Although they have been closed for many years, the county schools hold many good memories for those who attended them. The camaraderie of students in the small schools followed them as they graduated or meshed into a consolidated school later. Many people consider some of their best friends today those that they made as children in their small county schools.
Ralph Germany remembers starting school at BeBetter and attending there in first and second grades. Then the school consolidated with Union in 1941. He also remembers New Ireland, Lucern and Neville schools west of town. Mr. Whatley was his history teacher. The students quickly learned that if Mr. Whatley repeated information, they should learn it because it would be on the next test.
Lula Mae Ezelle Harrison recalls being the last little girl to go to Erin School. Her dad, Davis Ezelle, thought that she had to attend Erin School, and he knew that it was going to close soon. Although a child was supposed to be 6-years old to start to school, she was only five when she got on the school bus that her uncle, Vester Shealy, drove. Her teacher was Rachael Milling, and Lula Mae still remembers sitting in Mrs. Milling’s lap to read. At Christmas 1945, Erin School was closed, and the students had to go to Conehatta. Lula Mae was told that she couldn’t go; she would have to go home because she wasn’t old enough. However, her dad talked to the county superintendent of education, and Lula Mae was allowed to go to Conehatta to finish her first-grade year.
Lula Mae also remembers that the school bus she rode did not have seats as today’s busses have. It had three long benches that went from the front of the bus to the back.
Freddie Ezelle was in the last graduating class of nine students at Stratton School in 1956. The members were Ronnie Roebuck, Raymond McMullan, Ray Ezelle, Freddie Ezelle, Willie Eugene Cooksey, Jerry Sanders, Fred Allen Chamblee and twin sisters Shirley and Charlotte Hollingsworth. After the school closed, the four members of the junior class, Carolyn Nicholson, Barbara Ann Chamblee, Jimmy Cooksey and James Hamil, all went to Union and graduated there.
After the high school closed, the grade school was left open for one more year. Freddie remembers that Mrs. Ruth Measell was the first-grade teacher for many years. Mr. Moore was superintendent. Elaine Spence taught typing, Hoye Pace was coach and Mrs. Hoye Pace taught English.
Steve Milling says that Erin School is still standing near his home.
Charlotte Brackeen remembers that some of her relatives had gone to Honeycutt School on the Conehatta Road. When the school closed around 1915, they walked to Union.
Jim Brooks recalls his elementary days at County Line School. The building was on the northeast corner of the Deemer Road facing Hwy. 492. The playground, where they played softball, was on the lot west of the school adjoining Deemer Road. If a student hit a softball across the Hwy 492, it was an automatic home run. Two students could do that – Lavelle Pearson and Kathryn Moore. Jim went to school there for six years before the school closed. He then attended Union where he graduated. Some other students went to House and some to Linwood, depending on where their parents’ land lay.
On the northwest corner where the Leon Gardner home place is located today was the location of the teachers’ home. Across Hwy. 492 from it was Clay Simms’ home.
Mr. Bobby Caldwell’s mother Evvy Gibbon was born in 1900. When she was six, she started school at Berry School. Dr. L.O. Todd, a former president of East Central Junior College, was one of her classmates. Berry, an eighth-grade school, lasted from four to six months each year. It was a two-teacher school; the teacher had an assistant who taught grades one through three while he taught grades four through eight. After finishing the eighth grade, girls were allowed to attend school until they got married. The teacher would give them advanced work. There was no graduation from the eighth grade. The school had a program they called a ‘concert,’ where there was a lot of singing. “Concerts” were so enjoyable that the people attended concerts of other schools as well as their own. One day after Evvy had completed the eighth grade, the teacher was going to be absent, he and asked Evvy if she would conduct class in his absence. She agreed but she said that was the longest day of her life, and she never had any desire to be a teacher after that experience. In 1921 when she was 21 years old, she got married and stopped going to school at that time.
If you have information on or experiences in or pictures of these county schools, please contact me at teresablount26@yahoo.com or 601-774-5564.
