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Rose Petal Sandwiches and Other Floral Fancies

ROSE PETAL SANDWICHES AND OTHER FLORAL FANCIES

Old Log at PMSS with drystack wall, May roses. Photo HW. [P1130854.jpg]

Tags: rose petal sandwiches, roses, flowers, menus, ramps, bear’s lettuce, snapping turtle stew, Poke Sallet, Bear’s Lettuce,  Appalachian dining, Buckner Hollingsworth, groundhogs, Maude Grieve’s Modern Herbal

ROSE PETAL SANDWICHES  – FOOD and FORAGE

A recipe for “Rose Petal Sandwiches” I recently encountered while browsing Buckner Hollingsworth’s Flower Chronicles (1931) intrigued me.  Hollingsworth suggests it is probably taken from Maude Grieve’s Modern Herbal, in which the recipe is briefly described. I was directed to Hollingsworth through my mother’s fascination with flora and food and her extensive clippings. I did not have occassion to find the sandwich on my childhood plate, but, like many of my mother’s collected recipes, I found it fascinating … particularly intriguing …  as in, “Now that is pretty novel! I think I could eat that! It even sounds palatable.” 

While growing up there were many curious dishes that my Mother tried on the family, but this was not one of them. This rosey recipe, this strange combination, evoked for me the simple elegance of an English Tea party, my childhood mock tea parties, and the reward of fresh butter on toast rounds we nibbled as children with the haughty doll’s’ at the tea parties. The scent of roses even visited me for an instant. But the unusual elegance of the recipe also reminded me of the many peculiar meals our Mother tried on us. But, let’s start with the roses.

In Appalachia, many ingredients in recipes can strike the observer as “peculiar”. Ramps, Bear’s Lettuce, and Poke Sallet evoke curiosity and, for many, that “peculiar look”. Yet, there are so many plants and herbals in the Appalachian region that deserve a closer look.  Among the rich trove of Appalachian plants and animals, there are many that are edible and some that are quite tasty. However, rose-petal sandwiches caught my attention.

Essentially, the recipe calls for the following ingredients and actions:

Put a layer of red rose petals in the bottom of a jar or a covered dish. Putting four ounces of fresh butter wrapped in waxed paper over [top]. Cover with a thick layer of rose petals. Cover closely and move into a cool place overnight. The more fragrant the roses, the finer the flavor imparted. Spread each with the perfumed butter and place several petals from fresh red roses. Between the slices. Allowing the edges to show.  
                                                       Hollingsworth, Buckner. Flower Chronicles, p.52

There it was, this tempting and dainty recipe with delicate rose petals sitting at the center of the food interest…. if not on the main table, certainly in the parlor.  The roses could be plucked from the garden.  So many mountain women cherished their roses, and their rose stories, always retold with pride, traced back many generations in the family.  Roses joined the lasting pride of family heritage and in many gardens other heritage plants were proudly shared and planted.  Katherine Pettit, the first Pine Mountain School Director, now there’s a possible source for other floral fancies  ……. A little more time might surprise us and reveal more rose petal-embellished foods and a host of other “dainty” plants added to parlor and home fare … well, maybe not the parlors.

The author Hollingsworth suggests that this simple rose petal sandwich could take the edge off calf’s brain pudding or other adventuresome early “foods.”   I certainly hope so, for now, my peculiar food memories have begun to emerge. I can remember at least one encounter with the brain of some animal. I have managed to suppress just what animal that was, and perhaps the lapse is due to that early introduction of a “brain” meal. And, no, it was not squirrel brains and it was probably delicately disguised.

HISTORIC COOKS AND COOKBOOKS

The deep roots of Appalachian families and often their Scots-Irish-English ancestry seem to easily pull forward stories and songs that discuss peculiar [to our current tastes] eating habits. Roses were frequently woven into early mountain family stories. Ancestral roses were often affectionate gifts and accompanied funerals, weddings, a hopeful suitor, and sometimes a murder or two.  This deep and rosey and not so rosey history suggests the broad reach of the rose, [Latin: rosa]  in particular, how the rose played a role in shaping native habits and habitats.

Roses belong to the plant family Rosaceae. As a species, the rose offers over 100 wild species. In Appalachia one of the most favored roses was the Rosa gallica, or the Gallic rose. The rosa gallica is French, but the varieties of European roses are many and were carefully guarded with the belongings of European families who settled our country and Appalachia.

In Appalachia, while the early oral histories frequently point to Europe, many early floral gardens, plant foods, and medicines, mixed with native species, and grew their own nostalgic stories and eventually their own history as the years went by. The rose appears in many of the Appalachian ballads and the legends that draw political distinction between the white rose and the red rose in English royal history, is well known. Roses have thorns. The English ballad builds many somber songs around the rose. 

BEYOND THE ROSE

My memories of May roses today have stirred up memories of the less rosy foods of my childhood. For example, I had a mother who delighted in feeding us foraged local flora and fauna, and most times it was not roses but may have been another delicate floral plant. The violet comes quickly to mind that always topped my brother’s June Birthday cake. Cress from cold small streams, and wild purple violets were on most of my brother’s June Birthday cakes, and were familiar garnishes on our table desserts. My December arrival did not afford violets until the violet house-plant  offered a few.  Also, a favorite in the house, the fuzzy Bear’s Leaf Lettuce,  showed up frequently on our table. But, it carried no floral memories.  I always regretted that December had no flowers, as they would never appear when needed the most.

Mother’s other peculiar floral offerings included dandelions.  They were frequently turned into  wine. Possum Grape and Fall Grape fruit followed in the Fall.  While wine was a great cooking aide, ramps, and poke-sallet (my least favorite), were two of the least favored Spring fare. Many dishes were enhanced by stream mint with flowers attached, nuts (mainly hickory and walnut), and the lemons that she nurtured in her sunny windows and her small greenhouse.  My mother often identified and enjoyed edible plants by their taste, but she also relied on historical uses of the plants passed down in the family lore and gathered from her deep reading interests. She seemed to always have Gray’s Manual of Botany handy (not researched for recipes!) but for safety.

It was not just my Mother, but many of the staff at Pine Mountain who inspired my Mother to always eagerly seek out new and near plants that were edible. An Appalachian and Pine Mountain School  ritual included the Spring de-tox that was comprised of early Spring greens that “cleansed” the gut and was dutifully practiced by many of the staff and families in the Pine Mountain valley. The offerings were many and included fresh shoots of dandelions, cress, and wild onions— ramps — and poke sallat but not necessarily together. Salads were not a regular in most Appalachian homes. Often, spring greens went into a frying pan with bacon grease and cabbage was shredded into kraut. However, my Mother regularly fed us fresh Bear’s lettuce in salads with grape vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, and a myriad of other leafy things — green, but still unknown to me at this late date. I do remember that some of her combinations often produced the expected emetic.  They were intended to cleanse the gut and were offered as “guaranteed to clean yer gut.”

Greenery was not the only adventure in eating. The main course could also surprise (and disgust us), and I now suspect that for very early Appalachian families, the greenery took the edge off the disgust of some of the “main” dishes. I vividly remember the groundhog and one winter meal when there was little greenery to garnish the meat. When the critter came out of the oven rolling in grease, the house door had to be opened to air out the stench of the roasting male groundhog.  His glands had failed to be removed … at least that is what I remember of the discussion about that stench and that grand roasting failure.

Another experiment was Mother’s snapping turtle soup.  Many families, especially those near streams and rivers, still treasure the tough but usually tasty meat of the snapping turtle. As I recall, it took a full day to prepare the turtle for cooking and another full day to cook the meat to tenderness. Vividly, I remember watching the heart being cut from the turtle and being placed in a bowl. My brother and I sat close to the vessel, waiting for the heart to stop throbbing as it sat muscle-spasming in the bowl. We watched as the heart continued to ‘beat’ for what seemed to be an eternity. (Certainly enough time to contemplate how our own hearts might beat if removed.) As I recall, we pleaded that the noble heart not join the stew. The stew was a hearty broth and tasty and unchewable. The small slivers of turtle meat — as I remember — though likened to rubber bands — were nearly unchewable. I believe we may have slurped the stew, though I recall being unable to forget the heart that insisted on beating and ate very little. No one volunteered to eat the groundhog — even our dog was disinclined, but the turtle was an OK critter for several in the family. I will spare you the rabbits and the squirrels …. and no squirrel brains were ever eaten in our household. Mother ate fish eyes once. She denied it until her last days. We were all appalled.

THE MEAT OF THE MATTER

Pork, beef, and chicken were the most common meats in our home and many of the nearby families, and they were in good supply as our father, William Hayes, was the Farm Manager at Pine Mountain (1939-1953). He often instructed students in the proper butchering and storing of pig and steer. Like my mother, he had an early introduction to hunting and living off the land as a child. The coal camps at Stearns and later in Harlan County at Coxton Coal Camp had a few over-worked small plots of garden land next to the coal company houses, but it was never enough to satisfy large families. The overused plots were often subject to poor yield or theft by hungry neighbors. Most meats, if available,  or caught in “Hoover boxes”,  were fried, generally in bacon grease, or baked. Fried chicken was by far the Sunday favorite.

My maternal Grandmother, like so many mountain women, was charged with “wringing the necks off her yard chickens.” There were also the chickens that got the hatchet. My Grandmother Hall was a chicken wringer, and my Grandmother Hayes was a “chopper.”  I remember crying after witnessing a decapitation on a long summer visit. Strange that I can remember the joy of eating chicken as a child in our home, but I don’t remember being put out by the animal’s demise or how they made their journey to the frying pan. 

On Sunday at our house at Pine Mountain, there was, almost always, a small roast, usually beef,  with one of Mother’s invented “natural” and seasonal salads, part garden and part nature, and the Longines-Wittnauer Watch Hour or the Longines Symphonette playing in the background on the radio. Longines was a renowned American radio program that broadcast classical and “light classical” music from 1941 through 1958, the years that formed a peculiar musical taste in the homes of many of the students who went to the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Growing up was a process in learned tastes and musical taste was learned taste, just as was food and the two melded together in memory.  For the students at the school, Arthur Dodd would often put a stack of classical records on the player, including the “Whipped Cream Waltz” by Strauss, for students and workers. The practice of mixing the extraordinary and the ordinary was a practice that many students and staff at the School learned and hold dear. The playful learning seems to have stuck with many of the students, and it stuck with me.  While the teachers and PMSS School Principal, Arthur Dodd  helped shape a taste for the classics for many who passed through the School, the echoes of ballads and “mountain music” deepened but rattlesnake meat never caught on for student or staff. 

RATTLESNAKE SALAD

Many workers at the School during the boarding school years when “Dodd”, as he was known, was on the staff, will remember his memorable “chicken” salad. As told by many who knew Arthur Dodd, he took delight in surprise and when charged with providing a pot-luck dish, he  prepared the meat of a large “rattler” killed that day. The meat of rattlesnakes is actually quite edible and the taste not far off from that of chicken, as my Mother told the tale. The “faux chicken”, according to my mother, was quite tasty, but the reveal did not sit well with some of the staff who were sure they had been poisoned. 

When queried about going to school at the Settlement, many students and workers have a book-full of stories connected with food and with music, and with theater and holidays that carry their own menus. These celebratory events often stretched the sensibilities and tastes of all. While a taste for Rose Petal Sandwiches, and the taste for male groundhogs or rattlesnake, to my knowledge, never caught on except for the delight of the “telling’  —- the yarn. 

To further explore the adventures of foraging and eating from the wild, see the work of the Naturalist  E.J. Carr whose adventures in foraging and exploring food combinations and herbal remedies significantly expanded the tastes and medical possibilities of his large following in Eastern Kentucky and throughout the state of Kentucky. Carr generously shared his collection with the School and his specimans and the carefull recording of his “edible” foraging dipped into both his botanical fascinations as well as his adventures of living off the land. 

See, for example many recipes of E.J. Carr may be found in the following:

E. J. CARR PLANT CENTER Edible Plant Workshop Narrative

Found in the E. J. CARR PLANT CENTER Herbary of Carr

See
DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH Guide

Other Food Ways
Community Farming – Beans, A Goose, a Sassy Lady, and Leather Britches
The Gospel of the Clean Plate
Stones, More Stones and Scalloped Potatoes
In the Kitchen With Pots and Pans I
In The Dining Room – Manners and Etiquette
Poultry and Chicken n’ Dumplings
THE STIR-OFF Sorghum Molasses

IT’S A DOG’S LIFE

Pine Mountain Settlement School
DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH
It’s a Dog’s Life
January 2024

Sheep shed with “Lady” headed for Big Log. Photo: Helen Wykle 2018. [
P1150808-e1555820379540.jpg]

IT’S A DOG’S LIFE

Over time, many dogs have found a home at Pine Mountain Settlement School, and many dogs have resided in the homes of community families. Whether an adopted dog, a gift dog, a pup from an older family dog, a stray, or “another”, these four-legged companions have mostly charmed the families, owners, visitors, and head-scratchers — all … or, at least most.  The occasional stray dog has even been known to charm themselves into the campus community and also into the homes of the surrounding Community. These four-legged friends sometimes belong to no one and everyone — even many visitors have claimed temporary ownership.  This writer is one of those.

Dogs seem to know how to negotiate mutual relationships surrounded by their two-legged ear-scratchers and when to avoid those relationships.  Instinctively, they seem to know when to stay and when times are tough, they instinctively move on and find their way into the homes and hearts of another family or person, or place. People live and thrive — or not, in relationships and communities. Dogs do this, and often better.

There have been many dogs at Pine Mountain and the surrounding community, and a myriad of stories to go along with these canine companions. Names such as Franklin,  Jonah, Waggie, Pug, Flossie, No-No, Bothwell, Amos, Megan, Stefan, Russell, and more have, over the years, melted into their forgotten times. Various Collie dogs, mongrels, Red-setters, and most recently the small Russell terrier, and especially the larger herding greeter, “Lady”. As the current self-appointed chaperon of visitors to the campus, guardian of the playground, and night watchwoman, Lady is one of the most accomplished of Pine Mountain’s ambassadors

As the all-around Ambassador, Lady often can be found on the doorstep of the guest houses. At night, she can be heard chasing coyotes away from the sheep and goats, and when School groups arrive, she can be found escorting hikers up the Summit Trail and guarding the playground. Many full nights of guarding for bears and other night-explorers have made her voice well known.

DOGS IN FAMILY PICTURES

Dogs at Pine Mountain often show up in family pictures. On campus and in the surrounding community, dogs are of every sort.  One of this author’s favorite canine portraits is that of the giant hound on the porch of the Shell family, who lived near the School early in the twentieth century.  The stoic and solemn portrait of the hound’s owners matches the dignity of the solemn but guarded look of their dog, who looks remarkably like “Lady”.  This portrait is difficult to forget, once seen.  As the couple sits on their hickory-cane chairs, they stare intently and with a solemn but guarded expressions. Their dog carries their same intensity or “guarded” stare and the moment seems charged by it’s intensity. All three sit before a doorway that reminds those of us who were born in the area, that the past is never far from memories such as this one. The open doorway and front-porch sitting, reminiscent of Aunt Sal’s Cabin, used to be an open invitation of “Come sit a spell.” Their doorbell — their dog. Their intensity, an extension of their deep sensitivity, and their “reading” of strangers.

Woman, bearded man, and large dog, seated on porch,  [misc_exhibit_021.jpg]

     The Shell’s dog of a type, often called a “hound-dog” was a familiar and valued family addition in most of the homes surrounding the Pine Mountain Settlement. Also called “coon-hound” and “bear-runners,” these canines were vital to families whose livestock needed a guard. Many had short lives but were long remembered in many conversations when porch-sittin’ and swapin’ hound-dog stories. There are numerous tall tales regarding dogs that continue to be told in the surrounding community. They may be related to the family’s “coon-hounds”, a brave bear fight, loyalty, or any number of familiar and often exaggerated dog talents.  These dog tales.. These stories live on. Their detailed stories reflect the close relationship we continue to have with “man’s [and woman’s] best friend.”

HOUNDS  418 Boy and young man seated with two hunting dogs. Ship-lap wall behind them.

TALL TAILS and TALES

Perhaps the most famous and fantastical  “bear-runner” hunting-dog story, is the one that Ben Begley, the legendary Environmental Education teacher at Pine Mountain, often shared with the school groups that came for Pine Mountain’s environmental education sessions. Ben captivated his audiences, young and old,  with tall tales that at first seemed to be plausible but then became more folklore and often finally arrived at fantasy. Ben’s story about a treasured hunting dog was certainly captivating and memorable.  Perhaps more memorable than the story were the expressions of the visiting children as they listened to master story-teller Ben’s tall tales.

One tale ran something like this-

A man had a treasured hunting hound who was used as a bear-hunting companion. The man and the dog one day encountered a bear that fiercely “went at” (attacked) the dog, and the two animals had a violent and gory battle. Ben spared no detail of the bloody battle between the bear and the dog. He described how the dog’s body was ripped and sliced into two halves and how the distraught hunter gathered the two pieces of the dog and quickly wrapped them tightly together, hoping to save his dog.  together. Ben’s audience became very quiet, tense, with all ears and eyes focused on the storyteller.

Ben then described how the hunter and the badly injured dog headed for home. Finally, at home with his dog, the hunter proceeded to sew his dog together.  Completing the gory job, the hunter again wrapped his dog tightly in the hope that he had saved the dog’s life.  After a while, the man was happy to see that the dog was responding to the repair. The dog was a fighter. A few weeks later, the man unwrapped the dog to remove the stitches.  On inspection, the stitches looked good. The hunter’s quick work had saved the dog but as the hunter fully unwrapped his dog he made a startling discovery.

There was a problem — the hunter didn’t realize that he had sewn one-half of the dog’s body upside-down and the other right-side-up. One set of legs was up in the air and one set of legs firmly down on the ground.  The owner had saved the life of the hound that had tangled with the bear, but now he had a problem as two feet were in the air and two were on the ground! The dog was alive but it looked like the end of the hunting days for the dog.  The eyes of the young audience widened. One can imagine the unique mental picture of a dog with two legs up and two legs down. Now what?! How could this new dog possibly remain the hunter’s companion, Ben asked?  A few children laughed uncomfortably. Ben continued with his story. He reported that the hunter soon found that he had a very unique hunting companion. His dog could now run on two legs! And, even more important, the dog could flip, and when he was tired, he could run on the other two fresh legs!

It was a fantastic story, in the same vein as the Jack Tales of Richard Chase, Leonard Roberts, and other tall-tale tellers found in Appalachia. The fantastic pictures Ben could draw in the minds of his young audiences never failed to capture a room full of imaginations and to teach lessons in storytelling.

[I only wish I could remember Ben’s story in greater detail … or not!. I suspect that I have “sewn” it together badly! But, just imagine a room full of kids hanging on every part of the tale and then exploding when they realize they had been “snookered.”]

Ben Begley,  former  Director of the Environmental Education Program at PMSS was one of the most magnificent of the many storytellers who visited or worked at the School.  He always had a room full of pre-teens trying to “piece together this gory tale and to imagine how the dog negotiated the world. Ben’s tall tales were often improbable tales, but he had mastered the art of suspense in storytelling. Ben’s command of tales is similar to the many such fantastic stories that get embellished by “mountain tall-tale-tellers”. Their tall tales can bring laughter, or sadness to an audience — even audiences that are “snookered” find it hard to erase the picture of that unique hunting hound from their visual memory, or the fun of sharing such an improbable tale. To read more about Appalachian tall tales, visit the work of author Richard Chase, a sometime staff-member and storyteller who often visited Pine Mountain and entertained children and staff with his “tall tales.”

EARLY PINE MOUNTAIN SETTLEMENT CANINES 

Two of the earliest dogs on the Pine Mountain Settlement School campus included one owned by Ethel de Long who later married the stone-mason, Luigi Zande, and another dog owned by the early school staff member, Marguerite Butler.  The de Long dog, a long-haired and pert-eared companion, shows up in several photographs taken during the founding years of the School. The name of Ethel Zande’s dog is sure to surface at some point, but it is not known by this author.

The second canine, identified as an early campus dog, belonged to staff member Marguerite Butler. The dog, a Dalmatian hound, was named”Franklin”.   He or she has been identified as a faithful companion of Butler, and the name has been recorded.

Early photographs have captured Ethel and her dog companion and Marguerite Butler and her sleek companion, “Franklin,” in the very early days of the School in 1914 or 1915.

Ethel de Long with her dog. X_099_workers_2527r_mod.jpg

Like a familiar face the little Zande dog can be easily identified (sort-of) and shows up in several early photographs. It is fun to encounter a photograph and to recognize “Ethel’s dog,” like a familiar friend’s face.

 

Woman [Ethel de Long ?] seated with dog at her feet. norton_048.jpg

Two young ladies wearing hats and with a shepherd dog, or the Zande dog between them. FN Vl_35_1142a FN Vl_35_1142a

025c. M.B. [Marguerite Butler] on Queen with Franklin, a Dalmatian hound at their side, . mccullough_I_025c

Why “Franklin” as a name choice for Marguerite Butler’s Dalmatian?  There is usually a history of some kind attached to naming a pet. It seems there is a long history associating the name  “Franklin” with Dalmatians … some of it credible and some of it not so much.

Several sources note the name “Franklin” given to Dalmatians has a high incidence. In fact it is quite common that Dalmatians find “Franklin” as their moniker, but, in fact, it is a favorite across breeds and also is found frequently in cat names.  This all seems to be based on the  “personality” associated with the name. For example, Franklin suggests strength, loyalty, trustworthiness, and a wise and gentle nature, so say many of the sources.  “Franklin,” many say is derived from the Old French word “franc” which means sincere, genuine, and free, and in Old  Eng. “frank”. One online source suggested it is a favorite name because “… In the US, Franklin is the 63rd most popular name for dogs, with over 4,000 r, —Benjamin Franklin.  The dignified name suggests a “dignified dog” … certainly a pedigree?  with which to identify. But let’s get the facts straight. The influence and personality of Benjamin Franklin rarely pan out.  Just because we might admire Groucho Marx does not call for naming our dog “Groucho”  — though I have known dogs that qualify. Well, so much for our National confusion/stupidity … it seems to be rampant today but I have never met a dog named “Dumbo”! Perhaps that is where AI [Artificial Intelligence] can come in handy. It is an interesting journey to ask for AI help in naming your pet. Give “Franklin” a try.

It is not known if Katherine Pettit had a dog. No reference to a Pettit dog has yet surfaced in the literature of the School or in the many letters of Pettit and her colleagues. Yet, in reading through the related material in the Pine Mountain Archive, it seems, to this writer, that Katherine, an agrarian at heart, loved farm life but kept any affection for animals partitioned or separated from any deep “petting” attention. Her concerns for children and their daily care and education were the center of most of her recorded reflections and animals were animals. Perhaps her possible disaffection for dogs was tied to her early life. As the oldest child, life on her father’s farm included many farm responsibilities, including caring for many animals. The farm responsibilities in addition to the demands of the farm’s animals gave her a wealth of knowledge and caring for children but probably not so much empathy with animals. Her younger siblings fell to her care following the death of her mother early in her life. She had little time for pets.

PETS AND DOG SUBSTITUTES

While Katherine Pettit may not have been a pet lover, many in the Community had pets.  It was and still is common to find pets that were as important to the family as children and the pets were not necessarily seen as “dogs”. Groundhogs seem to be the favorite dog substitutes. In the photo below, a young girl shows off her two groundhog pets  …. a common garden raider that burrows beneath the ground much like prairie dogs, but once tamed can be coaxed to be dependent on a human.

Young Girl Holding Two Groundhogs [?] Pets.[misc_exhibit_038.jpg]

The instinct to care for animals is with most of us but the level of care varies as do the animals we become attached to. Often the children in the community were successful in taming animals and birds that many city dwellers might not even recognize could be tamed. Yet, if one has lived in a relatively rural area and raised a garden they may identify with the alternate dogs in the arms of the community children below…. and also identify with the Mother’s expression. Really!? A Groundhog!

The two children seen below hold “pets” they have tamed. One pet, a groundhog, and the other a lamb. These were not uncommon pets of mountain children. When entering a home in the valley it was not uncommon to be introduced to four-legged family members.  Grey squirrels, rabbits, flying squirrels, toad frogs, snakes, crows, box turtles, lambs, goats, —- a regular zoo in some instances, could be found in many of the rural community homes.

Mellie Day family with pets.[nace_1_070a.jpg]

Mellie Day, the mother is looking just a bit dubious as she poses with two children who hold family pets. It is not clear if Mellie is responding to the camera or the company she is compelled to keep. Nonetheless, the mother does not look too charmed by her daughter’s offerings to the camera.  Perhaps the mother and her children hold expressions of suspicion of the  photographer’s intentions in capturing the image of an unusual pet “family.”   While girls favored the small pets and baby animals, the local boys generally continued striking up relationships and tall tales about their hunting dogs.

In the photograph below, a young boy holds his favorite pet/hunting dog. The two are center stage. There is no mistaking the expression of pride in the boy’s face.  He proudly shares his companion, stares defiantly straight at the camera, and is surrounded by admiring younger children.

1254 “Browning? 1920″Young boy and a dog. [VI_39_1254_mod.jpg]

THE CAIRNS OF GLYN AND GLADYS MORRIS 

A second era of dogs at Pine Mountain Settlement appeared with Glyn Morris, who became the Director of the School in 1935. Dogs began to play an important role in the Settlement School campus life when Glyn Morris and his wife Gladys came to the School with two Cairn terriers.

Glyn Morris, of Welch and Scots-ancestry was familiar with the Cairn terrier breed.  There is no doubt that Morris loved dogs, but he favored not just any dog. His dogs were pedigreed — no mongrel breed dogs for this city man. Glyn and his wife Gladys’s and two cairn terriers were an instant hit with the students and the workers, pedigree or not.

The Cairn breed, highly popular in Scotland, is known for its tenacious hunting instincts. The dog breed gets it’s name from the cairns (human stacks of rocks or rocky mounds of rocks on land formations) of Scotland and in the rugged and rocky farmlands of Wales.  Morris was Welch and Wales was the ancestral home of the Morris family. Also, if one is privileged to hold a Cairn terrier, it is a bit like holding a stack of rocks with a warm heart and a wet tongue. Perhaps that is why this writer has such a preference for terriers, especially Cairns.

As favored additions to the farms of Great Britain, Cairn terriers are small and fiercely loyal working dogs. They were used for keeping the small vermin populations under control on small farms in Wales. As their reputations grew as defenders of small farm operations in the agricultural sections of not only Wales but also Scotland and England, they grew to become a favorite breed for small farms across Europe. The Cairns introduced by the Glyn and Gladys Morris showed the same spirited farmyard hunting ferocity at Pine Mountain.  In the barnyard and on the hiking trails, the little dogs were ferocious and dogged hunters and protectors. The breed easily ferrets out small rodents, voles, snakes, and, at Pine Mountain, unfortunately, chipmunks and squirrels. In short, small critters don’t stand a chance against these fast and fierce little terriers. On a snake trail, they are, however, invaluable.

The two Morris Cairn terriers soon had pups, and these were spread around to various staff at Pine Mountain. A May Day photograph shows off a new 1945 litter of Cairn puppies as they are held by staff children on the May Day Green. This author is second from the left, holding a newborn puppy.  Stefan was the name of our family cairn dog pet, but Stefan was not the puppy held by the children, below. “Uncle Stefan” was at home, as he was a descendant of the Morris couple’s cairn.   Our family’s first “child” or firstborn was Stefan, our family pet, at the time of the picture below, he was already five years old . The puppies held by the children are Scotty pups recently delivered by a Scotty couple owned by the Arthur Dodd family on campus. A proud Arthur Dodd is the photographer here. The goat on a leash held by Steven Hayes is to the far right.

ALICE TRUMBULL (SCOVILLE) BARRY Staff

May Day on the Dancing Green, staff children, 1945. [dodd_A_049_mod]

Earlier, in 1941, the campus newspaper had noted the first litter of Cairn puppies — a trio of just-born “show off pups”; —  these, the earliest pups of Director Glyn Morris’ little Cairn terrier dog called  “Flossie” were charmers.  Flossie was Stefan’s mother, who had won many hearts at the School and when her pups were born, they were celebrated by the campus students in their newspaper, The Pine Cone. An account of a visit by the Seniors to Zande House, the residence of Glyn and Gladys Morris, is found recorded in the school newspaper, the Pinecone. Flossie’s pup, Stefan, was an adolescent when the May Day gathering of Scottie pups was on display.

An account of Stefan’s origins is found in the student newsletter:

PUPS “SHOW OFF” FOR SENIORS

Yelping sounds attracted the attention of the seniors at their Sunday night gathering at Zande House. Curiosity led to the showing off of the three puppies. No, no. Bothwell and Stefan.

Even Sears and Roebuck had had the privilege to become acquainted with the pups. For on February 3rd they were presented with a pen, a  “baby crib”, in fact, Flossy is rather fond of her children, but is always willing to lend them to visitors.

The Pine Cone  Feb. 1941 .

Stefan was quickly adopted by this writer’s parents, and ten months later, I arrived and grew up with Stefan by my side  — always looking out for snakes and other unpleasant critters in my constant woods-roaming. He trained me well. Stefan left me with a lifelong affection for dog companions, especially in deep forests.

IT’S A DOG’S LIFE

“It’s a Dog’s Life” is a phrase that is often used to describe a sub-standard course of life.  But, at Pine Mountain, “it’s a dog’s life” is paradise regained for most canines. It has been rare the case at Pine Mountain that dogs be subjected to the isolation of “It’s a dog’s life”. Further, the Settlement School must have looked like Paradise to many of the dogs who had been privileged to live there.  Unless they were too temperamental or chicken-stealers, most of the campus dogs were allowed to run free and to greet friends and visitors alike. Some, however, never warmed to the responsibility of being part of a community. Those dogs did not last long at the institution. Nor did dogs last long if they could not share their space with other dogs.

There is ample evidence that dogs were required to share multiple spaces on the campus and that they generally understood this amicable shared space. Miss Wilbur (Barbara Wilbur Spelman) with her dog “Jonah” is shown below in a picnic scene at the “Lean-To”, a favorite place on campus for community cook-outs. Jonah was also shared with Barbara’s brother John A. Spelman III, the art teacher at the School. The leftovers must have been quite good for Jonah at this cookout.

ORADELLE MALAN Staff

Picnic at the Lean-To. [Late 1930’s] Miss Wallace; Miss Jones; Miss Ross; Miss Bartlett; Miss Wilbur (with her dog Jonah); Alice Cobb; Lexine Baird; Oradelle Malan; Marian Kingman; Oscar Kneller; Glyn Morris. [X_100_workers_2574_mod.jpg]

Another dog of memory was the beautiful Collie that belonged to the Charles Creech family when the two worked at Pine Mountain.  Many children called the dog “Lassie” for the dog’s resemblance to the famous dog of filmdom. The dog’s real name is lost in the collective memory. “Lassie” was a beauty… some of the time. However, Pine Mountain was not kind to long-haired dogs. The campus is rampant with sticky burrs, insects, tadpole pools, and mud-puddles, etc. and “Lassie” stayed “untouchable” much of the time and was also quickly banished to an “outside dog” life — much to her liking.

100 Arthur Dodd. Principal at PMSS with his dog,”Brennan”. [burk_people_100.jpg]

Contemporary canines, like  ” Waggy” the Rogers dog and “Amos” the Director, Paul Hayes’ dog, were ambassadors. They both roamed freely and greeted most visitors kept intriuders at bay.

To the left is Arthur Dodd, the PMSS School Principal [early 1940s], and his companion, “Brennan” a later addition to the Dodd family after the Dodd children’s Scotty [name not remembered] had aged out.

In 1944 as the Board of Trustees planned for the upcoming BOT meeting, a letter arrived from Mary Rockwell Hook, the School’s Architect, who was making plans to come to the Spring meeting. In 1944, Mary Hook, at 77 years old, was still trying to personally attend board meetings at Pine Mountain. As she wrote to arrange for accommodations for the April meeting, she noted, “I have to apologize for bringing my dog, “Tommy”, along but I have no one to leave him with while I am in Florida.” She was driving from Kansas City to Florida by way of the meeting at Pine Mountain. It was not uncommon to find a dog in tow when Mary came to stay in the exquisite house — “Open House” she built adjoining the campus. Dogs and children were high on her companion list when she came to the School.

THE FARM DOG , STEFAN 

Stefan, the William Hayes dog, died at the age of 15, in 1949 and following his passing, the Hayes children looked for other substitutes. Chipmunks, flying squirrels, box turtles, a talking crow, … but the death of Stefan dog was catastrophic to the Hayes children. Then, a small stray dog entered the life of the Hayes family. “Rusty” found the farm manager, William Hayes, and worked his way into the life of the family. Unfortunately, Rusty had a short life. Adopted at Pine Mountain “Rusty” had been only a short time at the Settlement School when he joined the Hayes family as they re-located to the Forestry Station at Putney — across the mountain from PMSS.  “Rusty” dog was a “mutt” with Beagle origins whose joints were brown and who looked to be “rusting” even in his youth but never stopped running like a streak. Like Waggy, Amos, and other dogs on the campus, Rusty had campus routines but like many Beagle derivatives, Rusty  ran — and ran. He was not a “please pet me character.” Rusty ran and my brother and I chased him.  He was the exercise master for his owners, including this author.

The Hayes’ “Rusty” dog. [burkh_032.jpg]

Across the mountain from Pine Mountain Settlement, the Forestry Station was near the Cumberland River where we swam and fished and on the edge of Kentenia State Forest and where we wandered with relative safety with a dog at our side.   Rusty was always in company. Unfortunately, his life was short after we left Pine Mountain. He did not understand that cars run faster on paved roads and that he could not outmaneuver them. He was struck on the highway, or, —  as we sometimes sprculated — a neighbor shot him for stealing eggs from their chicken house? …  But, that thief was, most certainly, not our dog but was our pet crow. That is another story. I still mourn “Rusty.”

The loss of a pet is like a death in the family. This is true of dogs that have grown up with a family with children.

Helen and Steven Hayes, with “Rusty” dog on the Isaac’s Creek bridge at PMSS. c. 1953 [burkh_033.jpg]

DOG NEWCOMERS

More recently, a small terrier dog, showed up one day at Pine Mountain. He was called “Russell” for a short time. It was 2021 or early 22. He quickly became a close companion of the most favorite of recent dogs at the School — “Lady”. This little terrier’s life, like that of Rusty, was also a short one. In this case, he vanished into thin air. Perhaps his previous owners found him, or, perhaps new owners saw a delightful companion.  We can only hope his home is a good one. Lady misses him, as do those at the School. He was marked by the “perfect mustache” on his rump.

 
“Russell” 2022 A short-term terrier visitor/boarder and friend of “Lady” Probably a “drop-off” and ultimately a disappeared dog. Information on his whereabouts is requested if known. [Photo: Eric Tomberlin, UNCA 2022]

 


[Photo: Eric Tomberlin, UNCA 2022]


AND THEN CAME “LADY”

This beautiful, talented, and dignified dog now resides on the campus. She is certainly the next dog legend of Pine Mountain Settlement School. She is a constant companion of children on the playground and a guard dog of residents when they visit.  She has known three Directors, and from the beginning, she “owned” the campus.  A friend and official greeter of all newcomers, the “monitor” of the playground, Lady “owns” the campus, and monitors its use or abuse. She often accompanies visitors on trails, keeps watch over the sheep, and the goats, and is often an escort from building to building. She is, in every sense, the School’s ambassador. We hope you will visit and meet her.

While writing this essay, an article caught my eye and signaled the opening of a new world where future dogs may no longer be warm and fuzzy, but are robotic … No more dog food …no poop… no barking …. no whining,  …. companionship?  …..best friend?  Come and meet Lady … no contest.

 

The Power of Empathy

Pine Mountain Settlement School
DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH
THE POWER OF EMPATHY

Series 08: ADMIN  General Correspondence 1919
World War I

“Lest They Perish: Campaign for $30,000,000. American Committee for Relief in the Near East.”[Genocide_poster_USA.jpg]

TAGS: Ethel de Long, correspondence with donors, World War I, WWI, student correspondence, King Albert I of Belgium, Leon Deschamps, Mrs. Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, Father Anton Docher, Native Americans, Pueblo Isleta, Willa Cather, Phelps Dodge Inc., philanthropy, Riverdale Neighborhood House, Agrarian Myth, Settlement Movement

THE POWER OF EMPATHY

 

 The Letter, October 13, 1919

A copy of a small fund-raising letter from October 13, 1919, in the archive at Pine Mountain Settlement School captures the broad outreach of the School during its formative years. It is a startling letter in its brief but hidden details. The letter, one of many institutional solicitations and thank you’s that went out to various donors in the early years of the institution, has a deeper history than a first view may suggest.

The steady stream of brief letters in the early years were critical in building and sustaining the Settlement School. Letters were sent to donors by the School office, by the directors, and by staff. Today these letters inform us of the close attention the Administration, students, and workers at the School gave to the world outside the boundaries of the institution and the long-isolated valley of the Pine Mountain.  In 1919 the world was at war. The War effort in the first decade of the nineteenth century was underway but, remarkably, not so far away as one might think.

WORLD WAR I and Pine Mountain Settlement School

Addressed to Mrs. C.H. Dodge (Grace Parish Dodge [1850-1949]) at Riverdale on the Hudson, New York, and dated October 13, 1919, the brief letter thanks Mrs. Dodge for her recent pledge to the School and tells her of the work underway on the new buildings for the Settlement School. The author of the brief acknowledgment letter is “EZ”, or Ethel de Long Zande, founder and co-director of the School during that time. In her brief letter, she tells Mrs. C.H. Dodge (Grace Parish Dodge) that the School is busy getting shoes and stockings together for all the sixty-five students in attendance. She says that they are very appreciative of the $20 dollar donation. Importantly, she comments on a letter written by one of the children at the School.

Mrs. C.H. Dodge is Grace Parish Dodge, the wife of Cleveland Hoadley Dodge , and part of the N.Y. Dodge family, one of the wealthiest families in the Riverdale, New York community and in the country at the time. Cleveland Hoadley Dodge had holdings in the Pacific Railroad, the early Citibank of N.Y and other major investments. He was a close friend of President Teddy Roosevelt family as well as President Woodrow Wilson and Dodge was among the ranks of the leading philanthropists in New York, as seen in this 1916 photograph.

Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Samuel Train Dutton, and Cleveland Hoadley Dodge

Cleveland Hoadley Dodge. (2023, June 25). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Hoadley_Dodge

Mrs. Zande in her brief acknowledgment letter to Mrs, C.H. Dodge describes a recent exciting event at Pine Mountain Settlement for Mrs. Dodge. The event involves a young student at the school who was inspired by recent world events. The student (a girl, not named) wrote to the King of Belgium, Albert I,  about the war. Most likely the student was inspired by the anxiety and patriotism of Leon Deschamps, a Pine Mountain worker who had recently settled in the United States from Belgium and was working at Pine Mountain Settlement.  The young girl was moved by her admiration of Mr. Deschamps and the desire to try to help with the war effort by writing a letter to the King of Belgium. We may never know what the letter said, but we do know the chain of events it set into motion.

The child’s letter remarkably found its way to King, Albert I, of Belgium. The King, or certainly his staff answered the young student. Whe she received an answer from King Albert I it created a sensation at Pine Mountain.  When the answer from the King was received, it, in fact, animated the full Pine Mountain community and led Mrs. Zande to remark about the event to her New York friend Mrs. Cleveland Hoadley Dodge (Grace Parish Dodge),

“Can you imagine the stir it caused in our far-away valley?”

Unfortunately, the letter from the young girl and that of King Albert I cannot be found in the Archive. Nonetheless, the record of the correspondence alone is extraordinary and stirs the imagination.  The story surrounding the letter of 1919 was not just a simple exchange of letters. It has a deeper history. 

The Deeper Story:  King Albert I and Father Anton Docher

1919 was the year that Belgian ruler,  King Albert I, visited the United States. From September 23 through November 13, the King, his Queen, Elisabeth of Bavaria, and their son Prince Leopold II made an official visit to the United States. Their American visit included a trip to a small Native American pueblo in New Mexico, the Pueblo Isleta. There, the King honored Father Anton Docher, a hero of early World War I. The homage centered, particularly, on Father Anton’s work in the Belgian Congo. The King was intent on bestowing on the Priest the insignia of Knight in the Order of Leopold II and the French Colonial Medal, for his war courage and service to Belgium.

Anton Docher, the focus of the award, left the War and the Congo a changed man. He soon studied for the priesthood. During the remainder of his life, Father Anton asserted that colonialism was an international evil, and he committed his life to serving and learning from various Native tribes in New Mexico about their oppression as Native Americans. By all accounts, the Belgian-New Mexico ceremony to honor Docher was no small event, as some ten thousand people reportedly came to attend the ceremony in the small Pueblo Isleta.

Father Docher also did not escape the attention of the writers of his day, including the noted author,  Willa Cather.  Father Docher as the model for her well-received novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1927).  The newspapers were full of the events of the King’s visit. They describe his journey to New Mexico, and his how his entourage traveled to New York, where the King was honored with membership in the New York Society of the Cincinnati. He was also given a ticker-tape parade and an introduction to the leading families of the city of New York. It was this New York journey that brought the King into the social circle of the Dodge family with whom Ethel de Long Zande had connections. The New York connection with the Dodge family prompted Ethel to give the subtle nudge in October 13, 1919, to Mrs. Cleveland Hoadley Dodge in Riverdale, New York.

The Dodge Family

The Cleveland Hoadley Dodge family was a well-known and highly regarded family in New York.  They moved among many of New York’s notable families of wealth. Cleveland Hoadley Dodge had built his fortune in copper mining and was a major player in the financial and social support of WWI efforts.  Cleveland H. Dodge was also an executive at Phelps Dodge, a leading copper mining corporation in the U.S. that had been co-founded by his grandfather in 1832. His family was known for its generous philanthropy, and today the Dodge family continues to support the foundation he established in 1917,  the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation.

One of the central Foundation interests is its continued good work today in educational support, community programs, and cultural institutions, though mainly centered in New York. The father of Cleveland H. Dodge, William Hoadly Dodge, and his mother, Sarah Dodge, were the inspiration for their son’s philanthropy.  But it was Cleveland Hoadley Dodge’s wife Grace Wainright Parish Dodge (1856-1949) , who had the connection with Pine Mountain. 

GRACE WAINRIGHT PARISH DODGE

Grace was born in France but was known to be deeply connected to the Settlement Movement in America, begun by Jane Addams.  As the wife of Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, her life of wealth made her strongly sensitive to the growing divide of wealth and poverty in their city of New York and in the world, and the many and growing populations displaced by war.  Grace Parish Dodge was a pioneer in women’s rights and education and was the first woman to serve on the New York Board of Education, where she generously funded the New York Public Library. 

Her connection to the Settlement Movement of Jane Addams and the work with the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation, and the larger Phelps Dodge Foundation, helped to further her earlier work at the Riverdale Neighborhood House. Grace began the Riverdale House as a neighborhood library at the early age of sixteen and helped to expand its service from the early beginning. Even today, in an expanded form, the House and Library continue to provide services to Riverdale, New York, and its surrounding communities.

World War I and Pine Mountain Settlement School.
The Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation established in 1917

Literacy and a remarkable push for optimism were ideas close to the heart of Ethel de Long Zande and Katherine Pettit. The early novels of Willa Cather — Oh, Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Antonia (1918) — were all written during the early period of Pine Mountain’s development and were well known to the two founders and their students. The ages of all the women were similar, as were their interests. Like Katherine Pettit and Ethel de Long Zande, Willa Cather had a deep and close attachment to the land. Writing in 1918, she notes

In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

A strong optimism shines through the many connected lives that are called to attention by these related letters.  Many of the letters from Pine Mountain during this difficult war-time period, including that of the young student sent to the King of Belgium, and the brief exchange with Mrs. Grace Parish Dodge, clearly evidence this optimism. 

 

TRANSFORMATION AND ELEMENTS OF THE AGRARIAN MYTH 

WORLD WAR I and Pine Mountain Settlement School

Willa Sibert Cather, Wearing a necklace given her by author Sarah Orne Jewett. (another Agrarian at heart.) [Public Domain, wikisource.org]

Many of the workers who came to Pine Mountain came with a romanticized vision of what has come to be called the “Agrarian Myth.” It carries many of the markers of the Settlement Movement, the Community Life Movement, and other cooperative organizations that challenged conflict, poverty, and human indifference to education and the challenges that accompany immigration and migration. The myth, the movement, and the diverse challenges blended into one as the nation went to war, and later, when they sought to heal the wounds of war. Many citizens carried their personal experiences of the challenges and horrors of WWI and life during wartime in countries “acrost the sea,” (as Uncle William would say), with them to the remote mountain School. The personal narratives of some of the workers set the imaginations of the students racing. Ultimately, what all the workers and the students held in common was a worldview — something outside their known experiences. Hope took its image from the land and its people. It was a starting place for all. The hope for a better future rests in that awareness of a shared place with diverse dreamers.

The integrated experiences, the personal relationships, the kindnesses, the honor, social justice, and the hopes of all bound many lives together during the formative years of Pine Mountain Settlement School. These shared experiences exploded narrow and protected mountain lives in a manner that is difficult to describe to today’s electronic youth, separated as they often are from the tangible present and often isolated by their electronic entertainment world. The sensitive understanding and acceptance of larger social forces encountered by those “outsiders” who passed through the Kentucky settlement deep in the hills of Appalachia were a remarkable force in transforming the lives of many children. The stability and optimism of PMSS School during the two Great Wars are all the more remarkable when placed against the enormous disintegration of the world outside the Pine Mountain Valley during those Wars and the great price paid by so many soldiers from Eastern Kentucky.   

Many of the staff had seen the rubble of Europe in their early wars; the broken soldiers, and a world recovering from vicious privation and violence. Those same individuals were living within a community that knew many similar social violations through a very intimate history of feudings and the even more senseless personal violent gun history. 

Though isolated, the lessons and values learned in wartime and equally through the local “feudalists” encounters,  continue to remain a part of the Pine Mountain community’s history and psyche. The lessons that were learned from war and feuds are certainly embedded deeply in families who passed through the School in the Pine Mountain valley, and today continue to resonate in families in other valleys throughout the world.

War ignores borders, but compassion also does not have borders. Throughout today’s world, nation, person, and psyche, there is hate, fear, terror, and cruelty of many types. But there is also love, compassion, joy, and friendship. In these overlapping emotions, what are the change agents that bring us to war? What brought a world leader to respond to a young girl in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky? How did that letter change the young girl? Why are similar echoes so seldom heard in today’s news, even with our rapid communication?

Today’s world cannot be easily explained away by our rapid communication and our crowded lifestyles. The lessons of institutions such as Pine Mountain Settlement School, the Riverdale Neighborhood House, and in communities such as Puebla Isleta, in authors such as Willa Cather, and the kind letter from a Belgian King to a child deep in the Kentucky hills, are seldom remembered. Were they messages of a different sort, or are we now people of a different sort?

Dr. Edward H. Egbert

In the last years of WWI, Dr. Edward H. Egbert (c. 1882-1939) was the chief surgeon at the American Hospital for the Red Cross effort in Kiev, Russia, and the Executive Secretary of the Catherine Breshkovsky Russian Relief Fund in New York. In 1919, he planned a visit to Pine Mountain. He was a close friend of Herbert Hoover. But, then, that’s another story of Kiev, war relief, mysticism, Bolsheviks, murder, and healing. We are still writing that history. That history is not getting kinder, but philanthropy and hope are still alive.

See Also: DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH War and PMSS (Post)

Sheep Shearing and Cecil Sharp

Pine Mountain Settlement School
DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH
Sheep Shearing and Cecil Sharp

0046a P. Roettinger Album.”Sheep Shearing, Uncle John Shell, Aunt Sis Shell, and Mrs. Joe Day.” c.1920s  [Woman standing next to a barn on left, watching man and woman sheer a sheep.]

TAGS: sheep shearing, Cecil Sharp, sheep, sheep flocks, dreaming of sheep, sheep in history, sheep in song, Uncle John Shell, Aunt Sis Shell, Mrs. Joe Day, George Pullen Jackson

SHEEP SHEARING and CECIL SHARP (Say that fast!)

It is not likely that Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), the British musicologist, ever sheared a sheep. But, he was, in any case, a close observer of the ruminants and probably an even closer critic of their bleets and baahs! Nonetheless, what Cecil Sharp has left to the history of sheep is a unique auditory trail that helps to re-trace the prevalence of sheep within the rich agrarian history of Great Britain and in the American Appalachian mountains.

When musicologist Sharp sat on the porch of Old Far House at Pine Mountain Settlement School in Kentucky and watched the Kentucky Running Set as it was performed by students and staff, he was watching the well-trained legs that probably had chased a sheep or two up the Pine Mountain and down. Tending sheep is an active job and the energy of that Kentucky Running set is just a short measure of the energy that is needed to maintain a sheep flock in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.

SHEEP IN APPALACHIA AND BORDERLAND CULTURE

in the early years of the Central Appalachians, in the small hillside farms, it was a celebration when lambs arrived and again when wool was sheared.  In the far-off “lands across the sea,” as Uncle William Creech, a founder of Pine Mountain Settlement used to say, many Europeans were continuing similar agrarian practices, particularly those people of the so-called “Borderlands,” that narrow bridge of land between Scotland and England. This region has long been associated with the early settlers of the Central Appalachians. The European Borderland customs and agrarian practices lingered on in many of the immigrant ancestors found in the Appalachians. In fact, they formed one of the largest immigrant groups living deep in the Appalachian mountains.

The raising of sheep was built into the early Appalachian pioneer imperative. Like so many of the customs familiar to the European immigrants from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and also those from other points of origin with agrarian roots, sheep were fundamental to survival. As an international livelihood, sheep flocks and along with those of goats are closely tied to the stories of agrarian cultures.

CECIL SHARP, SHEEP, AND SONGS

What Cecil Sharp added to sheep history was the discovery and transcription of an English folk song that no doubt flowed from the music and lives of early sheep farmers. While his discovery was not in the Borderlands but was probably in the Norfolk area of England, it captured the centrality of sheep to everyday agrarian life. 

When Cecil Sharp made his journey to America and eventually to Appalachia he wove the common elements together. Other song and ballad collectors preceded Cecil Sharp, but few had his broad recognition. When Sharp identified the British elements found in Appalachian songs and ballads he opened the flood-gates to other musicologists to marry Appalachia to “Merri Old England.” 

While Sharp was interested in the music, the music held a history that was less obvious. This is the relationship of the music to agrarian practice. While the growing obsession with “Merri Old England” in early twentieth-century America assured a close historical musical bond it also revealed something of the common agrarian practices. The catchy alliteration of Sharp’s collected songs underlines the importance of sheep in the daily lives of agrarian Europeans and their ancestors in the Appalachians.  Alliteration and all its musical overtones came naturally to the early oral culture of England and Appalachia. Mother Goose rhymes such as “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers … etc. ” is well known on both sides of the Atlantic as are many other ditties. But, just try saying “Cecil Sharp and sheep-shearing,” and see what lyrical lapses leap from your tongue and fix on your memory. Songs of shearing sheep are not at all uncommon, especially in families with a weaving willfulness — a trait that springs from sheep-herders and that abounds in the mountains of the Central Appalachians and across the world. Our first school yards were the pastures of the world.

COUNTING SHEEP AND DREAMING

Even as we sleep, we are not far from the sheep pasture. It is no small wonder that when we speak of dreaming, we also often speak of “counting sheep.” There is a very practical origin for that numerical association. It was the duty of the herdsman to know the number of sheep in his herd. It was a daily practice.  Counting sheep is deeply etched into the fabric of descendants of sheep-herders and deep in the historical agrarian psyche. We have been counting sheep for as long as we have joined our lives with the practice of raising sheep and other herds of animals. Sheep have been a part of our history as a country from the beginning of European settlement and have had considerable influence on our practical and formal education.  At one time Kentucky led the nation in the number of sheep. For Kentuckians, that is a lot of counting and a lot of dreaming.

Yet, Cecil Sharp was a collector of songs, not sheep, nor wool though he shows all the instincts of a weaver, dreamer, and numerator. He began his collecting of folk ballads in the English countryside. There, it was inevitable that he would encounter a myriad of sheep and those who tended them. Those country sheep herders had a deep association with alliterative language and ballads and ditties. Some references to sheep were sure to appear, and they did.

The song that Sharp recorded on his journey to Norfolk was one that succinctly captures sheep and their shepherds. That ballad from his song-gathering encounters, was published in a small book he edited called 100 English Folk Songs [ published by Oliver Ditson Co., Theo. Presser Co. Distributors, Philadelphia, 1916].

SONGS FOR ALL TIME [Songs of All Time]

One of the songs in Sharp’s collection found its way into another small book of collected folk songs. The Songs for All Time printed at Pine Mountain Settlement School was issued by the Council of Southern Mountain Workers c. 1946, and was intended to be a resource for “recreation material in the Highland [Appalachian Highlands] area.” It was a utilitarian collection of songs for social gatherings that is largely dependent on the rich oral tradition of the Appalachian region and that contained many familiar tropes that would be recognized in Great Britain. The Foreword tells us that

The contents, folk songs for the most part, were compiled by a committee which has made practical use of them with singing groups. Where tunes and words depend on oral tradition, innumerable versions usually exist — some of them perhaps better than [the] variants included. There is no version which can be called the correct one, but the committee has chosen those which it has found satisfactory in the light of their lasting qualities and the ease with which they can be learned. Modal melodies are not always easy to introduce to those unfamiliar with such music, but practically all songs included have been put to the proof: given a little time and repetition they “sing well” and become dear to the heart of the singer.

Song For All Times [Songs of All Time], Copyright, 1946, by Cooperative Recreation Service, (Forward). [4 editions published in 1946 in English and Undetermined and held by 29 WorldCat member libraries worldwide.]

On the back of the booklet, Songs For All times, there appears a short essay by George Pullen Jackson, an American musicologist, and educator. Pullen was a pioneer in the field of Southern (U.S.) hymnody and popularized the spurious term “white spirituals” to describe “fasola“* singing. [*fasola= harp singing or shape-note singing] Pullen says

…Sing, preferably your own songs, brother. Live your own song life and be proud of it. Don’t let the I-dont’-know-a-thing-about-music complex trouble you. Don’t let the processed and canned music lower your musical morale. If you are a mature person, re-learn and re-sing the songs of your childhood and youth. (You’ll be surprised at the large admixture of genuine folk songs among your remembered ditties.)

George Pullen Jackson, comment from Songs for All Times [Songs of All Time]

What George Pullen Jackson sensed was the power of music to heal and make joyful the day when it is pulled from routine experiences and even more when it is derived from a shared experience. The shearing of sheep and other communal activities of pioneer families brings home the satisfaction of sharing with neighbors the sometimes daunting tasks that an agrarian life demanded. Further,  Jackson in his remarks shares with Cecil Sharp the understanding of the healing power of song as it is remembered across all time and as it derives from the common stories of living.

While there is no direct knowledge of the following song appearing in the original musical repertoire of the Central Appalachians, the sentiment would clearly have resonated with the mountaineers. The Sheep-Shearing, was collected by Cecil Sharp in his 100 English Folk Songs for a good reason. He described it as “very popular among English country folk” and “in existence before 1760.” His sensitive ear could also, no doubt, frame the picture evoked by the lyrics in this and in his other collected songs

THE SHEEP-SHEARING

How delightful to see,
In these evenings in Spring,
The sheep going home to the fold.

The master doth sing,
As he views everything,
And his dog goes before him where told,
And his dog goes before him where told.

The sixth month of the year,
In the month called June,
When the weather’s too hot to be borne,
The master doth say,
As he goeth on his way:
“Tomorrow my sheep shall be shorn,
“Tomorrow my sheep shall be shorn.”

Now as for those sheep,
They’re delightful to see,
They’re a blessing to a man on his farm.
For the flesh it is good,
It’s the best of all food,
And the wool it will clothe us up warm,
And the wool it will clothe us up warm.

Now the sheep they are all shorn,
And the wool carried home,
Here’s a health to our master and flock:
And if we should stay,
Until the last go away,
I’m afraid ’twill be past twelve o’clock,
I’m afraid t’will be past twelve o’clock.

Cecil Sharp, 100 English Folk Songs, …”In existence before 1760.”

SEE ALSO

CECIL SHARP AND MAUDE KARPELES Visit to Pine Mountain Settlement School

JAMES GREENE ACCOUNT OF CECIL SHARP and MAUDE KARPELES at PMSS

PETER ROGERS’ ACCOUNT OF CECIL SHARP AND MAUDE KARPELES Visit to Pine Mountain 

DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH Sheep

FARM GUIDE to Sheep Goats Weaving and Dyeing

Moonshine and Hard and His Kettle

Pine Mountain Settlement School 
DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH 
Moonshine and
“Hard and His Kettle” by
Henry Mixter Penniman

414 Two men standing and holding two bottles of what is surely moonshine(?).[creech_columbus_4_414.jpg]

TAGS: Dr. Henry Mixter Penniman, moonshine, distillers, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, W.C.T.U., Frances Beauchamp, Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs, Katherine Pettit, Ellen Churchill Semple, May Stone, Ethel de Long, Michael McGeer, Abner Boggs, Bish Boggs, Lucy Furman, Percy McKaye, John Fox Jr., William G. Frost, moonshine stills

DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH
Moonshine and Hard and His Kettle

MOONSHINE

Moonshine was not a favored drink of Kentucky Settlement School workers, but it was certainly a favorite topic of conversation and generated many a tall tale within and without the School and the surrounding community. The stories about moonshiners, moonshine stills, brushes with revenuers, and competition between distillers were often collected and repeated by workers, the community, and visitors to eastern Kentucky and other locations in the Central and Southern Appalachians. These tales abound in staff letters, diaries, and scrapbooks in the Pine Mountain Settlement School archive as vivid testimony to the production of corn liquor in the Kentucky hills.

When Katherine Pettit founded Hindman Settlement School with May Stone in 1902, near the small town of Hyden in Knott County, Kentucky, she was under the blessings of the W.C.T.U, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and was quietly following the national trend toward Progressivism and Temperance. While the two may seem to cancel one another out, they were co-dependent partners in the opening years of the twentieth century, particularly in Eastern Kentucky.

THE W.C.T.U.

By 1910 and in the following years the term progressive was commonly used in a variety of political ways. [*See: Michael McGeer. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 2003]. Hindman, in 1902, was in the mainstream of the progressive Settlement Movement but it was also under the influence of the other national trend, that is the WCTU or the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

The WCTU provided funds for Hindman during its first thirteen years but the relationship soon began to unravel as the progressive ideas of Jane Addams and many of her colleagues saturated in progressive idealism did not play well with the WCTU. At the risk of the loss of funding from the WCTU, the women in Eastern Kentucky’s settlements held steady for the early institutional years as the WCTU funding comprised a considerable amount of the school’s operational budget.

During these WCTU early years, Pettit and Stone were bolstered by the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs and a close friendship with Frances Beauchamp, the Kentucky president of the WCTU. With this strong but disparate support, Pettit and Stone mounted a vigorous campaign to eradicate alcoholism through a program of education that focused on social and moral reform and scientific agriculture.  But, Pettit and Stone and their Women’s Club friends were not hatchet carriers like Carrie Nation. They believed that reform started from within and not from without.  The emphasis placed on health work that Pettit learned at Hindman carried over into her work and programs at Pine Mountain.

Following the departure of Katherine Pettit to Pine Mountain in 1913, the funding from the W.C.T.U at Hindman dwindled, and the school experienced several disastrous fires that added to its woes. In 1915, two years after Pettit departed, Hindman experienced a “Broadening Out,” as they described it, and the name of the institution was formally changed from the W.C.T.U. Settlement of the Hindman Settlement School.  The name change came just as prohibition began to be a hot political debate in the state of Kentucky and as the Progressive movement rose in favoritism. Frances Beauchamp, President of the Kentucky WCTU and a friend of Pettit, was soon the object of considerable “mudslinging” as described by Jess Stoddart in her well-researched history The Story of Hindman Settlement School (Stoddart 2002, p.82.)

While references to the W.C.T.U. school disappeared in the wake of the political battles of Prohibition, the settlement at Hindman was also charting a new and progressive educational course. Angered by the perceived retrenchment from prohibition, some significant donors pulled their support for the school.  All the while, moonshine did not go away. It continued to light the midnight production of corn liquor, and the revenue continued to support families who lived on the economic margins of society. Moonshine, after all, was a very persuasive form of social capital not unlike that seen in many parts of the world, not just Appalachia.

Like Hindman, the relationship of Pine Mountain to corn liquor is a story that is not easily altered by a simple change of name. Nor is the Kentucky tale a unique one. “Localism” has sometimes been used to describe rural attachment. One of the most striking markers of Appalachia’s current return to what is often referred to as  “localism” can also be found in locations as diverse as some South American countries and some countries in Asia, particularly in Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam.  In those latter Asian countries, the nostalgia for social capital has been used to push for reform in health services, agriculture, and a variety of other older practices that were remembered as part of a healthy democracy.

It is interesting that place-based education, a kind of localism, has often returned to Indigenous knowledge and past practice for educational assistance to re-form and inform social capital. A brief visit of a group of Vietnamese visitors to Pine Mountain in the early 1970s revealed much about the common issues in the two countries, including the power of Asian “moonshine” cooperation to work its magic in restoring civic engagement and to nudge the people toward less destructive economic initiatives.

In Appalachia, drinking was a discreet part of many social gatherings. It enhanced conversation, made young men bold, softened the sensibilities of young women, and lessened the aching back of the subsistence farmer. In many cases, it was the juice of existence, providing desperate families a means of providing for a house full of children or a poor crop. But it is the stories of rampant drinking and associated violence like that documented in the records of the Hyden school and also at Pine Mountain, particularly in the health centers at Big Laurel and Line Fork, that are seared into the public mind.

 The novels of Lucy Furman, a staff member at Hindman, and many other writers promoted  “moonshine stories”  to an eager national audience. Percy MacKaye, the playwright, John Fox, Jr., and other visitors to Pine Mountain continued to romanticize the practice of distillation of the mountain’s principal crop — corn. John Fox, Jr. was notoriously energized by the marketing of what Darlene Wilson, in her article for Back Talk From Appalachia (1999), called the “dichotomous stereotype of twin Kentuckys  — the twins being the ‘…sneaky, murderous, moonshiners,’ versus the ‘civilized ‘outer-world’ of the rest of the state. (See: Wilson, Back Talk … p. 112).  Yet, marketing and publications at Hindman and later at Pine Mountain can be found using moonshine stories to capture the imagination of an audience that believed the area to be rampant with stills and guns.  

Unfortunately, the written records of the rural settlement schools, largely the record of “outsider authors”, gave credence to some of the tales of violence, redemption, and survival centered on moonshine.  After all, in the 1920s, Harlan County’s murder rate was the highest in the country — a ready testimony to the mixture of guns and alcohol.  “Bloody Harlan” was at its core a name born out of the mine wars, but the rage was often fed by corn liquor. But, then, even this story is much more complex than the easy tales often spun about moonshine in the mountains of Kentucky, and there is little doubt that it enables the easy path to the long road of stereotyping.

THE MOONSHINE MEN OF KENTUCKY

The_Moonshine_Man_of_Kentucky_Harper's_Weekly_1877

“The Moonshine Men of Kentucky,” Harper’s Weekly, October 20, 1877.[The_Moonshine_Man_of_Kentucky_Harpers_Weekly_1877]

 

The Pine Mountain staff and community also added to the many moonshine tales found in the public literature. After all, moonshine tales are good entertainment — tried and true fodder for many Appalachian tall tales. One of Pettit’s first traveling companions into eastern Kentucky was the “expert” on mountain moonshine tales, Henry Mixter Penniman.

DR. HENRY MIXTER PENNIMAN

The Rev. Penniman was a faculty member at Berea College in Kentucky and a self-described and well-known authority on mountain culture. It was Penniman who led Pettit and a group of fellow troupers into the eastern mountains to explore the Appalachian culture. This trip occurred before the Settlement School in Harlan County became Pettit’s passion.  Berea often encouraged visitors and its own faculty to visit the rugged mountains of eastern Kentucky and to see first-hand how the “notorious” mountaineers lived.  Often, visitor tours were directed and encouraged by the college President with the intent to seek out Mountain areas in need of educational support. The personal tour gave the travelers a deeper dive into the local culture of Appalachia.

Berea, for many years, provided consultation and support to the schools in the southeastern corner of the state and was particularly fond of Hindman and Pine Mountain.  Many articles by William G. Frost, an early President of Berea, and by his faculty from the college, signaled that they felt the region to be under their informed care and their watchful eye.  They kept in close touch with the settlement schools in the southeastern region, and “moonshine” was often part of their concern and sometimes and somewhat, their exaggerated focus and conversations. At Berea, Penniman was their moonshine expert.

Dr. Penniman, as a Berea College faculty member, was particularly concerned by lifestyles that he saw in the Southern Appalachians and the toll taken on the lives of mountain people.  As someone who had built up good relations with many of the people in the southeast corner of the state, he became a close observer of the culture and of the language and the wry humor of the people of the region. Not much was missed by Penniman, as seen in two tales both collected and somewhat concocted and, reportedly, recited by Penniman in public performances. These selections from the Berea Quarterly have surrogate copies in the archival records at Pine Mountain Settlement and at Berea College.

THE BEREA QUARTERLY 1908, p. 20-22
Henry Mixter Penniman

QUARTERLY EDITORIAL NOTE:

Professor Penniman was born in Massachusetts, educated at Brown University and Andover Seminary, and has been connected with Berea since 1895. More than any other member of our Faculty he has assisted the President in making friends for our enterprise, and more than any other, except Professor Dinsmore, he has come into immediate contact with the mountaineers. He is what the Kentuckians call a “good mixer,” and he has preached on half the creeks in Eastern Kentucky, entering into the real life of the people with a sympathy which opens their hearts.

Professor Penniman has a keen sense of the ludicrous and a good scent for literary material as well. Instead of giving a statistical or scientific account, he gives pictures, impressions, which have made his presentations of the mountain work most attractive, in spite of his being a ”minister of the Gospel” he has become a great impersonator, so that a business men’s club. or a camping party in the Adirondacks counts itself fortunate when it can secure an hour of his recitals.

We find room this month for one brief anecdote which is almost a photograph, but a photograph selected with an artist’s eye. Following it is a testimonial which recently came to President Frost regarding Professor Penniman’s impersonations before well-known people in Cincinnati.

“DRUNK INNERCENT”

Henry Mixter Penniman

Splash, splash down the mountain passway, for the path lay in a stream fretting and playing in the narrows of a “V” shaped valley. A mountaineer on his big mule and a preacher on his horse, after a long, hot, hard day were riding forward in the edge of the night. The preacher was tired enough to fall off.

A long silence was broken by the man on the mule.

“Mr. Preacher, you’ve ben yere nigh six year an all thet time I’ve knowed you’ve wanted to ast me one thing an you ain’t ast hit. Now I’m goin to promise hit to ye without your astin.

“You’ve alius wanted to ast me not to drink no mo’. Now I promise I’ll drink no mo’.”

This was like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. The horse moved over to the mule, and the big mountain hand almost crushed the preacher’s. The stump and rock in mid-stream that made them unclasp was a relief.

Again the silence was broken.

“Mr. Preacher this country will take notice that I am quitting and they’ll know you are into hit, and thars plenty of folks round yere will try and spile your mind about me. Now if you hear I git drunk come to me, ef I get drunk I’ll tell ye an I’ll still be a pullin’ to be a temperance man.”

Not long after, the preacher heard his mountain friend was drunk and riding to his cabin asked point blank,

“Did you get drunk?”

“Yes” was the answer,

“I got powerful drunk but I got drunk innercent.

” How was that?

“I’m troubled with cramps, when them cramps ketch holt I hev to hev some whiskey to subjew their pain and when I git nuf whiskey down to subjew their pain, hit onhinges my ides as to what’s right and I slip into the rest innercent.”

‘ ‘Mr. Preacher I don’t low hits wrong to take er dram, but I do say hits wrong to git drunk. I cayn’t tak er dram and not tak mo’, so I ain’t goin to tak er dram.” [Penniman]

           In another of Penniman’s tales he tackles Moonshine head-on. This rambling story tells us of the adventures of  “HARD AND HIS KETTLE”

“Hard and His Kettle” is a tale, among many, found in Penniman’s book, Moonshine Life of the Mountains of Kentucky (1908), which charts the use and abuse of moonshine in the Southern Appalachians. Penniman describes the many misadventures of “Hard and His Kettle” and outlines the serious impact liquor was creating for many in the region.

Found in the Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, ”Hard and His Kettle” is a tale to remember.  It is uncertain whether Penniman reproduced any more tales from the Pine Mountain region that join both pain and pleasure in the same manner as this graphic story does.  There is no further record of Penniman’s return to the region of the Pine Mountain Settlement School and the School does not retain other Penniman writings. The particular “chapter” from Moonshine Life of the Mountains of Kentucky, printed here, is found in a typewritten copy of the article in the Berea Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 9, 1908, also in the PMSS Archive.  It skillfully captures the regional dialect and humor often found in the community around Pine Mountain and gives insight into Mr. Penniman’s enchantment with the region and the stories by and about the unique people of early and remote Eastern Kentucky. It varies only slightly from the Berea Quarterly version and appears to be a transcript and was found among the papers of the Pine Mountain Settlement School Director, Katherine Pettit. 

Pettit, who was a personal friend of Penniman, had traveled with the Berea scholar when he was the leader and the “historian” for a Berea group that traveled deep into Harlan County in 1899. It was one of the earliest journeys that Pettit made to the far Eastern corner of the state, and that led her to the founding of Pine Mountain Settlement School. 

Among the well-known adventurers in the Penniman and Pettit early foray into Eastern Kentucky was the Chicago sociologist Ellen Churchill Semple, whose anthropological insights and published work on the people of Eastern Kentucky continues to be debated. Another member of the large party of adventurers was the religious leader and Soul Winner, Edward O. Guerrant. The fascinating group and Penniman’s fascination with liquor use and woven coverlets likely energized young Pettit’s active imagination regarding the talented and challenging lifestyle of the people of early Eastern Kentucky. Her close family association with the early settlement of the State of Kentucky, her family history as a Daughter of the American Revolution, her passion for education, and her love of weaving were all forces that contributed to her drive to return and create a School in the far corner of Kentucky. Pettit’s first efforts at education at Hindman Settlement School form a remarkable early endeavor, but Pine Mountain Settlement School was her life’s work. Penniman was likely an important influence that fed Pettit’s life-long enchantment with the region.

[See also Ellen Churchill Semple, who accompanied Pettit and the group into Kentucky. See also the details of the early Penniman-led group into Eastern Kentucky as recorded in HISTORIES PMSS 1899 A Novel Excursion by Maria McVay. Katherine Pettit’s Journey with a Berea College Group into Harlan County in 1899 as Recorded by Maria McVay.  hhw 2021-09-13

GALLERY

The thirst for tall tales can be read in Hard’s hard tale but there were similar fascinations with mountain stills, like that illustrated in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from 1883. Both accounts illustrate the distillation process of the famous mountain drink and embellish its furtive creation. 

DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH Moonshine and Hard and His Kettle

Cover of “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,” No. 1, 456 – Vol. LVII, week ending September 1, 1883. [sti0009.jpg]

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