PLEASANT HILL RAMBLINGS: PH Elementary students contribute over $700 to leukemia research

By Jean Clark / Chronicle contributor

Pleasant Hill Elementary School contributed about $740 for leukemia research from children and staff. A few classes extended their love and concern by corresponding with children afflicted with leukemia. The Hornet Family pitched in for the drive for “Coats For the Cold” with 75 coats distributed through the Cumberland County School Coat Drive.

The wonderful sign welcoming all to the Pleasant Hill, home of the Hornets, at the corner of Main Street and Route 70 was purchased by Jim Blalock, our district member on the school board.

The school won first prize at the Crossville holiday parade. The $100 prize will come in handy for needed extras for our children. The grand-prize winner in the Crossville City Christmas Card contest was 13-year-old Dalton McCartney, an eighth-grader from Pleasant Hill. Dalton earned $100 for his art and $200 for his art teacher’s use receiving the artistic merit award as well.

We have such a unique relationship with our Pleasant Hill School family. Those of us who volunteer there will attest to this. Will you consider joining our gang? Give Goldie Schneider a call at 277-5360 to volunteer.

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In conversation with some of our residents who grew up in Pleasant Hill or the Homesteads, I would like to share the following holiday season stories.

From Frank and Ann Cunningham Meisamer, who grew up in Pleasant Hill, attended the Pleasant Hill Academy, and are planning on moving back here soon.

The Pleasant Hill Academy boarding students went home for Christmas for about three weeks. Ann recalls that when her father, Thomas Lee Cunningham, was farm manager, there were some boys who stayed and tended to the farm dairy herd, animals, and the building furnaces. hey ate with her family, and her mother, Ann Tanner Cunningham, cooked the meals.

Before classes were dismissed the school presented a Christmas pageant in the Academy Building. The students and faculty would portray the Christmas Story. Ann especially remembers Ginny Morton’s singing “Oh Holy Night.” Frank adds that the town (or local) students, in the later years, were sometimes asked to help on the farm during Christmas vacation. He remembers spending the night in a pig shed with a sow that delivered a dozen or so little pigs. His job was to keep her from rolling over on them.

The students who lived in Pleasant Hill participated in several activities. Ann and Frank recall Christmas caroling with Miss Alice Adshead. “We would gather at Uplands (then the General Hospital) early in the morning, about 5 a.m. while it was still dark. We had to carry a lantern or a flashlight. It would be very cold and brisk. We would sing at homes along Main Street and Cottage Street and return to Uplands and sing outside VanDyck (the TB Sanatorium). Then we would go in the dining room at General and would be served hot chocolate and cookies. Uplands always had a party for all of it’s employees and their families. Traditionally, bags of fruit, nuts, and some small gift item were distributed to everyone.”

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From Jeanne Elmore Elrod whose parents, Albert and Lizzy Elmore, were original members of the Homesteads moving there in 1934. Jeanne and Hunter Elrod now live on Church Street in Pleasant Hill.

“The winter of 1935 was unusually cold on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. At our barn on Open Range Road in the Homesteads the temperature dipped to eighteen below and the snow was as deep. As my family struggled to stay warm and fed they were hopeful and excited about the new house going up in front of the barn where we lived. The stonework was done and the rest would be built next summer. We always celebrated, hoped, and prayed by singing. So to make Christmas special my mother sent the boys up to the house site to build a fire in our new fireplace in what would be our living room. On Christmas Eve everyone bundled up and we stood in the snow before the fire in our soon-to-be new home, with stars shining brightly above, and sang Christmas carols — many of them and always all of the verses. What joy!”

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In a more current concern, there have been reports of mailboxes being smashed on some of the streets in Pleasant Hill. I wonder if the perpetrators realize that this is a federal offense to destroy containers for U.S. Mail? I understand that when the sheriff sub-station is located here in Pleasant Hill, there may be training to reinstitute the Neighborhood Watch program.

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