Child Development Center - Sunshine Cottage

The cottage was made possible by a gift of $10,000 in 1916 from a brother and sister in honor of their mother. According to S. H. Cook, long-time dean of Berry, Miss Berry had asked the donors for assistance in building a crafts facility but met with apparent disinterest. Late one night, near midnight the gentleman called and asked Miss Berry to come to see him and his sister. Upon her arrival, she was presented with the check and told that "if you had not come at this hour you would not have gotten it." Sarah Eugenia Nicholoy developed the work in crafts. Craft work included baskets woven from honeysuckle or pine needles, fans of feathers from geese and peafowls, window shades and brooms from broom corn and flax, and thread spun from angora wool and woven into various articles. The weaving continued after other crafts became unprofitable. Part of the department was moved to the Ford Buildings in 1928, but Sunshine continued to be a craft center until 1949-1950. In 1945 Amanda Watkins Hellum developed Sunshine Cottage into an art center where painting, woodcarving, and other handicrafts were made. When inflation made the cost of work too great to be profitable, the center was closed. In 1950 the cottage became a nursery school under supervision of the home economics department. Sunshine Cottage is now part of the Child Development Center, where three and four year old children attend preschool classes.

BERRY COLLEGE | VIRTUAL TOUR | MAIN CAMPUS | REGION II