Miss Apple: Letters of a Maine Teacher in Kentucky - Softcover

Cunningham, Eleanor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1403336954 ISBN 13: 9781403336958

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2003

Synopsis

In 1998, Eleanor Cunningham found twelve letters which her mother, Ethel V. Applebee, had written to her mother in 1920-21. She wondered why Ethel had left her beloved Maine to teach at Chandler Normal School in Lexington, Kentucky. She learned through research and two trips to Maine that her mother was one of thousands of Northern teachers sent to the South by the American Missionary Association to teach black children after the Civil War. The letters told of her mother's adventures as a white teacher in a southern town. There were joys and heartaches, trials, and rewards. She loved the children, some of whom called her 'Miss Apple.' Then Eleanor discovered another, more personal reason why her mother went to Kentucky to teach - a promise made to a dear friend before he died.While in Kentucky, Ethel Applebee became acquainted with another Maine teacher, Sara Leighton. The following summer she introduced Ethel to her brother, Howard, back in Maine on the family farm. It was love at first sight. Letters exchanged by Ethel and Howard helped their daughter to envision her parents in their youth as she read of their developing romance, engagement and wedding at Ethel's home in Bucksport, Maine.Miss Apple: Letters of a Maine Teacher in Kentucky is a wholesome read for those who love children, the teaching profession, and history.

About this title

About the Author

Eleanor Cunningham was born and reared in Rockville, Maryland. After high school she chose a business career, and graduated in 1941 with honors from Temple Secretarial School in Washington, D.C. While a school secretary, her collection of poems, This Place: Love Letters to a School, was published by the Montgomery County Public Schools.Always a lover of history, Eleanor has published several historical pieces. Her essay, 'Dad's Well' was runner up in the Maryland: You are Beautiful writing contest for senior citizens in 1990, and it was later published by the Montgomery County Historical Society. She wrote an article for the Montgomery Journal in 1997 on the occasion of the grand reopening of tiny Montrose School, 'Montrose School: Back to Its Roots as Teachers and Students Return.'Miss Apple is Eleanor Cunningham's fourth book. Eleanor entered a Christian writer's contest at Warner Press, Anderson, Indiana. Her book, He Touched Her, won second prize and was published in 1973. Peerless Rockville, the preservation organization that saved and restored Montrose School, asked Eleanor to write history of the school she attended in the 1920 and 30s. Her book, Montrose School: The First Ninety Years, was published by Peerless Rockville in December, 1999. In 2000, she published a History of the Gaithersburg Church of the Nazarene on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary.Over the years she has volunteered at Gaithersburg HELP, the Recovery Thrift Shop, and as a second grade tutor. As missions director at her church she led three work teams to Paraguay and the Philippines, and has enjoyed teaching both children and adults in Sunday school. She is a member of a weekly writer's group at the local senior center. She and her husband Floyd, now deceased, had three children, Floyd Timothy, Janice Ethel, and Diane Kathleen. She has one grandson, Ethan Wesley Leclerc.Eleanor Cunningham is retired and lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1403336954
• ISBN 13: 9781403336958
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280