ABBY WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1936

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Staff
Abby Winch Christensen
PMSS worker, 1924-1949
Correspondence 1936

Folk dancing, 1930s. [folk_dancing_1930s_130x.jpg]

TAGS: Abby Winch Christensen correspondence 1936, Abby Winch Christensen, dance, English Country Dancing, Glyn Morris, Benham School, Dorothy P. Bolles Memorial Fund, meningitis, burning of Boys Industrial Building, John C. Campbell Folk School, films

ABBY WINCH CHRISTENSEN Correspondence 1936

SUMMARIES

00122-00123 1936 February 4. 2 pages. Glyn Morris to Abby Winch Christensen. He discusses the Benham School (Harlan County) dance program, which is a program funded by the Dorothy P. Bolles Memorial Fund which would pay for Abby’s teaching at Pine Mountain and Benham. He notes that there is still a lot of dancing at Pine Mountain with 3 classes per week, which are “overly well attended.” He tells Christensen of the burning of the Boys Industrial building. (2 pages)

THE LETTER:
Dear Miss Christensen
A letter from the Superintendent of the Benham Schools, regarding Folk Dancing has made me realize. April will soon be here. Am I presuming too much and thinking that you will be with us again this spring? It is my impression that your expenses to Pine Mountain will be paid from the Dorothy F. Bowles Memorial Fund, although I don’t know just exactly what the status of this fund is and whether anything at all has been definitely provided for your coming to Pine Mountain. In any case, I sincerely hope that you can come, and if this financial arrangement will not be made, I would be glad to do my share in helping to make any other.
We are dancing a good deal of the time here at Pine Mountain, so that you will find a pretty enthusiastic group awaiting your coming. Our work is still kind of rough, but what it lacks in finish makes up an enthusiasm. Classes are held three times a week and every class is overly well attended. On Monday, February 17th we’re giving an evening’s performance in the Harlan High School gymnasium.

But to get back to the letter from Mr. Dotson of Benham. Last fall, he saw a very brief program given by some of our students at one of the local high schools, and he has just written me asking if Joan Ayers could come over there for a week to get them started. Of course, this plan is utterly impractical from our point of view. So I have just written him telling him about how we are taught Folk Dancing at Pine Mountain, and that probably our “Dancing Teacher” will be here in April. I suggested then that he make plans to have you come a week early and spend that week at dinner, provided satisfactory arrangements could be made for all parties involved. I suggested to him that your expenses to Pine Mountain had been borne by interested friends of the school, and that I did not know

[page 2] whether you would be willing to come to Benham without having them bear some of the financial obligations. I hope I have not taken too much liberty with you. Then I have all the facts straight in this matter.
I am waiting to hear from him about this. He would also like to hear from you at your earliest convenience.
I also suggested that if he would not wait until your arrival. That he send his gym teachers to Pine Mountain for a few nights to see what it was all about.

This is rather cumbersomely explained, but the sum of it all is that if people are anxious for learning how to do English Folk Dances/ let us do something about it. You, of course, understand my enthusiasm.

You know, didn’t you, that our Boy’s Industrial building had burned during the Christmas holidays. Besides being covered with snow here for the past two weeks, everything is going along nicely. Mrs. Powell is here. Now taking the place of the Boy’s House housemother, who left us during the holidays. She couldn’t get into her head that we were really not running a reform school.
This is enough now.
Gladys joins with me in sending you our best wishes.
Cordially yours,
Glyn Morris.

00124-00125 1936 February 19. Glyn Morris to Abby Winch Christensen. Discusses the logistics of teaching at Benham and Pine Mountain. Glyn asks the Benham principal to come to Pine Mountain and discuss how tnfortunatelyhe dance program could be arranged. He says that Benham could supply musicians. He also notes that he is getting better on the fiddle and Arthur Dodd could provide piano music. He tells her that he is “… striving to have my picture added to those famous fiddlers in the back part of the biography of Mr. Sharp.” [See: CECIL SHARP AND MAUD KARPELES Visit to PMSS]. (2 pages)

00126-00132 1936 February. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris.
Abby says she is glad that she is wanted for the month at Pine Mountain to teach dance. She discusses her mother’s health and being the care provider. She says it would be a novel experience to teach at Benham for a week. She tries to work out the music needs. She says that John C. Campbell School is the only other school that does folk dancing in the same way as Pine Mountain. She shares that “…Mrs. Jamison, from Northampton, who is staying in Beaufort this winter, and who was, it seems, a good friend of Mrs. Zande, told me of the fire that burned the [Boys] Industrial building.” (7 pages)

00133-00135 1936 March 21. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris regarding a trip to PMSS on the 28th to start dance practice. Sends instructions for preliminary practice. Remarks on meningitis outbreak. (3 pages)

00136-00143 1936 March 13. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris regarding student dancing. Discusses the practice of Hunsdon House, Broom, Newcastle, Old Mole, etc. Notes that John C. Campbell Folk School (Brasstown) can combine with PMSS on Kirby and that Pleasant Hill Academy will participate and says, “I know you would applaud, (theoretically, at any rate) any action that promotes co-operation rather than competition and rivalry in any homogeneous group…” Again discusses the meningitis epidemic in Harlan County. (8 pages)

00144-00147 1936 March 3. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris regarding upcoming dance festival and suggests sending three girls and four boys to join with the Brasstown dancers in a cooperative effort. Notes that Evelyn Wells plans to attend the Festival. Says that The Broom, Hunsdon House and Newcastle would make a good program with Old Mole and Jenny Pluck Pears held in reserve. (4 pages)

00148-00152 1936 February 22. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris. She invites the Morris’ to visit in Beaufort, SC, on their way to Florida and that her mother, Abbie Mandela Holmes Christensen, has never been to PMSS and regrets it. She gives directions and transportation routes. (5 pages)

00153-00157 MISSING

00158 1936 March 5. Glyn Morris to Abby Winch Christensen in reply to her March 3rd letter. Discusses plans for a Lexington performance of dancers and the Morris’ visit in Beaufort, SC, on their way to Florida. (1 page)

00158-00163 MISSING

00164 1936 March 16. Glyn Morris to Abby Winch Christensen to tell that he taking a small group to Ohio as ambassadors of English Country Dance. He notes that a list of those attending is enclosed. He notes that the meningitis epidemic is localized to the Harlan side of the mountain and that PMSS is taking precautions. (1 page)

00173 1936 May 8. Glyn Morris to Abby Winch Christensen about her recommendation for a housemother for Boy’s House. He thanks her for her work at the School during May Day, saying: “…I want to take this opportunity to express officially our sincere gratitude for all that you have again brought to Pine Mountain. I think that the members of the staff would with one accord join with me in saying that this has been the happiest April that any of us have known at Pine Mountain. We still are hearing many words of praise about May Day.” (1 page)

00174-00175 1936 May 21. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris regarding films made of dancing. Abby says: “ The enlargements for the films that I cut from the reel of Confers [?] are disappointing. They enlarged clearly but they give very little sense of dance. I’m hoping that you got some good pictures on May Day or later on the grass in front of Big Log and can send me one that will give the effect of group dancing, something like Sellenger’s around the May Pole would be grand. I can have an enlargement made here if I can get the film. ..” (2 pages)

00177 1936 May 26. Note from Secretary (Alice Cobb) to Abby Winch Christensen that nothing can be done about the film until Glyn Morris returns to campus. The machine is broken and the films are at PMSS. Alice notes that she has been ” ‘dipping’ into The Traditional Dance and would like so much to read it hurriedly before sending it back to you, if you don’t mind. Mrs. Morris asked me to send it. I should have wrapped it up with my eyes closed.” (1 half-page).

00179 1936 June 2. Glyn Morris to Abby Winch Christensen. He writes regarding the dance film and notes that he had to do considerable editing before cutting any out for stills. He says, “However, I am enclosing three bits, out of which you may get one or two good pictures. The one about the May Pole is a little too light, but I think it will come out all right. If these will not do, I have others to choose from, and if you will tell me exactly what you want perhaps I can get it.” (1 page)

00180-00185 1936 June 17. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris from Brush Hill Road, Milton, Massachusetts, where she is attending events of the E.F.D.S. (English Folk Dance Society — Boston Branch.) She tells of a “… grand dancing party at Mrs. Storrow’s a week ago — a lovely outdoor affair.” Already preparing for the next May Day she says she “…will try a new processional — green boughs as in the Castlenta Garland but more elaborate.” Abby relates meeting with Winfield Cornett in Boston and she “…liked his grave and responsible air.” (6 pages)

00186-00189 1936 July 25. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris. Discusses the White Top Festival and whether Pine Mountain will participate. Christensen says she is filled with curiosity and would like to see it at least once. She says that this year there will be a “two weeks conference preceding the festival, lectures by John Powell and Mrs. Buchanan and folk music and ballads and classes in handicrafts and dancing. I imagine Richard Chase is teaching the dancing, don’t you? They have beat us in our idea of a mountain summer school of folk dance. Too bad! … if we only had a big dance floor! There is a folk festival going on in Asheville this week which I should certainly have visited if I had known about it in time. I am not wondering if I can cast aside interfering engagements and go this afternoon.” She also asks for Miss Powell’s address. (4 pages)

00190 1936 July 27. Dictated by Glyn Morris and typed by Joan Ayers for Abby Winch Christensen. Glyn says,
“I have had several very cordial invitations from Mrs. Buchanan to attend the White Top Festival, and also to speak about the place of folk music and folk dancing at Pine Mountain.
I do not think, however, that we shall take part in the White Top Festival this year. I am not yet convinced that we need to have any part in it.
I don’t think that they have beat us at all on an idea for mountain summer school for folk dancing. We have so much more to offer at Pine Mountain. I am already talking about net summer and would be glad to proceed along any lines you suggest for a summer school. I think we ought to begin early this fall to scatter publicity and to find prospective scholars.”
He then asks Abby to “Write me again soon about the folk festival.” (1 page)

00191 1936 August 4. Western Union Cable. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris. “I should say send Kirby team and ask if country dance team would not be acceptable also am writing …” (1 half-page)

00193-00194 1936 August 27. Abby Winch Christensen to Glyn Morris. She asks for rooms at Pine Mountain for herself and friend Miss Putman where they hope to visit friends in the community of the valley. She reports on trip to the White Top Festival and notes that “ … she liked it in spite of all, but wished awfully for Pine Mt. dancing to enliven the program.” She will go to Brasstown and camping before coming to Pine Mountain.