Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY
Helen F. Little, Worker, 1925
Line Fork Settlement
(Born c. 1883)

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TAGS: Helen F. Little, Katherine Pettit, reports, correspondence, narratives, budgets, community residents, Line Fork Settlement, transcriptions

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 HELEN F. LITTLE Staff

 Worker, Line Fork Settlement 1925

Helen F. Little was a worker at the Line Fork Settlement in 1925. Her stay at the Settlement was brief but the records representing her work are fairly extensive. They include letters to Miss Pettit about work at the settlement and several formal reports required by Miss Pettit from workers at the satellite extension. Her narratives reveal much about the activities during 1925 and also complement the reports of Miss Ruth Dennis, the Industrial Worker who came to Line Fork in 1920-1921 and then returned to work at the settlement in 1925 with Miss Little.

Of Miss Helen F. Little’s personal life, little is known. She came to the Line Fork Settlement after working in several other settlements, particularly one in Mitchell County in North Carolina. She came to Line Fork directly from Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, where she was associated with the Pocono People’s College in Henryville, Pennsylvania, as an instructor, a job she reflected as having tired her out.

Shortly after arriving at Line Fork she became ill and was treated for a “tumor” with radium and x-rays that left her weak and limited in her duties at the settlement. In her absence, Miss Catherine Hoague, another teacher, and the Industrial Worker, kept the community programs going. Despite her health issues, Miss Little never failed to take on the challenges of working with Miss Pettit and the daily challenges of life on Line Fork.

HELEN F. LITTLE: Application for PMSS Position

Helen Little was 42 years old when she applied in 1925 for a position at Pine Mountain Settlement School, a place she learned about during a visit to Hindman Settlement School and material sent to her by PMSS `Director Katherine Pettit. By that time in her life, she had accumulated many years of experience, much of it well suited to working at the School. She lists that experience in her application:

Two years teaching cooking at the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ home, Xenia, Ohio.
Six years teaching cooking in the 7th and 8th grades in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Eight years teaching summer school in Minneapolis.
Five years teaching Household Science (Bacteriology, Physiology, Dietetics, House Planning, Household Management, etc.) in North High School, Minneapolis.
Three years teaching cooking in night school, Mpls.
One year teaching English at Brookwood (Private school at Katonala[?], N.Y.
One year at Stanley McCormick School, Burnsville, North Carolina.
…Taught two months at the “free school” in Roan Mt. School District, Mitchell County….
One year as assistant director, Georgetown Settlement, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

At Stanley McCormick School she “worked with mountain children, teaching a variety of subjects, including dramatics, social and economic geography, house planning and hygiene.  

Miss Little, now a year into working and studying at Pocono Peoples’ College (Henryville, Pa.), had also studied at Normal Training School in Detroit, Michigan, Teachers’ College in New York, and North Carolina College for Women.

All three of her references were positive, stating that she was capable,likable, earnest, and a brilliant teacher, but “because of her zeal she often worked far beyond her endurance….”

Consequently, PMSS Director Katherine Pettit offered Little a position at Line Fork Settlement, one of the School’s two extension centers created to expand the medical, social, and educational programs into the Pine Mountain Valley and surrounding hollows. However, Little would have to work as a volunteer until May, when the current employee (Miss Hynes) planned to leave. Little accepts the offer, arriving at Pine Mountain in May of 1925.

HELEN F. LITTLE at Line Fork

Little’s several reports to Director Katherine Pettit during her year at Line Fork illustrate in detail the functions, activities, and concerns of the satellite settlement, such as a case of smallpox and subsequent vaccinations by a PMSS nurse, the start of a “singing-school,” an increase of boys’ interest in Sunday School, and priming the well for water, and managing her various assistants.

The historical importance of reports and letters such as Helen Little’s is made clear in this statement on the page titled “LINE FORK Settlement”:

The letters, recollections, and reports found in the Pine Mountain Settlement School institutional archive have within them some of the core principles, failures, and successes of settlement community work in a rural environment. The workers at Line Fork were articulate, candid, and engaged and their narratives provide a range of experiences, views, and in-depth reflections of Appalachia from the early 1920s to the late 1940s and a snapshot of the settlement school ethos as it was practiced by a broad spectrum of workers and experienced by a broad range of community. 

One of the rules at Line Fork was to avoid leaving anyone alone at the Cabin, the structure in which the staff worked and resided. Thus, Little was always accompanied by assistance from community volunteers, students paying off their debt or hired help with such activities as gardening and cleaning, including Maude Miniard, the Smiths, and Ruth Dennis, Everett Cornett, Christine Hoague, and Hannah Sparkman.

In June 1925, Little informed the School’s director that she would be undergoing treatment with radium and surgery for newly discovered back injuries from two falls in past years and a tumor. This required her to be absent from Line Fork for several weeks and to return in July to recover for several additional weeks.

Before Little left for Louisville, Pettit sent Little a letter praising her work on a Line Fork handbook that listed rules to live by at the Settlement. Also, Pettit wrote a positive report of Little’s capabilities to a person seeking details about Little who is seeking a position with Neighborhood House in Louisville while she recovers from her medical treatments.

HELEN F. LITTLE: After Line Fork

By early December, Little indicates in a letter to Pettit that she is looking for another job, although with difficulty.

Later in December, Little wrote to Pettit from Stanley McCormick School in Burnsville, North Carolina. She stated that, although she appreciated Pettit’s words in her recent note, she “still feels that there [were] not sufficient reasons for asking me to leave….after working so hard and getting so many people interested in Line Fork, and then having my work suddenly stopped…” She, therefore, was very discouraged and decided to stay and teach at Stanley McCormick.

Later that month, when a staff member at Smith (Ky.) Community Center asked Pettit for a reference, Evelyn Wells, PMSS secretary, replying in Miss Pettit’s absence, provided the reasons for Little’s dismissal:

We do not consider Miss Little a good extension worker…. She did not adhere to our well-defined policies, and her talk was indiscreet…. Her interest in the mountains and her progressive ideas of work are to be commended, though her personality is not forceful. Most of her work has been teaching, and I believe her special ‘line’ is domestic science.

As the program at Line Fork grew since its beginning in 1920, most workers met their challenges head-on, while others struggled or left early. The turnover at the Line Fork Settlement was one of the issues that Katherine Pettit clearly sought to remedy and understand. Miss Helen F. Little, according to her letters and reports, did appear to meet her challenges, yet unfortunately she was another who left Line Fork after approximately one year.

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Helen F. Little was born in c. 1883. Otherwise, not much is known about her personal life.

Anyone having additional information on Helen F. Little is invited to contact Pine Mountain Settlement School.

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See Also:
HELEN F. LITTLE Correspondence I, January 20, 1925 – June 9, 1925
HELEN F. LITTLE Correspondence II, June 18, 1925 – January 2, 1926
HELEN F. LITTLE Reports – Line Fork May – October 1925
LINE FORK Settlement
LINE FORK Settlement Reports Publications Guide 1920-1941