Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 05: Administration — Board of Trustees
Dr. Waller O. Bullock Jr.
Medical Advisor, Board of Trustees – 1915 & 1918
Dr. Waller O. Bullock Jr. was one of the earliest members of the Pine Mountain Settlement School Board of Trustees, as indicated by his name among the trustees listed in letterheads of School correspondence dated November 1915 and January 1918. He already had an association with the School as the husband of co-founder Katherine Pettit‘s sister, Minnie Barbee Pettit.
As the medical advisor to the School, he was surely a valuable resource for the founders, Katherine Pettit and Ethel de Long, who were planning extension centers that would expand their health and education programs into the Pine Mountain valley, beginning with Line Fork Settlement and the Medical Settlement at Big Laurel.
Waller Overton Bullock, Jr., was born on Nov. 28, 1875, in Frankfort, Kentucky, to Dr. Waller O. Bullock Sr. (1842-1903) and Sallie (Overton) Bullock (1844-1935). Waller Jr. was the second of four children, the others named Sally Bullock, Frederick D.Bullock, and Joseph Hunt Bullock.
Dr. Bullock attended Transylvania University and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1896, followed by work at University of Virginia and an internship in the Polyclinic Hospital in Philadelphia. He located in Lexington in 1899 and continued practicing medicine until 1946. During World War I he served as a major in the Army medical corps known as the Barrow Unit and later helped found the Lexington Clinic with Dr. David Barrow and his son Dr. Woolfolk Barrow. The clinic continues today as one of Lexington’s top healthcare providers.
Minnie Barbee Pettit was born in 1877 and grew up on the same farm outside Lexington as did her sister Katherine. The description of Bullock-Pettit photographic collection at the University of Kentucky Libraries includes the story of how she met her future husband: “While traveling in the Kentucky Mountains with her sister Kate she broke her leg; Dr. Waller O. Bullock, who she later married in 1907, set the leg.” Throughout her years in Lexington, Mrs. Bullock was an active member in a number of cultural and gardening organizations.
Several letters in the PMSS Collection suggest that School staff continued to keep in touch with the Bullocks at least into the late 1940s. A 1921 letter written home by Marguerite Butler, a fundraiser and superintendent of the extension work, tells of Katherine Pettit consulting her brother-in-law, then in Lexington, KY, about another worker’s bad leg.
A 1945 letter from Dr. Alfreda Withington, the School’s medical settlement physician from 1924 to 1931, to Delia Creech (William Creech‘s daughter-in-law) mentions “Mrs. Bullock.” Miss Alice Cobb, a teacher and trustee, relates the following in her 1942 travelogue:
Sunday, January 18th [1942]. Took train to Wollaston, met by Mrs. Bullock and son Robert. The meeting of the Children of the American Revolution was at her home.
And Margaret Motter, teacher and publicity representative, describes in her travelogue notes a meeting with “Mrs. Bullock and Mrs. [Fanny] Gratz” as late as 1948.
Waller Overton Bullock, Jr. died on January 23, 1953, in Lexington and was buried in the Lexington Cemetery. Minnie Pettit Bullock, daughter of Benjamin F. and Clara Barbee Pettit, died in 1970. She was 98 years old.
The Bodley-Bullock House
![The Bodley-Bullock House, Lexington, KY, 2011. [pmss_bullock_house]](https://pinemountainsettlement.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/pmss_bullock_house-300x225.jpg)
The Bodley-Bullock House, Lexington, KY, 2011. [pmss_bullock_house] Source: www.kaintuckeean.com
An excerpt from “The Bodley-Bullock Coverlet Collection” in the Katherine Pettit – Weaving at PMSS – Beginnings page on this website describes the lively atmosphere in the Bullocks’ residence:
…The home was obviously an active intellectual scene, filled with books and art, enjoyed by the patriarch, Waller O. Bullock, Jr. his wife and children. Bullock, Katherine Pettit’s brother-in-law, was a doctor and a sculptor. He knew well the education of joining head and hand and heart, and no doubt passed that along to his children. The home, located adjacent to one of Lexington’s most impressive parks, Gratz Park, is surrounded by the homes of other intellectual and Progressive elites and was a center of early cultural activity. Individuals such as Henry Clay, the early entrepreneur William Gratz, John Wesley Hunt, the first millionaire west of the Alleghenies, and others had enjoyed the many stately homes on the Park. Pettit often came to stay with the Bullocks and it was there in a small garden apartment that she died in 1936.
The Bodley-Bullock House was willed to Transylvania University and is now leased to the Junior League of Lexington, Inc., which is committed to its preservation through renovation and ongoing maintenance to this day. Many of Bullock’s sculptures can still be seen at the Bodley-Bullock House.
|
Title |
Dr. Waller O. Bullock, Jr. |
|
Alt. Title |
Waller Overton Bullock, Jr. |
|
Identifier |
|
|
Creator |
Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY |
|
Alt. Creator |
Ann Angel Eberhardt ; Helen Hayes Wykle ; |
|
Subject Keyword |
Dr. Waller O. Bullock, Jr. ; Dr. Waller Overton Bullock, Jr. ; Pine Mountain Settlement School ; PMSS Board of Trustees ; Minnie Barbee (Pettit) Bullock ; medical advisors ; medical extension center ; Line Fork Settlement ; Medical Settlement at Big Laurel ; Dr. Waller O. Bullock Sr. ; Sallie (Overton) Bullock ; Sally Bullock ; Frederick D.Bullock ; Joseph Hunt Bullock ; Bodley-Bullock House ; Gratz Park ; General Thomas Bodley ; Transylvania University ; Junior League of Lexington, Inc. ; University of Virginia ; Polyclinic Hospital ; World War I ; Army medical corps ; Barrow Unit ; Lexington Clinic ; Dr. David Barrow ; Dr. Woolfolk Barrow ; healthcare providers ; Bullock-Pettit photographic collection ; University of Kentucky Libraries ; Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Frankfort, KY ; Transylvania, KY ; Philadelphia, PA ; Lexington, KY ; |
|
Subject LCSH |
Bullock, Dr. Waller Overton, — Nov. 28, 1875 – January 23, 1953. |
|
Date |
2015-08-23 |
|
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 05: Administration – Board of Trustees |
|
Language |
English |
|
Relation |
Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 05: Administration – Board of Trustees. |
|
Coverage Temporal |
1814 – 1970 |
|
Coverage Spatial |
Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Frankfort, KY ; Transylvania, KY ; Philadelphia, PA ; Lexington, 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 Dr. Waller Overton Bullock, Jr. ; clippings, photographs, books by or about Dr. Waller Overton Bullock, Jr. ; |
|
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 |
2015-08-23 aae ; |
|
Bibliography |
Sources “Bodley-Bullock House.” Junior League of Lexington, Inc. https://www.lexjrleague.com/?nd=bbh_history&und=37. Internet resource. Accessed 2015-08-23. “Bodley-Bullock House.” University of Kentucky Libraries. WorldCat record id: 212847137. http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ark:/99166/w64f4fdt. Internet resource. Accessed 2015-08-23. “Bullock, Waller O. (Waller Overton), 1875-1953.” SNAC. “Bullock, Waller Overton, Jr.” Lexington Public Library – Local History Index BETA. http://68.171.218.101/subject-headings/bullock-waller-overton-jr. Internet resource. Accessed 2015-08-23. ‘Dr Waller O Bullock.” Find-A-Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=87425274. Internet resource. Accessed 2015-08-23. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. pinemountainsettlement. net. Internet resource. “United States Census, 1940,” database with images,FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K7RL-CHY : accessed 23 August 2015), Waller Bullock, Ward 3, Lexington, Magisterial District 2, Fayette, Kentucky, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 34-15, sheet 4A, family 109, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 1302. “United States Census, 1880,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCCF-HPF : accessed 22 August 2015), Waller Bullock in household of Waller O Bullock, Lexington, Fayette, Kentucky, United States; citing enumeration district 66, sheet 332B, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0413; FHL microfilm 1,254,413. Selected Publications by and about Dr. Bullock Bullock, Waller O., collector. Bullock Garden. Transylvania University, n.d.. Internet resource. Bullock, Waller O. Dr. Benjamin Winslow Dudley. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1935. Print. Off Set Print Portrait of Dr. Waller O. Bullock. University of Kentucky, n.d.. Internet resource. Portrait of Dr. and Mrs. Waller O. Bullock. University of Kentucky, 1948. Internet resource. Bullock, Waller O, Minnie P. Bullock, and Katherine R. Pettit. Bullock-Pettit Photographic Collection. , n.d.. Archival material. |
Return to BIOGRAPHY – A-Z
See Also Guide to Boards of PMSS Trustees
