Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Families, Students
Series 19: STUDENTS
Enix Family
Clyde Edward Enix, Student 1935-1942 (Died 2009)
Janette Enix Ferry, Student 1936 
Willard Earl Enix, Student 1938-1942  (Died 1957)

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TAGS: Enix Family, Pine Mountain Settlement School Students, Grace Nettleton Home for Girls, Pine Mountain Settlement School print shop, Berea College print shop, orphans, St. Petersburg Florida

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PMSS Students:
Enix, Clyde Edward, 1935-1942
Enix, Janette, 1936
Enix, Willard Earl, 1938-1942

ENIX FAMILY: Their Story

There were seven Enix children born to Ed and Lulu (Lula?) Cole Enix who lived in Harlan, Kentucky. Three of the Enix children came to Pine Mountain Settlement School. Clyde Enix was the first to arrive in 1935, followed by his sister Janette in 1936. She only stayed for one year and went on to Red Bird Mission School. Willard Enix, the youngest to come to Pine Mountain, arrived in 1938. The remaining Enix children, Alta, Polly, Carol, and Bobby, did not attend Pine Mountain but are very much a part of the story of the three Enix children who did. The Enix children were a remarkable set of siblings whose devotion to one another would not be easily broken. Like many of the students at Pine Mountain, the Enix children came from a family that had more than its share of tragedy and hardship.

The children’s parents, Ed and Lulu, were from Ages, in Harlan County where Ed made his living from marketing vegetables and fish to the mining families. His wife, Lulu had not moved far from her parents, who lived next to their daughter and her large family on the banks of the Cumberland River. The lives of both families were first shattered by the death of Lulu in 1935, during the depths of the Great Depression. She died giving birth to Bobby. The next youngest child in that year was two-year-old Carol, then Alta and Polly, and then the three older siblings, Willard, Janette, and Clyde, the oldest.

For a time the family held together with the help of Lulu’s parents, the Coles, but it was a deepening struggle. The parents of Ed Enix became concerned about the future for the children and were able to find a place for the older children at Pine Mountain Settlement School. The grandmother Cole, having custody of all the children, found Alta and Polly a place at the Grace Nettleton Home for Girls in Harrogate, Tennessee, near Lincoln Memorial University. The adjustment was very difficult for Alta and Polly as captured by Corinne Taylor Gregory*, Director of Grace Nettleton Home when the two girls arrived. “Christmas at Polly’s,” a brief narrative by Gregory in which Polly tells the story of her family’s odyssey, was featured in the magazine, Back Home in Kentucky (Nov.-Dec. 1982).

[*Corinne Taylor Gregory (1904-1992), who wrote the article “Christmas at Polly’s” was the young Director at Grace Nettleton Home when Polly and Alta arrived there in 1936. Polly remained a close friend of Corinne through the years. Corinne became a freelance writer and knew well the story of the Enix children.]

See: Gregory, Corinne Taylor, “Christmas at Polly’s” narrative in “Back Home in Kentucky” (Nov.-Dec. 1982)

While the older children were separated, with some at Pine Mountain Settlement in Kentucky, some at the Grace Nettleton Home in Tennessee, and the youngest two in Arizona, their father died unexpectedly. The narrative then traces a difficult passage of the seven children who were spread across the country. When the two youngest children, cared for by the Cole grandparents and Lulu’s sister Lillie, were still quite young, another sister, their aunt, visited from Arizona and took the two back with her to Arizona to raise them in her home.

Eventually, the children, as they grew up in their separate locations, managed to complete their education. Clyde and Willard were both good students at Pine Mountain and both worked in the print shop with instructors August Angel and Fred Burkhard. They were able to take their skills on to Berea (KY) College where they also worked in the Berea print shop.

Following World War II, the two brothers were able to find good jobs in publishing and printmaking. They not only paid for the education of many of their siblings but also continued to encourage them to move to Florida, “where it was always summer.” Clyde worked on the staff of a St. Petersburg newspaper and with the supplemental income of Willard, the two rented a large furnished home and set about rejoining the family.

ENIX FAMILY: Reunited in Florida

Polly and Alta had also completed their college degrees and Janette had married Harvey Ferry and was living in Indiana. It had been a tumultuous ten years for the siblings following the death of their parents, but the desire to be together was very strong and by 1946 all the siblings were either sharing the rented house in St. Petersburg or were living nearby. Marriages of Alta and Polly followed. Willard stood in for his siblings. Clyde married Gene who was a co-worker at the newspaper and Alta married Jack Hurlson and Polly married Linton Tibbetts. Carol became a nurse and soon married Dick Dryer, followed by Bobby who married Evelyn. All made lives for themselves in the Tampa Bay area.

Willard Enix died in 1957, much too early, but Clyde made much of his years in Florida with his wife Gene. Clyde Enix died in 2009. The measure of Clyde Enix is seen so clearly in his amazing strength in keeping the Enix family together, but what needs the telling is the amazing story of Clyde and the legacy he left with his Pine Mountain family. That is best told through the archival record and through the correspondence with the Fred Burkhard family who had early on helped to shape his destiny.

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See Also:
CLYDE EDWARD ENIX Student Biography
WILLARD EARL ENIX Student Biography

Return to:
GUIDE TO FAMILIES IN THE PINE MOUNTAIN VALLEY COMMUNITY

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Title	Enix Family
Alternate Title	Clyde Edward Enix ; Willard Earl Enix ; Janette Enix ; Polly Enix ; Alta Enix ; Carol Enix ; Bobby Enix ;
Identifier	https://pinemountainsettlement.net/?page_id=74962
Creator	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Alt. Creator	Ann Angel Eberhardt ; Helen Hayes Wykle ;
Subject Keyword	Enix Family ; Ed and Lulu Cole Enix ; Clyde Edward Enix ; Willard Earl Enix ; Janette Enix ; Polly Enix ; Alta Enix ; Carol Enix ; Bobby Enix ; Pine Mountain Settlement School Students ; Corrine Taylor Gregory ; Grace Nettleton Home for Girls ; PMSS print shop ; Berea College ; orphans ; St. Petersburg, Florida ;
Subject LCSH	Enix Family. Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History. Harlan County (Ky.) — History. Education — Kentucky — Harlan County. Rural schools — Kentucky — History. Families — Kentucky. Schools — Appalachian Region, Southern.
Date	2020-01-06 hw
Publisher	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY
Contributor	n/a
Type	Collections ; text ; image ;
Format	Original and copies of documents and correspondence in file folders in filing cabinet.
Source	Series 09: Biography – Families
Language	English
Relation	Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 09: Biography – Families
Coverage Temporal	1935 – 1982
Coverage Spatial	Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ;
Rights	Any display, publication, or public use must credit the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Copyright retained by the creators of certain items in the collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Donor	n/a
Description	Core documents, correspondence, writings, and administrative papers of the Enix Family ; clippings, photographs, books by or about the Enix Family ;
Acquisition	n/d
Citation	“[Identification of Item],” [Collection Name] [Series Number, if applicable]. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Processed By	Helen Hayes Wykle ; Ann Angel Eberhardt ;
Last Updated	2020-05-11 aae ; 2022-03-29 hhw ; 2022-03-31 aae ;
	Sources ”ENIX.” Series 09: Biography – Families. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Internet resource. Gregory, Corinne Taylor, “Christmas at Polly’s” narrative in the magazine Back Home in Kentucky, (Nov.-Dec. 1982). Print.

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BIOGRAPHY – A-Z

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