Southern Industrial Educational Association ; mining, donor of sawmill ; gifts of farming implements from B.F. Avery and Company ; Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company offer of fencing ; fundraising, ; kindergarten ; Solomon Dash Norcross Company ; acquiring board members ;”haint” story ;

[AUGUST 4] Miss Wilson ; drainage ditch ; land cultivation ; Fourth of July ; summer school ; William Creech ; flax ; flax-pulling ; Professor Easton, State University [UK] ; Mr. Norcross, sanitary engineer ; limestone ; burning lime ; water ; timber purchase ; Incline railroad ; hauling lumber ; Incline road ; sawmill boiler ; roads ; oxen ; Ross Point ; elections ; drunkenness ; whiskey ; temperance ;

[SEPTEMBER 4] belt for sawmill ; construction obstacles ; water supply ; Miss Wilson, well construction ; farm ; shoats ; Miss Bishop, teacher ; health ; sanitation ; physiology classes ; geography ; homemaking ; Alafar, student ; box lunches ; organ ; Mr. Huhlein, Louisville ; Mr. Darrow, government pomological lecture ; fruit trees ; Uncle Remus ; organ fund ; Professor Easton, surveyor ; reservoir survey ; New York Chautauqua Association ; Mr. Percy Boynton, Chautauqua Association ; fundraising ; mail ; mail 6 days a week ;

[OCTOBER 6] – Go to: GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report October 6

[OCTOBER 31] Halloween party ; annual subscriptions ; road across Pine Mountain ; roads ; Harlan County Court petition ; roof on Big Log ; Berea College contractor frame-up second story, Big Log ; coal bank ; digging coal ; stones ; ditching ; worker indictments ; Sheriff ; Charlie, student ; John, student ; speeches ; Board meeting in Lexington, KY ; grubbing up orchard ; music ; holly along creek bank. See also: GOVERNANCE 1913 de Long BOT Report October 31

TRANSCRIPTION: De Long, May 24, 1913

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[Letterhead]
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MISS KATHERINE PETTIT
MISS ETHEL DE LONG

TREASURER
C. N. MANNING
SECURITY TRUST CO.
LEXINGTON, KY.

PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL
PINE MOUNTAIN, HARLAN CO.,
KENTUCKY

May 24th, 1913.

Miss Pettit and I want to tell all our Board Members how affairs are going with the Pine Mountain School, once a month. We are really started now, and there is much that you ought to know about.

Miss Pettit came over the tenth of April and I followed on the tenth of May. We are living in a frame house of five rooms loaned to us by a neighbor, who is also letting us have an old storehouse. We are using the storehouse to keep all our supplies in and could hardly manage without it, for we are so thoroughly in the country that we can’t buy anything, but must depend upon our own resources. The house is full to overflowing, and our guest room is the front porch.

When our land was surveyed there proved to be two hundred and thirty acres, instead of one hundred and eight. Some of it has already been cultivated, but most of it is in timber, and very fine timber, too. We have splendid coal on the land and very good building stone, both of which will make valuable assets for us.

The people over here cut during the winter beautiful poplar logs for our house, and about sixty thousand feet of timber for flooring and ceiling, the timber and the labor both being their donation to the School. Their warm welcome and hearty co-operation are very inspiring. Of course they can hardly wait for us to get a school building, but it will be at least a year before we can begin such a building.

Last week, Miss Mary Rockwell, a Kansas City architect, who is giving her services, spent the entire week here helping us plan the grouping of buildings and getting us started on the log house. We feel ourselves most fortunate in having her, not only because we have no money to pay a professional architect, but also because her wide knowledge of various architectural types, gained from years of life in Spain and Italy and very extensive travel, has given her buildings a real distinction.

Mr. Burgess, who is in charge of all buildings at Berea, Mr. Arnold from the Federal Department of Agriculture, and Mr. Bryant from the Agricultural Department of State University, were here last week also, to give us their advice on the best use of our land and the best disposal of the buildings we hope to have in the course of time. We expect very soon Mr. Philip Norcross, an engineer from Atlanta, to come and give us directions for building a reservoir and septic tanks. He, like all the other counselors, is giving his services.

Our family at present consists of Miss Pettit and me, Miss Stoughton, the secretary, Miss [Clara] Davis, the trained nurse, Fitzhugh, whom you may remember as one of our Hindman boys, and Uncle William Creech‘s granddaughter, Bertha, who helps in the kitchen. Some neighbor children drop in to help nearly every day, and they are certainly getting training along very necessary lines from Miss Pettit and Miss Davis. I wish you could see Miss Pettit making them clean up the yard. A piece of string three inches long does not escape her, and…

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…an egg shell she can see at a distance of fifty yards. I often think, how inwardly surprised the silent and acquiescent children must be over our desire for a clean yard.

We are expecting two boys from Berea to be here this summer and help with the building. June 14th Mr. [Horace] McSwain, who is just graduating from the Department of Agriculture at Berea, will come to begin his duties as superintendent of our farm and forestry work. He has had a great deal of experience in farming and several years work in managing a saw-mill, which is a great advantage for us, since a large part of our work for the next year must be in getting timber ready for new buildings. He has had a course in forestry and will go over our School land at once, getting the trees that are ripe cut down. He will also get our bottom lands drained ready for planting. The other work of the summer will be Sunday School work, under Mr. McSwain’s charge, a Saturday afternoon club for boys and girls, Miss Davis’ work, and the building of our seven room log house which we hope to have ready to live in next winter. The men are ready to put in the foundation for that now. We hope to get an experienced builder to supervise the construction of the house, for the men whom we can get here, though their wages are high because of the new railroad towns springing up across the Mountain, are not good workmen.

We want to co-operate with the public schools when they open the first of July. There are three district schools within a radius of four miles and we hope that we may have a good teacher who will stay a week about in each place assisting the country teacher with the reading, writing and numberwork which are most poorly taught, and with singing and handwork. The public school authorities are anxious to co-operate with us and would be very glad if we would choose the teachers, but we think our first plan better. A young woman just graduating from Radcliffe has offered her services for next winter, and she will probably take up this line of work. We could not possibly afford next year to engage a teacher for this work.

We are about to place an order with the Frick Company of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, for a saw-mill. The only saw-mill anywhere around here is so dilapidated as to be almost useless, and we feel that the best economy for us is to have a mill of our own, since we shall probably be needing it for several years. The Frick people are giving us splendid discounts, but we shall be under very heavy expense for hauling, since we must pay seventy cents a hundred for hauling for everything that comes to us from the outside world.

I want to tell you of the salaries we are paying, so that you can know something of our monthly expenses, but am unable to tell you what the housekeeper we hope to get from Berea will receive. We feel it is necessary to have someone especially for this work, and since we can find no volunteer to undertake it we have written to Berea to see if anyone just graduating from their Domestic Science Department will undertake the work. With the inefficient help we can get from the children here, someone must give her entire time to this work.

Farmer’s salary —- $75.00 per month
Nurse’s salary —— 41.67 per month
Secretary’s salary — 45.00 per month
Miss de Long ——- 133.33 per month
Fitzhugh Draughn — 40.00 per month and board
Bertha Lewis ——— 7.00 per month and board

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Fitzhugh will be able to run the saw-mill when it comes, and is valuable to us in many ways. He left a very good position at Jenkins, Kentucky, to come here to help us.

I want also to tell you our needs:

Bed linen
Table linen
Blankets
Telescope organ
Sewing machine
Washing machine
Clothes wringer
Fine tooth combs

Tooth brushes
Something to heal the itch
Aprons, for children of various sizes who come in to help us
Towels
Sewing material, and several bolts of unbleached muslin.

Besides this we are most anxious to raise money. The subscription cards are now ready and may be obtained from the Secretary, Miss [Elizabeth] Hench We of course are interested in large gifts, but we know so well the value of small contributions that we want every Member of the Board to realize just how worthwhile we feel the interest is of people who can give only a dollar a year. We would like to have a mailing list of three thousand people who gave us a dollar a year. Miss Hench also has letters describing the country over here and our plans for a school, which she will mail to any address you may wish. We shall soon have a leaflet printed which you may get from her to put in letters. We hope every Member of the Board will do everything possible to help us with the financial end by distributing the subscription cards yourselves or by writing to the Executive Committee names of people whom it would be wise to see personally. I shall see as many people as possible this summer and shall do what I can at various summer places where I can get a personal introduction, probably mostly in the Adirondacks. If any of you can suggest a summer place where you know some of the guests I should be very glad to try to go there if you think it worthwhile. We must raise the money this next year for the buildings we ought to put up next summer, that is, a school house, the dining room building, and the dormitory.

If there are any things you want to know about the Settlement not covered in this letter, please write to us and ask. We want you to be in as close touch as possible with our work. We appreciate to the full your interest and faith in the School, and want you always to feel free to give us advice, and, whenever you can, come to see us.

Very sincerely yours,
[Unsigned; apparently Ethel de Long]

[JULY 9 – NO IMAGES AVAILABLE. SEE “CONTENTS” ABOVE]

TRANSCRIPTION: Pettit, August 24, 1913

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[Letterhead]
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MISS KATHERINE PETTIT
MISS ETHEL DE LONG

TREASURER
C. N. MANNING
SECURITY TRUST CO.
LEXINGTON, KY.

PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL
PINE MOUNTAIN, HARLAN CO.,
KENTUCKY

August 4th, 1913.

While Miss de Long is away trying to make new friends for the School, I will tell you what we did in July.

Miss Wilson, a teacher from Washington, D. C., is here to help during her absence. She has a great deal of practical knowledge and with good workmen is directing some valuable and permanent work. They have built a retaining wall back of the new house, and done some work on the road that was necessary before the sawmill could be brought in, and are now digging the well, all of which needs constant supervision.

We have also begun work on the Creek bank in order to save the rich bottom land. We think with constant effort and attention that considerable cultivable land may be made available.

The Fourth of July celebration was attended by a good many people who did not realize what the day meant. Someone said they did not know there were so many boys and men in the mountains as they saw that day. Some of them, including women and babies, rode twelve or fifteen miles.

We are greatly encouraged by the number of young people who come to Sunday School and realize that we have an opportunity to do good religious work if we only had more help. There is absolutely nothing else of a religious nature for miles around here for the people.

I do not believe any pupils in this part of the country are attending school more regularly than the few pupils who are coming to our little summer school. The parents are so delighted. Britain, the youngest pupil (four years old) lives four miles away, but he stays at “Granny’s” to be nearer school. He is a quaint, before-the-war picture as he comes in his wide brimmed soft felt hat, long breeches and galluses.

Uncle William came down the other day to tell us it was time to pull our flax, and it was another old time picture when we had five of his grandchildren helping him to pull it. All of the time he was telling us interesting tales of “flax-pulling time” when he was a lad. Every boy and girl looked forward to that time more than any other except “sapping time”. They would choose partners and each couple would try to beat the rest. Many times in the flax patch a partner was chosen for life.

Professor Easton of the State University was here ten days to get the necessary data forMr. [Philip] Norcros s, the sanitary engineer. He gave us much valuable information along many lines. One was directions for burning our own lime from the rock found here. We are glad to have the report from the University that the water we sent down to be analyzed was “pure, and good for domestic purposes”. For a month the well where we live has been almost dry. We have had to haul water a long distance from…

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…our pure Pine Mountain stream, all of which makes us think longingly of the time when we shall have a good water supply and gratefully of the lady who offers to give it to us.

Miss de Long is making an effort to get the money for the timber that it still seems to us our School should own. We have a man now who is acquainted with the different classes of trees going over the land estimating the lumber that can be cut. He is finding much more and valuable timber than we expected. The people who own the Incline road across Pine Mountain seven miles from here are extending the tramway to within two miles of us, to take out all of the merchantable trees. We shall probably never have another such an opportunity as this again.

All during July I felt quite sure that I could begin this letter by saying that the new sawmill was on the ground sawing up the great piles of logs that the people here have cut and given to the School. Today finds us with part of it on our lumber yard, part at Incline, and part at Ross Point. Fitzhugh [Lane] as gone today to take care of the engine as it comes across Pine Mountain on the Incline road. The effort to get it here is a difficult one. The men who brought the boiler in with eight oxen said to me, “This is a safe and easy way compared to that risky Incline road across Pine Mountain. Some places the small steel rails are broken or slipped apart at the end and a piece of wood is supplied for a rail. Many places, the cross ties are rotten under the little rails. Everybody was careful and came so slowly that we had only one wreck.” The well on top of Pine Mountain which furnishes the water to run this road is often dry and they have to wait between trips for the water to run in. Mr. McSwain, our farmer, went down and suggested that they clean the mud out of the well which helped some.

It was a picturesque sight to see the eight yoke of oxen coming up the narrow, rough, short-curved road to the school grounds with the boiler. The two drivers managed it well. Three other men were behind to hold the boom pole to keep it from turning over the banks.

We are living this summer right by the voting place, but Uncle William notified the people a month ago that they would have to find another place, that he was not “aiming to have the School women disturbed.” They began to come early Saturday morning asking us where they were to vote. Finally they decided to go to the “old mill house” down on Greasy and this is the account our farmer gives of the primary:

“As I went down Greasy I saw a group of drunken men in the laurel thicket and four women electioneering, one of them had a bunch of $1 bills in her hand. I passed on to the next group meeting several men coming up the road holding around each other’s neck to keep from falling. At this group of about fifteen some were dancing while others were picking the banjo, four were quarreling and one not so drunk as the others was trying to get his brother away who was standing leaning against a large chestnut with a quart bottle, half empty, of whiskey. Then came [a] group three-four-five and six, this a large one nearer the ballot boxes. Out of the 83 votes cast I can say with a clear conscience that 65-70 were drinking or simply dog drunk. I never dreamed that such conditions existed anywhere in the Kentucky mountains. To see such sights as this only makes…

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…me feel that if we can educate the younger ones so that they will have a regard for the laws of our country we will be amply paid just to know that we have helped a people that needs help. Money and whiskey seem to be their guide in most cases. It is humiliating to see physically strong men sell their vote for whiskey and money. Then I feel sorry for them for that is what has existed here ever since the country was first settled. I know and talked with boys there yesterday, 14 and 15 years old who were intoxicated, that are following the customs of their fathers.”

Very sincerely yours,
[Signed] Katherine Pettit.

TRANSCRIPTION: Staughton for Pettit, September 4, 1913

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[Letterhead]
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MISS KATHERINE PETTIT
MISS ETHEL DE LONG

TREASURER
C. N. MANNING
SECURITY TRUST CO.
LEXINGTON, KY.

PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL
PINE MOUNTAIN, HARLAN CO.,
KENTUCKY

September 4th, 1913.

[CARBON] COPY
Miss Pettit has asked me to tell you something of the progress of Pine Mountain Settlement School’s affairs for the month just past.

In things material, August, while far from unsatisfactory in review, seemed to us here an ill-omened four weeks of delays and obstacles.

[“SAWMILL” Handwritten notation]
The belt for the sawmill has consistently refused to arrive and the mill – ready for work for a fortnight except for the belt – is a helpless cumberer of that beautiful patch of ground known as our “lumber yard”. Appeals to the sawmill people and to all the sizable stations up and down the Cumberland have failed so far to discover it. It seems as hopelessly lost as the proverbial needle.

[“WATER” Handwritten notation]
When water supply for this summer became a serious problem the necessity of a well to supply the new house temporarily became apparent. Water was duly and encouragingly located and the digging and walling of the well given into the capable hands of Miss Wilson. To her reported various men willing to do the work, and she selected one who seemed of fairly hoary experience in walling wells, it seemed as if he might have walled them from early childhood,- all this while contracting for the work. When he actually came to begin he ‘didn’t want to deceive anyone, he had never walled a well in his life.’ Consequently Miss Wilson has given the well such attention as is usually reserved for sick children, hanging over it in sunny mornings and broiling afternoons, selecting rock after rock for its courses, watching to see that joints were broken and key rocks properly placed (which couldn’t seem to be done when she was away); and now it is finished and full of water from a stream which comes, as it should, from the hill side.

[“FARM” Handwritten notation]

The farm has fared as well as our neighbors’ shoats have permitted but their depredations remind us that fencing, strong, substantial wire fencing is not an ornamentation but a stern necessity. The most permanent work done on the farm is some ditching mentioned in a previous letter to drain bottom land for cultivation.

In social service work some interesting straws show that the opportunity will not disappoint us.

Miss Bishop continued her little school through August, rewarded by the utmost faithfulness on the part of her pupils. Brit never forgot his one disciplining and a suggestion of the lonesome seat one morning when he would not work brought forth this bit of baby philosophy: “I reckon you’ll have to sot me on the seat, I can’t hurry this morning.”

Miss Bishop and Miss Davis have separately and together visited several schools, Miss Bishop to help the teachers if possible, and Miss Davis to give little talks on health and sanitation to serve as a sort of lubricant to the local method of teaching physiology from a book which she assures us is a genuine “Quiz Compend” in anatomy and contains for memorizing such things as a list of nervous diseases including chorea, neusthenia, etc., but which offers no common-sense teaching of the laws of…

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…hygiene and cleanliness; any more than does the study of geography imply knowing in what state or country one lives, as we have learned from the same visits.

The girls in our home have proven apt pupils in the arts of home making, so promising that Miss Wilson just the other day reiterated her desire to make a home where six or eight girls like our Bertha and Alafar might learn how to do things well with just such conveniences as they can command here in the wilderness. We wish heartily for herself and ourselves the realization of her dream.

[“BOX LUNCH” Handwritten notation]
In July one of our Sunday School girls suggested a box supper to start a fund for the organ we need so sadly in our services. The plan was pushed and the children used in every possible way, and the second Saturday in August the affair took place on the School grounds. Track sports and circle games had been planned, but baseball was the cry of the boys, so baseball had it, baseball which defied all known rules of the game except that for enthusiasm, while lemonade was sold at the tempting price of two for a nickel from a little natural booth. We were most fortunate in having with us Mr. Huhlein of Louisville, who made a capital auctioneer, besides reading us Uncle Remus and making a practical speech; and the proceeds of the box supper were $15 and requests for another. Gifts have since swelled the organ fund to $35.

[“PREACHING” Handwritten notation]
Next day Mr. Huhlein preached to a good audience of our neighbors, – this being our first “preaching”, …

[“FRUIT GROWING” andwritten notation]
… and the following week Mr. Darrow of the government pomological staff was with us and gave a very pleasant practical talk on fruits at the School grounds, which was much enjoyed by his audience.

[“SURVEY” Handwritten notation]
Professor Easton, our surveyor, has been with us for another ten days, this time at his own expense, because of his interest in definitely locating certain corners and going farther into the reservoir survey. He has located the small plot of land owned by Mr. Sackett of Louisville and lying within our borders and Mr. Huhlein has expressed his willingness to see Mr. Sackett and ask him if he would not like to give it to us.

The past week Mr. Percy Boynton, Secretary of the New York Chautauqua Association, spent Sunday with us and brought definite news from Miss deLong’s campaign in eastern summer places, which has been most gratifying. Mr. Boynton tells us with enthusiasm of the interest which Miss de Long deserves and holds and of his own unprecedented action in scheduling her without any following address so that people might meet her and talk with her personally. He speaks most highly of her talk.

[“MAIL” Handwritten notation]
We have recently heard that after the middle of September we shall have six times a week mail, which is more a cause for rejoicing than you can guess until you have been here or know the inconvenience of only three times a week communication with outside in transacting business.

Respectfully,
[Signed] Norma J. Stoughton
Sec’y.

[OCTOBER 6, 1913 – Go to: ETHEL DE LONG ZANDE 1913 BOT Report October 6]

TRANSCRIPTION: de Long, October 31, 1913

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October 31st., 1913.

My dear

On the last day of October as we are making ready for the first Hallowe’en Party ever given by the School, I want to write you as briefly as possible our usual report. You will be interested to know chiefly of our financial status at present. So far, in response to our appeal for ten thousand dollars we have received $523 in cash and $70 in pledges. Several hundred dollars have come in beside this, but we do not include these for the building fund since they were not in answer to our letter. We have now $520 coming in annual subscriptions yearly, about one twentieth of what we hope to have soon. In the building fund also you see that our returns are only about a twentieth of our needs at present.

The first large community undertaking which the School has initiated was directed toward securing a good road across Pine Mountain. A party of ten citizens from this locality went with me to petition the Fiscal Court at its October session. We were most favorably received and beside the interest of the court we are assured of the support of people all over the County. Many offers of help, both in money and labor have come to us and it will be only a question of time, we have every reason to believe, before we have a well graded road connecting us with the outside world. It is necessary that we present our petition before the County Court also and Miss Stoughton will go over with the citizens on Monday to make a plea for the neighborhood and the School. She will take with her not only the petition but also signed statements of the labor and money promised for the road.

We expect to put a roof on our log house this month. An expert contractor comes to us from Berea, Kentucky, on November the 6th. and since the bill of lumber for the house is now sawed, he will frame up the second story and put on the roof. We shall not try to put in doors and windows or to ceil and floor the house until spring when the lumber will be properly seasoned.

I wish you could know what important work for the future has been done here through these last weeks. The coal bank has been made ready for the winter’s digging, according to the directions of Professor Easton and we are now making a road to it. We have had foot logs laid in many places over the Creek and have built a bridge that ought to last for two generations so that we may haul stone to the site of the school house. Miss Pettit has had charge of most important work in ditching the bottom lands. You will be interested to know why she had to give her time for this, instead of Mr. McSwain. He has had to be at the sawmill all the time, largely because he has not known what minute one of his hands would have to escape to the woods. You see this is not a conventional community and many of our best workers have indictments against them, for shooting, fighting, or even being mixed up in a murder case. Since this is the month when court convenes the men with indictments against them are all afraid the sheriffs may be after them. The other …

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[Missing page?]

…morning for small children, one in the afternoon for the older boys and girls and an evening school for Will, our farmer’s helper, after supper. She has done splendid work with all the children and again we feel that we are fortunate in the sort of volunteer service we have been able to enlist, and you may possibly understand our isolation somewhat better when you know that we had to send eighteen miles for the doctor, who rode in one evening, looked after his patient, stayed all night, and started back home betimes the next day.

We have now two little boys in our family, Charlie and John, aged ten and eleven, both brought to us because their step-paws were mean to them. They are dear little fellows and Miss Pettit and I certainly do feel ten times more at home since their coming. A school I talked to in Kansas City has given a scholarship for one of them, the other one is not yet raised.

I wish I could give you complete results of my speeches in Pittsburg[h], Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Cincinnati, but those cannot be told for some months. About seventy-five dollars in new annual subscriptions was given, $249. in cash, one scholarship paid out-right and several more promised that will be raised next year if not this. Subscriptions and contributions come in weekly from people who went away with literature and a card in their hands. In the 25 days I was away I made 26 speeches, beside innumerable informal talks at luncheons and afternoon teas. Mr. McCullough, of Cincinnati, has promised to give us all the seed we need for next year’s planting. This is a tremendous gift, for it includes pasture, orchard grass, garden seed, – hundreds of pounds.

You already know that the annual Board Meeting will be held in our Treasurer’s office, Security Trust Building, Lexington, Ky. on January 3rd. at three o’clock. We wish it were possible to have a full attendance, but will send to those of you who cannot be there a careful report of the meeting.

True to their promise, the men of the community gave a day’s labor to the School and we accomplished a great deal on the Creek bank, in the sawmill and grubbing up the orchard grounds. In the evening the young people had a box supper and raised twenty-five dollars more toward our mouse-proof organ that the Estey people are giving us at greatly reduced rates. We are now getting ready for Christmas, with packages coming in every mail. We are teaching the children, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “The First Noel” to the accompaniment of the Old English dulcimer, for the very first Christmas tree this country has ever had. We wish you could know what a happy time it is and see the Christmas holly growing along our creek banks. We hope you may have just as happy a Christmas as ours.

Sincerely yours,
Ethel de Long.