Betty Grueninger Stearns and Kip

This 1942 image taken by Irving Kip Stearns (1895-1942) of his wife Betty Grueninger Stearns and Kip at “Solitude” on Leatherwood Hill, later Hospital Hill, is part of the Stearns-Grueninger Collection. Irving Kip Stearns was president of Carolina Wood Turning Company from 1928 until his death in 1942. Stearns’ grandfather, Jeremiah Shank, started the company in 1903 as Bryson City Pump Works and it grew to be a thriving industry for the community. In 1911, Stearns was in the first graduating class of Bryson City High School. He had one son, Joseph Pease Stearns (1917-1948). In 1935, I. K. married Betty Grueninger (1896-1971)