Kentucky's Management Payroll

In October 1917, with more than 250 inmates in residence, The Kentucky Confederate Home had just eighteen full-time employees. The total monthly payroll for full-timers was $708.50.

Commandant Henry George earned $100 a month. Dr. Rowan B. Pryor, full-time physician, received $67.50 monthly. The bookkeeper, Florence Barlow, who had been at the Home for almost ten years, was earning $45. Likewise, Matron Lela Henley took home $45 a month. (George, Pryor, Barlow and Henley each had rooms in the Home and were allowed to take all their meals there.)

Surprisingly, the highest-paid full-time employee was Chief Engineer A. S. McFarland. For keeping the water running, the Home painted, the pipes flowing and the boilers glowing, McFarland earned $120 a month. (Five years later, McFarland would be named commandant of the Home.)

In addition to the eighteen full-timers, the Home used six regular part-timers as waiters, stewards and laundresses. The part-timers were paid sixty cents a day.

(See “Monthly Pay Roll of Officers and Employees, October 1917” in Special Collections at the Kentucky Historical Society.)