HARRIET CRUTCHFIELD Journal Part 4

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 02: GOVERNANCE – Board of Trustees
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Staff
Harriet Crutchfield, PMSS Teacher, 1928-1930
& Advisory Board Member
Harriet Crutchfield Journal Part 4, May-Dec 1929

“Harriet [Crutchfield].” [kingman_061b.jpg]

TAGS: Harriet Crutchfield Journal Part 5, Harriet Crutchfield Orndorff, teachers, PMSS Advisory Board, James S. Crutchfield, Alice (Pilkington) Crutchfield, John Orndorff’s donation of his mother’s journal, PMSS Board of Trustees, American Fruit Growers Association, organized marketing of produce, Blue Goose brand, scholarships, images of Harriet Crutchfield’s letters

HARRIET CRUTCHFIELD Journal Part 4

Teacher, Fifth Grade, 1928-1930
Advisory Board Member

In the summer of 2017 John Orndorff, Harriet Crutchfield’s son, visited Pine Mountain Settlement School and brought along the following “journal” comprised of letters his mother, Harriet, wrote to family and friends during her time as a teacher at Pine Mountain Settlement School. Over 200 pages of Harriet’s observations, reflections, and experiences fill the small black binder. Her son noted when talking with the staff at Pine Mountain that he could think of no better place for the journal to be appreciated. His generosity and his astute assessment of the journal’s importance to Pine Mountain Settlement are profoundly appreciated.

Harriet’s “journal” — the compilation of her letters to her family and friends — chronicles a close and often very personal view of a first-comer to Pine Mountain Settlement School. Her letters track her adaptation to the values, lifestyle, and relationships during the early years of the settlement institution, just following the death of co-founder Ethel de Long Zande. Her letters are crammed with observations of people, schedules, the beauty of the mountains, the language, and especially the food. Her letters provide microscopic details that many of her colleagues failed to record or notice. While the time-span of the letters, only 1928 to 1930, is short, her account is the next best thing to being there and her enthusiasm infectious.

Harriet was the daughter of James S. Crutchfield, who later became a member of the Board of Trustees of Pine Mountain Settlement School (1935-1942). He was a well-known agricultural trade specialist and founder of the American Fruit Growers Association, Inc., and a leader in the development of an organized marketing of produce on a national and international scale. He was president and founder of the Blue Goose brand from 1919 until 1939. He also testified before Congress regarding the rising tariffs imposed by the rail system on fruit transport and was frequently sought after as an expert on agricultural trade. He was instrumental in assisting Pine Mountain in their struggle to introduce students to new diets and the rapid evolution of railroads, as well as establishing scholarships for needy students.

Harriet and her family developed and held a deep affection for Pine Mountain and Kentucky where their roots ran deep. Though Harriet was at Pine Mountain for only two school years, her father’s service on the Board of Trustees and Harriet’s later service on the Pine Mountain Advisory Board, extended the family’s connection. The entire family became strong supporters of Pine Mountain and its mission. Harriet continued to keep up her correspondence and contributions to the School until ill health in the 1980s limited her activity.

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Harriet Crutchfield was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 10, 1903, the oldest of seven children of her Kentucky-born parents, James S. and Alice (Pilkington) Crutchfield. She died in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, in 1999, at the age of 97. She died on the same date that she was born.