The Quare Women

The Quare Women The local people called them the "quare wimmen," the "fotched-on wimmen," the "wimmen," and sometimes the "ladies." The school they founded was equally variously called the "Settlemint," the "Wimmen's School" or the "College." This was the industrial school, first called the W.T.C.U. School, later The Hindman Settlement School, founded in 1902 at Hindman, Kentucky, a pioneer experiment in education, the first rural settlement school in the United States — or the world for that matter. Its beginning seemed almost accidental. Katharine Pettit had visited Hazard, Kentucky , as early as 1895 (she had learned from the newspapers that the French-?versóle feud had ended with the death of the last fighting man ) perhaps mainly curious to find out if conditions were really as bad as they had been reported to her at her home in the Bluegrass. She returned with May Stone and helpers under the auspices of The Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs to do summer social work with the hope of alleviating conditions in the mountains, especially for women. They came to Jackson by train and the forty miles on to Hazard by wagon and set up a tent borrowed from the State Militia , all gaily decorated, and held classes in cooking, sewing, home nursing, singing, and kindergarten, daily Bible and temperance readings, and all sorts of socials and play parties . Word spread up hollow and down creek of these doings, and people came from far and near to participate — or just to see. The story of how they were encouraged to journey 22 miles farther on to Hindman and establish the famous school has been told many times, but it is worthy of a re-telling. 94 In the summer of 1899 eighty-year old Solomon Everidge, barefoot, bareheaded, with a great shock of white hair, dressed in homespun, walked the 22 miles from Hindman to Hazard. He had heard about the "doings" of the ladies in their summer camp school and had come to "sarch out the truth of it." He may have been encouraged to come by words of his son-in-law, Lewis Hays, and others. After watching the activities for hours in silence, he finally rose and introduced himself in something of the following manner: "Women, my name is Solomon Everidge. Some calls me the gran'daddy of Troublesome. Since I was a little shirt tail boy hoeing corn on the hillsides, I have looked up Troublesome and down Troublesome for somebody to come in and larn us something. My childhood passed, and my manhood, and now my head is blooming for the grave, and still nobody hain't come. I growed up ignorant and mean, my offsprings was wuss, my grands wusser, and what my greats will be if something hain't done to stop the meanness of their maneuvers, God only knows. When I heard the tale of you women, I walked the twenty-two mile acrost the ridges to sarch out the truth of it. I am now persuaded you are the ones I have looked for all my lifetime. Come over to Troublesome, Women, and do for us what you are doing here." The "women" were deeply impressed by the earnestness and dignity of the patriarchal old man and agreed to come. The journey of "Uncle" Solomon that memorable, mid-August day in 1899 resulted in the founding of The Hindman Settlement School. The following summer the "quare women" came to Hindman and set up tents on a point over looking the town and the left hand fork of Troublesome. When it was norated that the women were approaching in their wagons, one man is reported to have thrown his hat in the air and said: "The best thing that ever happened to Knott County is a-comin' up Troublesome." Looking at the tents the women set up a man said: "You gals ain't aimin' to live in them cloth houses, air ye? Hit don't look like hit would be nowise safe, no how, the way bullets comes a-flyin' around here sometimes." One morning a group of young men climbed the hill to the tents, some with rifles...