{"id":23038,"date":"2017-01-05T14:29:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T19:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getitright.pmss.net\/?page_id=23038"},"modified":"2018-06-06T20:39:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T00:39:26","slug":"lewis-family","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?page_id=23038","title":{"rendered":"LEWIS FAMILY – DOSHA, JOHN CLYDE, RHODA"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pine Mountain Settlement School
\nSeries: PHOTOGRAPHS
\nSeries 09: Biography
\nSeries 19: Students<\/h5>\n

LEWIS FAMILY – DOSHA, JOHN CLYDE, RHODA, 1914 – c. 1920<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dosha (Docia) Lewis, PMSS Student 1914-1916<\/strong>
\n John Clyde Lewis, PMSS Student 1914-1916, 1918-1920<\/strong>
\n Rhoda Melinda Lewis, PMSS Student 1915-1920<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2007 Pine Mountain Settlement School received a letter from Linda Duckworth, a descendant of the Lewis Family in the Pine Mountain valley. Like so many families in the valley, and most anywhere in the world, Linda Duckworth was seeking additional information on her\u00a0family but she also provided useful information about the\u00a0family history for our School records.\u00a0Ms. Duckworth\u00a0also sent along two photographs of her grandmother and great\u00a0uncle who were students at the School from 1914 to about 1920.<\/p>\n

John Clyde, Rhoda Melinda and especially Dosha appear in many of the candid photographs taken by staff of the children who were early enrollees in the School. Further, the letters of these same early workers abound with accounts of the children who were some of the first\u00a0boarding students. Sometimes the names of the children were disguised, but often they were called by their given names. In the case of Rhoda Melinda, Dosha, and John Clyde, their names appear frequently. One such occurrence is in a\u00a01916 letter<\/a> written by Marguerite Butler<\/a>, providing\u00a0some insight into the lives of the students:<\/p>\n

Last Sunday morning before daylight Dosia, John her brother, and Becky May (Dosia’s age) ran off. They were homesick and hadn’t been allowed to go home on account of smallpox on their branch. The youngsters slipped off before a soul knew it. Of course Miss Pettit<\/a> is away now and we hated to have her come back to find part of her family gone so Wednesday at 11:30 I set out on Bobby, Miss deLong<\/a>‘s horse. after Dosia.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was very cold and the roads were bad and creeks worse. It was 2:30 when I got there — eight miles away — and Dosia was so ashamed she couldn’t look at me. I asked her if she wanted to come back and it just took a second to say “yes” and in she flew to get ready. Honestly I never saw anyone get as dirty in three days as she did. Of course she had slept in her clothes. There had been nine living in one room. I brought her home on the horse behind me. John is coming today.<\/em><\/p>\n

The 1921 edition of Pine Mountain Settlement School Notes<\/a><\/em> tells us about Rhoda Melinda as a young weaver:<\/p>\n

Before you round the bend of the road that hides you from the Old Log<\/a> House, the thump of the batten tells you that the looms are busy. By the doorstep, hands of yarn simmer gently in the dye-pot. On the porch, hung on wooden pegs, reels, chairback, — anything that will hold them, — are the long skeins already colored with madder, hickory, walnut and other colors that in these days of autumn glory are close kin to the woods that surround us. Four of our children are weaving these days. Arlena and Rhoda Melinda are copying ancient striped blankets, throwing their shuttles almost as skillfully as their grandmothers might have done. Grace is a true enthusiast, a stern critic, too, of what is a spurious introduction into this ancient mountain craft, and what truly “belongs.” Ralph, only eleven, is at work at the clumsy old colonial loom, his bare feet hardly able to “trop the treadles.” His sample is a scrap of cotton counterpane rescued from an old patchwork quilt, over a hundred years old.<\/em><\/p>\n

The parents of the Lewis children were Bud Lewis and Cinda Lewis. As of the 1910 U.S. Census, the family, consisting of three daughters and one son, was living in Leslie County, Kentucky. The\u00a0children were listed as\u00a0Ethel, the oldest at eleven\u00a0years old, “Johnny,” [John Clyde] six years old,\u00a0Dosha, four years old, and “Linda,” [Rhoda Melinda] the youngest who was born the same year as the census.<\/p>\n

We appreciate inquiries and contributions such as Linda Duckworth’s and hope that in this digital presentation we have been able to share images and accounts that will be of interest to families related to the Lewis’s and who have an interest in the life in the Pine Mountain valley in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The Lewis children\u00a0were among over 100 children who were educated at the School in its early years and who are now being rediscovered by family through this\u00a0digital collection.<\/p>\n

\n

GALLERY:\u00a0<\/strong>LEWIS FAMILY – DOSHA, JOHN CLYDE, RHODA<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Duckworth Letter and Two Photographs<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\t\t