Alice Lloyd College
Statue of Alice Geddes Lloyd
This post originally appeared on HerKentucky in November 2011. In honor of Women's History Month, I thought I'd re-share the impact that Mrs. Lloyd had on my family and my hometown.
The history of Alice Lloyd College sounds a whole lot like a heartwarming story made custom-made for ABC Family or the Hallmark Channel. A turn-of-the-century Boston Brahmin debutante turned newspaperwoman leaves her opulent New England life to found a school in the heart of Appalachia. She and her husband are soon estranged -- he moves back to the city -- but she remains in the mountains to further her mission. Soon, a determined young Wellesley aluma hears of the experiment and moves to Kentucky from her upstate New York home to serve the area. Their tenacity and "society connections" lead to a sustainable donor network, allowing for a free education for all. A century later, hundreds of Kentuckians owe their educational and professional success to these great ladies.
My great-grandmother, Rilda Slone Watson, in an ALC uniform.
While this may be the stuff TV movies are made of, it's also the very real basis for countless educational opportunities in my hometown. Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, Radcliffe alumna, proto-feminist and editor/publisher of the Cambridge Press, moved to Knott County, Kentucky in 1915, with the goal of improving social and economic conditions. Along with Miss June Buchanan, Mrs. Lloyd soon founded a school in the Caney Creek area, which would become Alice Lloyd College.
Mrs. Lloyd's impact was felt in every corner of the tiny mountain community; the town itself was even re-namedfor the Browning poem "Pippa Passes", in a nod to both Mrs. Lloyd's literary leanings and an influential set of early donors. Her commitment to staid Yankee values shine through even upon a visit to the modern campus. The strict dress and moral code(no cosmetics or heeled shoes, no "consorting" with members of the opposite sex, sailor-style skirt-and-blouse uniforms for all women) of years past may have relaxed significantly, but Purpose Road and the If Guest Cottage (named, of course, for Kipling's ode to perseverance) serve as constant reminders of a sterner era.
My own family's history is so intertwined with the history of ALC that it's impossible for me to separate one story from the other. My paternal great-grandmother,
Rilda Slone Watson, grew up on Caney Creek,one of eight children. Most of the college's original buildings were designed and built by her brother, John Commodore Slone. Her sister, Alice Slone, went on to found a nearby school on the ALC donor-funding model. My great-grandmother herself worked for the college, assisting Miss Buchanan and manning the Exchange, dispersing the estate items that donors bequeathed to the university. (By all accounts, her office was a treasure trove.)
Rilda and Miss June
Over the years, Mrs. Lloyd's legacy has shaped my family's destiny in countless ways. By all accounts, the extended clan were a bookish, artistic lot, but the education and opportunities afforded by Mrs. Lloyd'sCaney Creek schools were truly remarkable for the time and place. My grandfather, an Appalachian teenager during the Great Depression, spent two summers in Massachusetts working on cranberry bogs and seeing the sites, due to a "work-study" arrangement Mrs. Lloyd set up for local kids. My great-great-aunt earned a B.A. from Ohio State in 1932. In the 1930s, a trip to Lexington from Caney Creek took at least a full day. I can't imagine the physical rigors of traveling to Columbus or Boston, and I certainly know that those doors would not have been opened without the influence of Mrs. Lloyd and Miss June. (Although my grandfather, a hardcore Literature teacher in his own right, contended to his dying day that Mrs. Lloyd was an unduly rigorous second grade teacher.)
The ALC campus has adapted to the twenty-first century, and many of the buildings of my childhood have made way for modern campus life. Still, the school remains a charming testament to Mrs. Lloyd's vision. You can learn more about the early days of Caney Creek Community Center here. And if y'all will excuse me, I've got a screenplay to write.
Nurses on Horseback: Mary Breckinridge, Lilly Pulitzer, and the Frontier Nursing Service
How the scion of a 19th century political dynasty brought safe childbirth to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.
This piece first ran on HerKentucky in March 2013. In honor of Nurses Appreciation Week, HerKentucky would like to thank all of the pioneers like Mary Breckinridge who established quality nursing care in the Commonwealth.
Yesterday, I read a biography of Lilly Pulitzer. Now, when I picked that book up, I expected to hear the story that we Lilly collectors have heard time and again -- a bored Palm Beach housewife started a juice stand and inadvertently became a fashion icon. Lilly's life took her from Westchester County to Southern Florida; I certainly didn't expect to find that there was a layover in the most remote corners of Eastern Kentucky in-between. It turns out that, after dropping out of college, the young woman then known as Lilly McKim undertook a stint as a nurse's aide at the Mary Breckinridge Hospital. Before she married into the famed Pulitzer publishing family or designed the dresses about which I obsess every spring, Lilly acted as both a nurse's aide and a courier, riding horses and mules to Frontier Nursing Service's outposts in Leslie, Perry, Clay, and Harlan Counties. It must have been some juxtaposition for a privileged young woman who'd attended prep school with Jacqueline Bouvier and her cousin Edith Bouvier Beale (Y'all -- Little. Edie.) to live and work in 1940s southeastern Kentucky. As I read Lilly's story, I tried to think of what life was like for the women who worked as midwives in that era. I also realized that, although I'd heard so many times that the Frontier School of Nursing and Mary Breckinridge Hospital were invaluable services for the areas just south of my hometown, I didn't know very much about their history.
Lilly Pulitzer in Palm Beach
via FNS
It turns out that, like Lilly McKim, Mary Carson Breckinridge had a fascinating story of privilege. Born in Memphis in 1881, she was the daughter of a Congressman and the granddaughter of a Vice President . She spent much of her youth in St. Petersburg, after President Cleveland appointed her father as U.S. minister to Russia. Mary's early adulthood was marred by tragedy, including the unexpected loss of her first husband, a disastrous second marriage, and the deaths of her two young children. Mary relied upon faith and a commitment to public service as outlets for her grief. She studied nursing and became fascinated by the work of the nurse-midwife, which she learned about while working in Europe. At the time, midwifery training was not available in the United States, so she completed training in England. In 1925, Ms. Breckinridge returned to the States and founded the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which would become the Frontier Nursing Service. By 1959, Frontier Nursing Service Midwives had attended over 10,000 home births.
Mary Breckinridge
Today, the Frontier Nursing Service operates a nursing school which offers Master and Doctoral level courses, maintains six rural clinics and a small hospital, and even operates Ms. Breckinridge's home as a Bed and Breakfast. Ms. Breckinridge's commitment to the health of women and children has led to to a better quality of life for countless Kentuckians. In addition to the lives saved from the midwives' service, the FNS has provided valuable educational and professional opportunities for a historically poor rural area. To this day, Mary Breckinridge Hospital is the second largest employer in Leslie County.
Ms. Breckinridge's story -- you can read more about her in her memoir "Wide Neighborhoods", which is available from University Press of Kentucky-- is truly inspiring. As I read of the Episcopal prayer services she led from her home every Sunday, I couldn't help thinking of my own family's stories of the commitment to decorum and manners that Alice Lloyd and June Buchanan maintained. No matter how long she lived on a college campus in a tiny Appalachian town, Miss June never failed to differentiate between a dress she'd wear for tea and one appropriate for breakfast.
As Women's History Month draws to a close, I am humbled at the thought that "society ladies" like Ms. Breckinridge, Mrs. Lloyd, Miss June, and my own style icon Mrs. Pulitzer traded in their lives of opulence to improve the lives of Eastern Kentucky. This isn't driving through a poor area and complaining about the lack of restaurants or cell signal, nor is it coming home from a Junior League charity project to open a bottle of wine and take a bubble bath. It's moving to a cabin in a town where you know no one -- in a time when there were barely roads or telephones. These ladies couldn't email or FaceTime, or use the Nordstrom's app to order new spring shoes. They moved their lives seemingly back in time to help others. Appalachian towns still benefit from these sacrifices decades later. It's an amazing legacy.