{"id":77392,"date":"2020-07-17T23:52:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-18T03:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?page_id=77392"},"modified":"2020-11-23T17:24:12","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T22:24:12","slug":"dear-friend-letters-1963","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?page_id=77392","title":{"rendered":"DEAR FRIEND Letters 1963"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 17: PMSS Publications (Published by the School)
Dear Friend Letters 1963<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DEAR FRIEND Letters 1963
March, May, August, September & Thanksgiving<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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TAGS:<\/strong> Dear Friend letters 1963, fundraising letters, PMSS Director Burton Rogers, Mary Rogers’ sketches, Floods, community rescue squad, typhoid inoculations, Mildred Mahoney, William Hayes, Fern Hayes, winter damages, forest fires, PMSS\u2019s commitments, Mr.Workman, Little School, pre-school education, student aides, church camp, Harry Caudill, Community Fair Day, PMSS\u2019s 50th-anniversary celebrations, Pine Mountain Room<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CONTENTS: DEAR FRIEND Letters 1963 March 19<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Page 1 of 1<\/strong> [typewritten copy]
Header: “Pine Mountain Settlement School
Pine Mountain, Kentucky
Tuesday, March 19, 1963″<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Handwritten notation in upper left corner: “Grand letter. Thank You (?) !”<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dear Friends: We are deeply thankful that the Pine Mountain Settlement School has come through the most disastrous week in the history of this region with no major loss or destruction from the first flood on the 12th or the second flood on the 17th.”<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rogers continues to describe in detail the rainfall mixed with snow, reports from the Cincinnati Weather Bureau flood warning system, emergency evacuation in Harlan and rain calculations by his son, Peter Rogers. Stating that the widening of the creek four years ago saved the campus, he then lists some flood damage on campus. The School was cut off from roads and hospitals, “except the new Public Health doctor who made her temporary headquarters here the day before the first flood.”<\/em> PMSS and other area schools were closed for four days. Rogers also describes the flood damage in the community north of Pine Mountain.

“Four of our staff men on our new community rescue squad were called over in the night to aid in the evacuation around Harlan. The four student teachers now here from Berea spent three full days assisting the typhoid inoculation teams on the State Health Department through the County….<\/em>” with help from Miss [Mildred] Mahoney<\/a>. “Our former staff members, William<\/a> and Fern Hayes<\/a>, have been operating their Division of Forestry radio system day and night for Civil Defense communication and coordination between the counties and cities isolated by disrupted telephone circuits.”<\/em> He also mentions the help given by the Harlan radio station (where one of the staff was a former PMSS student), local agencies and the Red Cross. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In closing, Rogers states that he’s sending this letter to “let our friends share in our gratitude that Pine Mountain has escaped the suffering so widespread in our region.<\/em>
Sincerely,
Burton Rogers”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Handwritten notation on bottom left: “*Sorry, I couldn’t avoid ‘campus’ this time!”<\/em>, the star referring to the first words of the second paragraph.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GALLERY<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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DEAR FRIEND fundraising letter from PMSS Director Burton Rogers, March 1963. [1963DecBurtonRogerstoFriend.jpg]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CONTENTS: DEAR FRIEND Letters 1963 May 24<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Page 1 of 2<\/strong>
Header: “Pine Mountain Settlement School
Pine Mountain, Kentucky<\/em>
Affiliated with Berea College
May 24, 1963″<\/em>

[Sketches: Tall pine tree with mountain range in background; child hugging against wintry weather; child in the rain wading in water.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school had to make up the 11 days it was closed “by omitting spring vacation, having a Saturday session and continuing a week into June.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Winter set in early, and proved to be the coldest in nearly half a century.”<\/em> PMSS Director Burton Rogers lists the year’s steady special demands on the School’s resources. Frozen pipes that burst; the flu; two floods; clogged drains, ditches and water lines; a polluted reservoir<\/a>; due to a washed-out bridge, a stranded school bus trying to ford a creek; and forest fires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Page 2 of 2<\/strong>
[Sketches: A firefighter at work while a forest fire rages around him; a little girl wearing a dress.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These emergencies have broken into the routine activities — classroom programs, hot lunch, library, extra-curricular opportunities for students and adults….”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…[W]e have cooperated this year with the new Department of Community Medicine at the University of Kentucky, which sent a team to Pine Mountain to give thorough physical examinations to 100 of our pupils, and 100 pupils at the neighboring Green Hills School….”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rogers ends by stating the “ever-deepening conviction that the basic need is for better education for both children and adults of the area. Certainly our young people, to whom the future of the area belongs, must be equipped to solve their own problems of housing, health, community services, roads, strip mining, conservation, reforestation, and flood control.”<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rogers expresses appreciation of past support and asks that it is continued in the future.
“Sincerely,
<\/em>[signed] Burton Rogers, Director”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n