VISITORS Prospective Visitors 1919-1920

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY
VISITORS
Prospective Visitors 1919-1920

VISITORS Prospective Visitors 1919-1920

TAGS: visitors, prospective visitors to PMSS 1919-1920, Ethel de Long Zande, Dr. Edward H. Egbert, William Creech, Junior Red Cross, train travel, Darwin D. Martin, kindergarten, Philip Roettinger, Mary Rockwell Hook, The School of the Ozarks, travel directions to PMSS

The following are images and a list of contents of correspondence between Pine Mountain Settlement School staff and a variety of prospective visitors in 1919 and 1920. The discussions center on instructions for getting to the remote school and details of the visit.

CONTENTS: Prospective Visitors 1919-1920

[Note: Letters from PMSS staff in the PMSS Collections are carbon copies, typewritten, unsigned, and meant for the Office files. The original signed documents were sent to the correspondents. The initials at the bottom left of most PMSS letters indicate the writer (along with initials of the secretary). For example, “EZ” are the initials for Ethel de Long Zande, “KP” refers to Katherine Pettit. Letters from others are typewritten originals unless specified otherwise. The following list of contents is in chronological order and not necessarily in the order of the image numbers.]

1919

01 September 15, 1919. To Miss Katherine Pettit, PMSS, from Dr. Edward H. Egbert, Executive Secretary, on letterhead for “The Catherine Breshkovsky Russian Relief Fund,” New York, NY. Egbert thanks Pettit for her letter and enclosures. “I feel that the work you are doing is in many respects parallel to the work which we hope to do in Russia” and is anxious to visit PMSS soon. He expresses interest in her “plan to pay the children for their labor….” and for the School’s extension work. He hopes to meet “Uncle William.”

02 September 25, 1919. To Dr. Egbert from KP (Pettit), who is “delighted” that he may visit. She regrets informing him that Uncle William Creech died in May 1918. A memorial service will be held. “You can tell us about Russia too. We long for our children to have a chance to hear of the things going on in the outside world….”

03 September 25 1919. To Miss Leah Schubert, Newport, KY, from EZ [Zande], welcoming her to visit. She told Miss Blackburn “to plan the trips that you and she must take.” Zande thanks her for the pictures.

04 N.D. [Partial document apparently addressed to PMSS.] The writer will send Junior Red Cross literature. “Miss Louise Bache, Assistant Editor of the Junior Red Cross News will be visiting mountain schools in Tennessee and Kentucky and the writer hopes to include PMSS in her plans. “We are all deeply interested in the children who are being served in such schools and are hopeful that they may be linked up with the stimulus of Junior Red Cross aims and work.” Describes their policy concerning membership fees.

05 October 9, 1919. To Mrs. Katherine H. Stuart, Middlesboro, KY from KP (Pettit), who received Stuart’s note via Miss Alice Butler. Pettit welcomes her to visit. “You know Miss Harriet Butler is here, too…with her own Medical Settlement four miles away?”

16-16b December 6, 1919. Three-page letter to Zande from Irvin C. Poley, Mt. Airy, PA. “I’ve been interested in your school for several years ever since hearing you speak at Germantown Friends School….” He asks to visit PMSS. He offers to help at PMSS, as he is an assistant principal and teacher with experience in camp work with boys.
17 December 15, 1919. To Mr. Poley from EZ [Zande], who is glad Poley wants to visit. “Indeed we do like visitors who help!” She suggests visiting in the summer. “We are sure of good weather then, and the rigors of our primitive life are easier to meet, when it is light at the time the rising bell rings, and living in tents is possible.” She advises about train travel.

1920

10, 10b January 8, 1920. Two-page letter to Darwin D. Martin, Secretary, Larkin Co., Buffalo, NY from Henry E. Jackson, Special Agent in Community Organization, on letterhead for the “Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Washington, DC.” He responds to Martin’s offer to send him to visit PMSS. He was also inspired to visit PMSS after visiting Caney Creek School in Knott County, which he describes. He then writes,

“I note what you say about the government’s concern over the illicit distilling done in the mountains and I heartily agree with you that if even a portion of the energy thus expended were devoted to the great work of promotion of a community building it would net far more result.”

Jackson also agrees with Martin “about the necessity of doing fundamental constructive work along economic lines” for the mountain people. He states when he can visit PMSS in April and that he would like to meet with Martin in Buffalo in the future.

13-13e February 1, 1920. Six-page handwritten letter to Zande from Margretta Oliver Kinne, Syracuse, NY, [13-13a] who may be able to visit PMSS in the summer as a paying guest. Asks for a copy of the third “Notes from Pine Mountain Settlement School.” [13b] Based on her experience as a kindergarten teacher for 8 years, Kinne, she feels that kindergarten should be applied to “little mountain children.” She asks if it’s possible to start a kindergarten in a community, if “independently” funded. [13c] She hopes to talk with Zande about this. [13c] “I think your medical work you are starting near Pine Mt. is splendid and so needed.… It must be hard to decide whether that or education is more important.” [13d] “The thought of your work – and similar work in other places and countries – it is hard to have all one’s sympathy and interest with the Four Million Dollar Drive for Smith [College]!”

14 February 5, 1920. To Miss Kinne [unsigned], Secretary, informing her that Mrs. Zande is away on a speaking trip in Chicago and will answer later.

12 February 5, 1920. To [no salutation], Pine Mountain Settlement School Inc. from Darwin D. Martin on letterhead for Larkin Co., Buffalo, NY. He sent PMSS’s list of electrical supplies to his company’s Electrical Engineer. He hopes that PMSS’s “mail troubles” are over, after Mr. Sutton sent a letter to his subordinates in Cincinnati. He mentions a PMSS visit by “Father Lord,” thanks Miss Stone for wool samples and letter; encloses Jackson’s January 5th letter and tells about Jackson’s resignation as a Congregational pastor.

11 February 10, 1920. To Jackson from EZ [Zande]. She received his January 8th letter from D.D. Martin and welcomes him to PMSS.

23-24 February 12 [no year]. Two pages of an incomplete handwritten letter from [page with writer’s signature is missing] to Miss [Evelyn] Wells, mentioning H. [Henry] Creech, receiving Miss Melville’s letters, Miss [Celia] Cathcart, Dr. Mary Zoeller (a dentist who is going to PMSS.)

15 February 16, 1920. To Miss Kinne from EZ [Zande]. who expresses interest in Kinne’s visit and help. “So many people ask to come and visit, paying their expenses but not taking part in the school work that we quite often have to tell them that it is really impossible for us to have such visitors.”

18 February 24, 1920. To Philip Roettinger, Cincinnati, OH, from [unsigned, apparently Zande], who relays Miss [Katherine] Pettit’s advice for the best time to bring Mr. Livingood. “A new house for boys is started, and we have in our minds to start a house for the nurses….” She tells of a need for a house for 24 girls and another for young “motherless” children. “There are simply a score of ways for Pine Mountain to grow.” She describes how her baby [Berto Zande], nearly a year old, is developing.

19 April 12, 1920. To Miss [Mary] Rockwell from Ella D. Cowan, [Secretary], on letterhead for “The School of the Ozarks, Hollister, MO, Endowment Fund Campaign, who was impressed with Rockwells talk to the Kansas City Chapter of the DAR. She asks for information about visiting PMSS to “see if their buildings [waterworks, and heating system] are at all what would be suitable for us.” She suggests a meeting with Rockwell to explain more. [Handwritten notes from Mary Rockwell in all four margins, apparently to Zande], providing background information about The School of the Ozarks and suggesting what to show Cowan. She also writes that she is “urging Bertha Venanzi to go to Open House for two months….”

20 July 19, 1920. To Miss Jessie Schriver, Fort Thomas, KY, from [unsigned], welcoming her to PMSS and sending visitor information.

22 August 5, [no year]. Two-page handwritten letter to Zande from Jessie Schriver, giving the dates of her planned visit. She will be accompanied by Mrs. Duckworth and Ulias Ida Lurker.

06-06b August 10, 1920. Three-page handwritten letter to Zande from Miss Lyta Davis, Little Rock, AR. “Miss Rockwell suggested that some member of our school, ‘The School of the Ozarks’ at Holister, MO, visit your school and the board has very kindly selected me….” She gives suggested dates for her visit.

07 and 08 MISSING IMAGES

09 August 13, 1920. To Miss Davis from EZ [Zande], who suggests visiting PMSS in September and gives reasons for doing so. Zande asks her to bring pictures of her school. Since Davis prefers to come by horseback she must contact Wilson Lewis at Dillon to meet her.

21 August 16, 1920. To Jessie Schriver from [unsigned], thanking her for her $5 annual subscription and welcoming her and friends to PMSS for an October visit. “We have about ninety children in the school now….” She gives reasons why visitors may only stay a week at a time.