MU | F e a t u r e s
A
n aptitude test once suggested
that Irma Gall ’55 should
be an engineer. Her mother
wanted her to be a teacher.
For her part, Irma dreamed
of becoming a self-supporting missionary in
the style of Mother Teresa.
So it should have surprised no one that,
when she needed to draw upon her
talents to survive in the deep recesses of
Appalachian Kentucky, she became all three.
Manchester’s first female peace studies
graduate, Gall co-founded the Lend-A-
Hand Center, a nonprofit community
organization in the Stinking Creek
watershed of Knox County, Ky., in 1958.
In those early years, she rode horseback to
teach in a one-room schoolhouse, learned
how to shoot rattlesnakes, survived floods,
and endured the deep suspicion of some of
her mountain neighbors.
The mission she launched with nurse
midwife Peggy Kemner eventually drew
national attention and involved the women
in President Johnson’s War on Poverty in
the mid-1960s.
But while Gall and Kemner had to deal
with the effects of their neighbors’ poverty,
they really just wanted to live out their faith
with purpose and compassion. “I came to
be a common person at Stinking Creek,”
says Gall.
Irma Gall grew up on a farm near Syracuse,
Ind., and was raised in the Church of
the Brethren. At Manchester, she studied
everything that interested her, including
mathematics, art, drama and, of course,
peace studies. In Oakwood Hall, she
roomed with Jean Childs ’54 Young, who
later married civil rights leader Andrew
Young, and Dorothy Hummer ’54 Gall,
who would become Irma’s sister-in-law.
“The three of us were about as different as
could be,” reflects Irma, but they became
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lifelong friends. Gall attended Jean and
Andrew’s wedding in Alabama in 1954 and
recalls driving caravan-style to New Orleans
for the reception. Gall’s car was the only one
with white people in it, arousing the suspicion
of Mississippi police who detained and
questioned the wedding party before allowing
them to continue their journey.
“It was an eye-opener for us,” says Gall. “For
the first time, we really saw segregation as it
was.”
At Manchester, Gall’s mentors were two
legendary professors. Paul Keller ’35 taught
her that effective communication empowers
people. Peace studies pioneer Gladdys Muir
was demanding, but inspired Gall to follow
her dreams.
Gall wasn’t dreaming so much as looking
for a job when she answered the call to
teach in southeastern Kentucky in 1955.
She arrived at Flat Creek Mission, then
operated by the Church of the Brethren, a
few months after earning her degree. Not
long after, she met Kemner, a young nurse
midwife from Pennsylvania and a graduate
of Johns Hopkins.
Strong-willed, idealistic and independent,
Gall and Kemner created a self-supporting
mission, Lend-A-Hand. With an old car, a
dog, a horse, $1,000 and a lot of faith, the
women headed to an isolated community
called Stinking Creek where Gall could teach
and Kemner could deliver babies. They fixed
up a dilapidated house, cleaned up several
inches of flood mud on its floors, and put
down roots.
“We didn’t go there to evangelize or tell them
how to live,” Gall says. “We were just living.
We were just doing what comes naturally.”
What came naturally to them would seem
extraordinary to most.
For 50 years, Kemner delivered babies in
homes, woodsheds and chicken coops and
operated a small clinic
that provided prenatal
care, health screenings and
immunizations.
Gall taught in country
schools for a decade. The
women bought property
and Gall applied her
aptitude for engineering to
design a dike and a bridge
to deal with flooding. She
also designed a house, a
barn and various other
structures, constructed
with the help of
volunteer groups.
They created a chapel and picked up local
children for Sunday school. They farmed
for their own sustenance and taught
others to do the same. Gall drew upon her
farming childhood to teach herself animal
husbandry. The women provided health
programs, home improvement programs,
educational programs and youth programs
which included a summer day camp and a
4-H chapter. They helped mountain women
plan their families through a Planned
Parenthood program. For years they provided
transportation for people to get to medical
appointments and hospitals.