Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: Biography
Mary Rockwell Hook
Series 10: Built Environment
Architectural planning
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1913 Arrival at Pine Mountain Settlement
“On Bull Creek, May 1913.” Mary Rockwell Hook, Ethel de Long and Carl on horseback next to rail fence. hook_album_2blk__017.jpg
TAGS: Mary Rockwell Hook, 1913 arrival, architectural planning, Pine Mountain Settlement School buildings, settlement schools, horseback riding, Hindman Settlement School,Ethel de Long, Katherine Pettit, Ruth Huntington, Berthe Lewis, children cottages, Hazard, KY,
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1913 Arrival at Pine Mountain Settlement
On the recommendation of the School Principal at the nearby W.C.T.U [Hindman] Settlement, Ruth Huntington, and the encouragement of Ethel de Long and Katherine Pettit, the young Mary Rockwell Hook was recruited as the architect for the new school at Pine Mountain. The following is the account given by Hook of her recruitment and her earliest activity as the new Pine Mountain Settlement School architect.
Hook received her invitation while she was working on several potential architectural commissions in central California. Her sister was living in near Sonoma, California at the time and Ruth Huntington had contacts through friends in Carmel, California.
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK’S ACCOUNT OF HER FIRST YEARS AS THE ARCHITECT
FOR THE PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT SCHOOL
A letter from a person I had never heard of, Ethel de Long, caught up with me in California. It said that she and Katherine Pettit expected to build a new school in the Kentucky mountains, [and] that Ruth Huntington, the Principal and co-director at Hindman, had suggested that I might be of some architectural service to them. She asked if I would meet her at Hindman for graduation, see their buildings and ride with her to the new site.
It sounded interesting and something impelled me to take the challenge.
As I marvel now at the daring and courage of Uncle William and Aunt Sal [Creech] pushing far into a new country, I also marvel that a parcel of women had no hesitation in the sight of four-hundred raw and untouched acres.
I arrived at Hazard in the afternoon and was met by a small boy who said he had two nags and it was thirty miles and we would better get going. For the nag he put me on, I had to stop and gather a stout switch. No amount of beating and urging made any difference in his speed. I asked the boy if he had any more persuasion with the horse, I would like to trade with him.
He said “Aint narry any woman rid this nag bit I reckon you can try.” It was a delightful young mare. She dashed through the stream beds and up the hillsides, path or no path. The boy brought the other horse along pretty well but when it got dark, it was uncanny riding through an unknown forest, alone.
About nine-thirty, we saw the lights of the Hindman School and Ruth Huntington* came out to greet us.
The next morning was commencement. Ethel de Long presented the diplomas. I looked through the buildings. After lunch, four of us mounted horses for the fifty mile ride to Pine Mountain. There were Ethel de Long, Elizabeth Moore, of St Louis, Guy, a student, and myself.
On the way we passed two wagons, loaded with furniture for the new home. There was no road at all. The wheels were going up over boulders as high as a horse, the horses splashing through water, slipping on stones. I saw no hope of their ever arriving. Toward evening, we drew up at a house, known to Ethel de Long. She and Guy dismounted, leaving their horses for me to hold.
One of the horses turned and bit the flank of of Miss Moore’s horse, her horse reared and turned and horse and rider fell over the bank down to the stream, fifteen feet below.
The horse landed on his feet but Miss Moore scraped her side badly on a tree stump. She was very game, though, and willing to start off again the next morning.
The woman who took us in for the night, took up her position in front of the fireplace in our bedroom, with her pipe, so we had to go ahead with our preparations for the night.
She said, “Law sakes, do you all strip yourselves off naked at night?” I said, “What do you do?” “Why, I jess kick my shoes off and lay down.”
By the next night, we had reached a cottage above the road belonging to John Shell, overlooking the hills and dales and forest primeval, which was to be the home of the Pine Mountain Settlement School.
Then Miss Pettit and a nurse and Bertha Lewis had been scrubbing and papering for week or so.
I took up my abode on the front porch.
The next week was mostly spent walking in deep grass, trying to formulate a comprehensive plan of all the buildings needed for a school of one hundred students for the next twenty years.
The idea then was to take young children, to house them in cottages of twenty or less.
Girls were to be in one end [OF THE CAMPUS] and boys in the other with the common buildings in the center.
Mary Rockwell Hook
[* The excerpt is from Mary Rockwell Hook’s memoire, This and That written close to the end of her career. Mary Ruth Huntington was staff at Hindman Settlement School and became the Principal following the departure of Ethel de Long. ]
{See Hook’s memoir for additional details.}
