The Class of 1914

Article regarding the role of ECTTS and the church in the lives of members of the Class of 1914. Brief biographies of alumni Addie Pearson Jones, Essie Woolard Clark, Mattie Cox Thornton, Emma Cobb Bynum, Blanche Lancaster, Annie Smaw, Lula Fountain Goodwyn, and Blanche Everett Harrison. Footnotes appear following the article.

Citation for article: Everett, Florine Clark, "The Class of 1914," from the book Awakenings: Writings and Recollections of Eastern North Carolina women.

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The Class of 1914 of East Carolina Teachers' Training School, Greenville, North Carolina, entered young womanhood during an era when radical change usurped tradition in almost every facet of Western life. Thanks to his enlightened view of the potential of technology, the inventor was becoming the man of the hour; Sigmund Freud was bringing to the attention of the world the complexities of man's subconcious; Albert Einstein was introducing awesome scientific theories; and resolute and vociferous twentieth century women were initiating an intense effort to attain freedom, equality, and the right to vote. Born during the past decade of the nineteenth century when strict adherence to the firmly-entrenched Victorian mores and the regional proprieties for the conduct of women was being denounced by their mothers and older sisters, those thirty-eight young women were among the first in eastern North Carolina to have a choice as to how they would live their lives.

Once it had been immutably clear that regardless of the dreams and aspirations a woman might have, it was her God-given duty and privilege to dedicate her life to serving her family. But the day finally had come when she had a choice. She could remain unmarried and work in her chosen profession, she could enjoy both marriage and a career, she could marry and enrich her life with volunteer work, or she could marry and spend her life in the confines of her home in the traditional manner.(1) Our examination of the lives of the thirteen known surviving members of the Class of 1914 reveals that they took advantage of the more permissive climate and tested its options.(2) The following excerpts from a conversation between the author and three members of the class under study reveal some of their feeligns about their lives:

Mrs. Addie Perason Jones -- I didn't teach very long, I don't know that I'm any credit to the School as far as teaching is concerned. I taught just three years -- in the rural schools of Middlesex and Eureka. The first year I had my tonsils out and had to walk a mile to school every morning -- facing the north wind. I've forgotten how many children I had in those primary grades. But I just couldn't make it. I had to resign. Then I went on and taught two more years before I married in 1919.
Q -- You couldn't teach after marriage at that time?
Mrs. Mattie Cox Thornton -- You could, but I guess we just decided not to.
Mrs. Essie Woolard Clark -- It wasn't easy for a married woman to get a job [teaching].
Mrs. Thornton -- There was no law against it, but it wasn’t easy. There wasn't too much woman's lib back then.
Q -- You were not even voting.
Mrs. Thornton -- No, we were not voting. You have to live with the times, whatever they are, and push them up as much as you can. The woman was almost completely in the house in those days.
Q -- With your teacher training you had a choice. You could stay at home or you could have a career -- even if only a short career. Mrs. Jones, you said you taught only three years, but you chose to teach and you chose to stop teaching.
Mrs. Jones -- During my third year teaching, two other teachers in the four-teacher school married and continued teaching, both for very long periods.
Mrs. Thornton -- Well, back then a woman was just beginning to have some privileges outside the home.(3)

Our study suggests that several factors had catalytic effects upon the lives of the members of the Class of '14: the purpose and philosophy of East Carolina Teachers' Training School, its curricula, President, faculty, and other staff members of the School during the period the class were in attendance; life at the School as they experienced it; the Church and its teachings; World War I; and the traditional roles of women. The first two of these factors are studied in this article primarily.

That the purpose and philosophy of the new School, its curricula, President, faculty, and other staff members influenced the lives of the members of the Class of '14 is borne out by the respondents' reactions to the questionnaire and during conversations with the author. They give credence to the timeliness of the establishment of the School and to its impact upon the lives of the students. With the exception of the once member who came from Texarkana, Texas-Arkansas, the members of the Class of '14 grew up on family farms, plantations, or in the small towns of North Carolina, the majority in the eastern part of the state.(4) That these young women chose to spend from two to five years of their lives in the new School at Greenville points to the feeling in the region and state at that time of the importance of education. Education would prepare young women for the world of work, for service to society beyond the confines of the home and family, and for a more realistic degree of personal fulfillment. The minimal cost of attending East Carolina Teachers' Training School, just $125 per year,(5) and, probably most importantly, the confidence of the people in the caliber of the new School., "that magnificent institution on which are centered the eyes of educators of this and other states,"(6) were also factors providing impetus to the movement for women's education.

The Training School had been established in 1907 by Act of the General Assembly of North Carolina to train "young white men and women" to teach in the public schools of North Carolina. Upon completion of the two dormitories, East and West, the Administrative Building, the kitchen and dining hall, the laundry and power plant, and the infirmary, the School opened its doors to students on October 5, 1909.(7)

When asked, "Where would you have gone if the School in Greenville had not been established?", Mrs. Thornton, a member fo the Class of '14 . . . replied,

I don't reckon I'd have gone anywhere -- I don't know -- it seems to me my life had been planned and all I had to do was just follow the plan. It [the School] was there when I was ready for it. It was nearer to us than any other school that placed emphasis on teaching and I wanted to be a teacher. My one aim in life was to be a teacher. It's my observation that when I entered the Training School in 1909 interest in education in North Carolina was minimal. After the Greenville school opened and began training young women, interest in education increased.(8)

Mrs. Emma Cobb Bynum recalled, "There was no other place I cared to go." Miss Blanche Lancaster and Mrs. Jones said they did not know where they would have gone if the Training School had not been there; several members of the class said they would have gone to private and/or denominational schools, which were very expensive. Mrs. Lula Fountain Goodwyn probably would have gone to the State Normal School, Greensboro, North Carolina, and one member said she did not even know of another school at that time. That these former Training School students concur in their assessment of their Alma Mater -- that it prepared them well for the lives they have lived -- is borne out by their affirmative answers to the question, "Do you feel that your studies and other experiences at East Carolina Teachers' Training School prepared you well for your later life?" The former, their studies, brought to fruition the intent of the School.

The Training School curricula, designed to meet the varying needs of the students, consisted of four regular courses of instruction and individualized programs for those students with deficiencies. The professional or normal course was the two-year teacher training course, open to students sixteen years of age who had completed four years of high school or had passed an examination on work equivalent to such, or had completed the academic course offered at the Training School. The two-year academic course was the equivalent of the last two years of high school. The two one-year courses, course A and course B, were designed to give a more thorough knowledge of the subjects taught in the public schools and of the most effective methods of teaching to those young men and women who did not plan to take the professional course. Some of these students did, however, complete the normal course, also. In addition to the fall, winter, and spring terms, the School offered a summer term, making it possible for students to make up deficiencies and for teachers to "better equip themselves for their profession."(9) The following discourse on the subject makes reference to the variety of courses available to the students:

Mrs. Thornton -- I was there five years. We had to have a special class -- there were about eight of us -- I think, and I think I was the only one who stuck it out. The others stayed for a while, got discouraged, and quit, but I was determined, if possible, to finish. I didn't know the requirements for entrance, but I was there the first day the School was open. I took all my high school work at the Training School and then began the two-year teacher training course and graduated in 1914.
Mrs. Jones -- I was at the Training School two years -- two winters -- and the summer in between, because I lacked a little having all the math I needed to be a high school graduate. I did work in algebra and geometry in the summer. I'd reached the place I thought it was time to move on instead of staying in the high school.
Mrs. Thornton -- There were so many one-room schools. That's where I went before I entered the Training School.
Mrs. Clark -- I did all my high school work at Battleboro High School and then I took the teacher training course at the Training School.(10)

Though the curricula were different the code of behavior was the same for all students. During the conversation between the author and two members of the class, the subject of discipline at the Training School engendered the following comments:

Mrs. Clark -- We were required to go to meals and to chapel every day. We were excused only if we were sick in the infirmary. [One apparent outgrowth of the daily chapel services the girls attended is their life-long support of their church programs as organists, pianists, Sunday School teachers, leaders in the women's organizations, church fund raisers, director of Altar Guild, and leader in Christian Education and Ministerial Relief. (11) Of the contributions the members of the Class of '14 have made through school, civic, and church activities, perhaps the most significant have been through the church.] Mrs. Beckwith was the principal and housemother, the "Watch Dog." She knew where every girl was at all times and looked after us. Every Monday night after supper she kept us in the dining room a while for lessons on etiquette. She wanted us to be "finished."
Q -- Did you have a long list of rules?
Mrs. Blanche Everett Harrison -- No, they were not written down. We just learned them. We were expected to act like gracious young ladies. If we didn't we were punished.
Q -- How?
Mrs. Harrison -- We were not allowed to go downtown.(12)

Though Mrs. Beckwith was housemother, President Wright was at times the mediator. Mrs. Thornton remembers,

I could always go to Mr. Wright. Mrs. Beckwith and I -- well she was trying to make me stay with someone that Miss Muffly -- she was our music teacher -- told me not to room with. She suggested that I talk again with Mrs. Beckwith and if she didn't listen, go to Mr. Wright. I did that and I have never had anybody -- when he looked up at me after I told him my problem -- his face had the look of Christ's. He said, "You go and talk with Mrs. Beckwith again. I think she will change you. I don't want you to room with her either."

On the matter of discipline, the 1912-13 Catalog states ". . . If a pupil does not show some disposition to conform to high standards he can hardly be considered good material for a teacher . . . In the spirit of the insitution is found the discipline of the School."(14)

The spirit of the institution is referred to by the editors of the first issue of the Training School Quarterly who identify its source as the School's motto -- "To Serve" -- and explain that "The spirit of service and usefulness has been so instilled in the students that it reaches beyond their immediate school life, and they are not only eager to teach but anticipate real joy in the doing of it" (Quarterly, pp. 35-36). Dr. Bruce R. Payne, President of Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, who visited the Greenville school on March 19, 1914 (Quarterly, p. 54), spoke of "The vision of eight million children of our Southland who are crying . . . for . . . knowledge . . . their rightful heritage . . . " The editors of the Quarterly stressed that "the accomplishment of this tremendous . . . task falls to the school teachers of the South, and in Eastern North Carolina much of the task falls to the students of East Carolina Teachers' Training School" (Quarterly, p. 36). The spirit of the School was apparently equalled and in large measure engendered by the talents and expertise of its leaders and staff.

The first most enlightening finding to emerge from this study is the one hundred per cent response to the questionnaire by the thirteen known surviving members of the Class of 1914, an indication of their positive feelings about their Alma Mater. The second is the unanimous praise lavished upon the President, faculty, and other staff members of the fledgling School by these women. In response to the question, "What do you remember most clearly about your years at East Carolina Teachers' Training School?", they wrote of the warm, friendly feeling between faculty and students, the great interest and help in so many ways, the examples they set, their excellence as teachers, their dedication, "living in the dorms with us, eating in the dining room with us, giving us so much individual attention. They knew us all by name."(15). Their remembrances enable us to characterize several of the staff members.

President Robert H. Wright is remembered as tall, of slight build, impeccable and affable of manner, very personal, an excellent leader, kind, "such a fine person." "He was heaven-sent, down-to-earth with us. We could go in and see him to talk with him if we had a problem and he'd talk with us. He never, even once, said anything harsh or discouraging in the five years I was there. Right there to help us, and a true friend, he looked out for the poor girls. I know, because I worked part of my way through school. He said the Training School was established to improve education in North Carolina and it has made a difference. His aim was to do away with the one-room schools and give children a better chance and he did; he really got things going."(16) "'To Serve' was our motto and Mr. Wright in his morning lectures [in chapel], impressed upon us that we were to serve the rural people of North Carolina. I think his dedication to that end marked a turning point in education in the State. He was a good leader and he had the welfare of the girls at heart. He tried to meet our needs."(17) "He called me in to persuade me to continue my work when I thought I'd have to drop out due to financial difficulties."(18) "They [the Wright family] seemed to feel the students belonged to them and we knew they belonged to us."(19)

Miss Sallie Joyner Davis, North Carolina History teacher whose uncle, Mr. J.Y. Joyner, was State Superintendent of Public Instruction and who was often at the School for chapel exercises, is remembered as a favorite by several members of the Class of '14 and as saying, "I believe your mind's gone wool-gathering this morning" if a student were not paying attention. "She loved North Carolina. How angry she would become during our study of The War Between the States and Reconstruction. I tell you you'd see her hair begin to rise. She said one of the texts we used was not fair to the South."(20) Another member recalled, "She scared me to death. She'd ask me something and I'd start saying something completely different -- I was so frightened. I admired after I got to know her. But I always had a feeling of awe about her. She was so positive in manner and speech."(21)

Mr. Claude W. Wilson, teacher of pedagogy, is remembered as one to whom "we could always go if we had a problem, and [as] a marvelous teacher -- he could get our attention immediately by just standing at the door."(22) "Mr. Herbert E. Austin, our science teacher, would look up from his seating chart and say to a student who was in the wrong seat, 'No one can occupy two places at the same time.' Miss Maria D. Graham taught math and whenever a student who had not prepared her lesson would try to get her of the subject, she would say, 'We can't fly off on a tangent; we must stick to our lesson.' She was advisor to the Class of '14 and we all loved her. She was very timid except in the classroom."(23) Miss Kate W. Lewis, our drawing teacher, ahd a favorite comment, also, 'It's a pleasing perspective.'"(24)

Other faculty and staff members remembered with kind thoughts are Mr. J.B. Spilman, business manager; Miss Daisy Bailey Waitt, Latin teacher; Miss May R.B. Muffly, public school music and voice teacher; Miss Beaman and Dr. O.H. Laughinghouse, school nurse and physician; and Mrs. Kate R. Beckwith, housemother and principal.

These educators were dedicated to their profession. And the young girls in their charge were impressed by them, undoubtedly, especially by the women teachers who, providing role models, demonstrated that women did at last have a choice as to how they would live their lives. The results of the dedication of the teachers and the rapport between them and the students were being seen and heard even as the Class of '14 were still in school.

During their attendance at the Training school, the Class of '14 considered their greatest honor the privilege of launching the School magazine, the Training School Quarterly. The initial number -- April, May, June, 1914 -- is "a record of the beginnings and early struggles of the School, of the chief happenings of the year and of the various activities . . . " many in which the students were the leaders, the planner, the doers, not the passive observers (Quarterly, p. 34).

The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) was reported by the Quarterly as having an important and influential place in school life. Some of the activities of the several committees of this organization were meeting students at the trains and showing them their dorm rooms and classrooms, providing a bureau of informationi, and planning and holding prayer circles and Sunday evening services emphasizing wholesome student life. Others were growing flowers in the "Sunshine Garden" for the sick in the School, town, and community and for decorating the dining room and Assembly Hall; printing and distributing YWCA handbooks; and attending state conferences.

According to the Quarterly the activities of the two literary societies, Sidney Lanier and Edgar Allan Poe, included commissioning the painting of portraits of Governor Jarvis and the Training School manager, Mr. W.H. Ragsdale; sponsoring an annual inter-society debate, two topics of which were "Women's Suffrage in North Carolina" (affirmative victorious) and "Restrictions on Immigration" (negative victorious); and organizing a May Day Program, the annual Lanier-sponsored address by literary figures of the area, and the Poe-sponsored music recital given by "musicians of note from Baltimore" (Quarterly, pp. 49-50).

As is the feeling of many students sixty-four years later, athletics was the real fun part of school; and though there was no physical education instructor, the Athletic League was organized in 1913. The enthusiasm for this area of school life is apparent from the report in the Quarterly that the students played basketball until May when a tournament was held and a loving cup awarded to the victorious Junior Class. Prizes were also awarded to the champion tennis players. Ten tennis courts, two basketball courts, and miles of good roads for cross-country walking provided for the three major sports; and interested faculty members and students were looking to the Tar River as a potential arena for rowing and swimming (Quarterly, p. 52).

As described in that first issue of the Quarterly, the Little Red Cabin in the woods below the Training School was a two-room building consisting of a model dining room and kitchen where the seniors took Home Economics. Exemplifying the "Training School's determination and ability to take that which it finds and make the best of it" the Cabin, renovated and equipped with the aid of the girls was converted into the Domestic Science Department of East Carolina Teachers' Training School. The Quarterly reported that "It is with reluctance that the Seniors of 1914 give up the Cabin, and it is hard to believe that the kitchen in the new Science Department, however attractive, will ever become as dear to the Seniors of the future as the 'Cabin' has been to their predecessors" (Quarterly, p. 48).

One special event described in the initial issue of the Quarterly is the Tree Planting. On one o fthe coldest nights of the winter, February 12, 1914, the Senior Class planted a tree on the campus, theirs a magnolia, following the precedent set by the Class of '13. The thirty-eight hilarious girls, dressed in white and gaily singing their class song, shivering in the bitter cold and follwed by class sponsors, braved the wind and snow as they skipped around the little tree, each one shoveling dirt on the roots with the historic spade of the Training School. Accepting the tree in his jovial manner, President Wright assured the girls the evergreen they had planted would forever link the Class of '14 to the School (Quarterly, p. 47).

Also of special interest among the contents of the first issue of the Quarterly is "'Who's Who' in the Class of 1914," a directory of Seniors including a capsular description of each Senior and her achievements. (Quarterly, pp. 38-44). It is evocative to read these descriptions and the quotations on the Class Roll as we look at the lives of some of the members of the class.

In "Who's Who" Mrs. Essie Woolard Clark is described as "The great big beautiful doll of the Seniors. Smiles! Though low in stature, she has thrown many a goal on the basketball field over her tall opponents' heads. A rather placid person with no strong likes or dislikes." From the Class Roll: "A girl she seems of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows." Now eighty-two, she is still described as a doll, a Dresden doll, by all who know her, but her apparent fragility and placidity belie her strength of steel and her will of iron. She represents well those of the Class of '14 who pursued careers briefly before marriage and who since have spent most of their lives caring for husbands and children, but have found the time also for non-renumerative work through school, civic, and church organizations.

After graduating from East Carolina Teachers' Training School, Mrs. Clark taught four years in rural schools of North Carolina, and then worked two years in bookkeeping positions, one position having been vacated by a young man going into military service. She recalls the World War I years as "a time of great fear and anxiety and personal sacrifice. People were afraid the war would come to this country. They remembered that during the War Between the States their homes and farms were devastated, their young men killed and crippled, life plans changed."(25) But it was at home, not on the battlefield, that sorrow came to her and Andrew, the young man she was to marry. Each lost a sister during the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, the war-related scourge that took 20,000,000 lives. But many good years for them were just ahead.

Almost always at home, usually smiling, often singing, ready to help with lessons, read a story, "draw a pig," sew on a button, prepare for a party, Mrs. Clark has been a full-time wife and mother. In response to the question in the questionnaire, "What do you remember most clearly about your years at East Carolina Teachers' Training School?", one of Mrs. Clark's recollections was, "The School motto was 'To Serve' and I like to think that a spirit of unselfishness was instilled in me then and is still a part of me today." Involvement in the activities in their children's schools and their church, of which she is a charter member, was for years the extent of her volunteer work. And to her dedication and that of their father to those institutions their children owe their religious faith and their interest and success in academics.

The Crash of '29 followed by the Great Depression of the thirties threatened their plans for a good life for their family, but, undaunted, and with unswerving faith in God and themselves, they started over and in 1957 saw their last child graduated from college. By the time two had completed medical school, they had provided for thirty-five years of college and professional school for their seven children. Since the recent death of her husband, her many children and grandchildren have been of great comfort to her.

of Mrs. Mattie Cox Thornton, a member of the class who worked both before her marriage and after her husband's death, the capsule reads, "A most loyal member of the class, faithful at all times. Successful chairman of many Sweet Pea Committees [the girls grew sweet peas, their class flower in the court of West Dormitory]. Fond of dramatics, always a member of the glee club. Stick-to-it-iveness is a marked trait." The Class Roll quotation reads, Perseverence is bliss!" And that trait persists. At eighty-eight she still keeps house for herself, her daughter who teaches, and her graddaughter who is in college; continues to drive; and appears hale and hearty despite some arthiritis. Her voice is strong and clear, her presence commanding and dignified.

Mrs. Thornton taught for nine years in rural schools of North Carolina and in the Primary Departments of the Sunday Schools in the localities of the schools. She also worked in a bank for a while, but gave that up "because that was not for me."(26) When she married in 1924, she assumed the responsibilities and privileges of both mother to her husband's three children from a previous marriage and wife simultaneously. As quoted elsewhere, she had always wanted to be a teacher, so after her husband's death she went back to teaching. But "teaching had changed so much since my earlier days in the schoolroom" that she began working as a housemother instead and continued in that capacity for seventeen years.(27)

Of Miss Blanche Lancaster who spent forty-six years in two fields of professional work, and whose life is illustrative of the members of the class who were career women, the "Who's Who" capsule says, "The first dramatic star of the class as she began her career in her 'B' year [a year of preparatory work taken before she began the teacher training course]. She was Pish Tush in the 'Mikado' and Epimetheus in 'Pandora.' Her singing brings her before the public. She ranks as an A No. 1 student, and as chairman of inter-society committee presided at 1913 debate." The Class Roll echoes, "Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art." The capsule and quote proved to be prophetic. Miss Lancaster continued to do "A No. 1" work as she discharged her duties first in the teaching profession and then in government service.

She began teaching in the fifth grade, went on to the sixth and seventh, then to students with special difficulties, and finally to senior social studies and English classes. While in the Raleigh schools, 1927-1937, she did library work at her church and took courses at North Carolina State College, graduating in 1932 with a B.S. in Education and moving into graduate work. When all teacher salaries were cut in 1937 she left the profession after teaching twenty-three years and took the Merit Examination for work with the North Carolina Employment Service, beginning in Charlotte where she was an Interviewer-Counselor helping young people get their first jobs at a time when the State was still in the throes of the Great Depression. From that position she moved into the training of Employment Service personnel in meeting the needs of industries in the State during World War II and from that to the position of Occupational Analyst. After training several weeks in Washington, D.C., in test development, she was involved with testing programs for companies having war contracts. During World War II she was appointed Chief Occupational Analyst, a position vacated by a man going into military service, entailing supervision of a group who made several industry studies which were published and distributed to all workers. During the post-war years she visited local Employment Service offices and trained newly-appointed personnel in job duties. She retired in 1960 and lived alone until her life was threatened and her apartment damaged by fire. In 1961 she went to live with and take care of a semi-invalid sister and a nephew, who, in turn, looks after them.

Miss Annie Smaw represents well those members of the class who have spent most of their lives teaching. "Who's Who" describes Miss Smaw as "A business head that rivals that of an expert, therefore, a splendid manager of class funds. Not talkative but suddenly surprises you when dry wit makes a hit. 'An ideal, calm and dignified manner in teaching' is the verdict of the English teacher." The quotation in the Class Roll by her name reads "To Peace, to Pleasure, and to Love, so kind a star thous seemst to be." In answer to the question, "What do you remember most clearly about your years at East Carolina Teachers' Training School?", she answered, in part, "[Elected] treasurer of the Senior Class and first business manager of the Quarterly, hiring the staff, our Senior play [Pandora], the Thanksgiving basketball game, the debate, our cooking class, the contacts with fellow classmates."

Miss Smaw attended Henderson High School, "one of the best high schools in the State -- the requirements [included] four years of Latin and four years of mathematics."(28) Because she wanted to be a teacher she chose to attend the new school in Greenville, even though her pastor had been anxious for her to attend a Methodist college. After graduating from the Training School, she taught in Franklinton High School three years before being offered by President Wright the job as principal at the Training School's rural practice school. After two years there she went to George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee, became ill, then went back home to Raleigh where she earned Bachelor and Master's degrees at North Carolina State College and taught mathematics at Broughton High School until her retirement in 1959. Miss Smaw also was a teacher of an adult Bible class for fourteen years, and was active in the Methodist Women's Society, the Parent, Teacher Association, the Classroom Teachers' Association, and the Delta Kappa Gamma Sorority (an honor society of women educators).

The vignette of Mrs. Lula Fountain Goodwyn in "Who's Who" reads, "'A good hearted girl' is the universal verdict. Her ambition takes the form of a mansion, a coach and six, and a chest of gold. Her sky blue eyes and coal black hair may help her realize them." The Class Roll predicts, "A smile, a gentle word, and thus she passes thru life" for the respondent who remembers most clearly about her years at East Carolina Teachers' Training School the "outstanding environment for teacher training, excellent campus life, and closeness of faculty and students."(29)

Mrs. Goodwyn taught eight years before her marriage on October 18, 1922, after which she not only has spent her time in services to her family, home, community, and church, but also to historic organizations and political campaigns. In 1935 the Goodwyns and their three sons moved back to the Fountain ancestral home, built in 1848 on Cedar Lane Plantation (the mansion in the "Who's Who" vignette?), where Mrs. Goodwyn lived before her marriage and which she received as a gift from her sister. She refers with pride to her biography and those of her husband and sons and the story of her family in North Carolina Lives.(30) "Descending from a long line of patriotic ancestors, Mrs. Goodwyn inherits her loyal interest in various patriotic organizations . . . Through the efforts of her parents, Mrs. And Mrs. Almon L. Fountain, the first Presbyterian Church called Olivet was organized and built in the village of Leggett located on what was a part of Cedar Lane Plantation as is the town of Leggett, North Carolina . . . "(31) A member of Christian Education and Ministerial Relief of the Albemarle Presbytery and a chairman of the cause, twice President of the Women of the Church, William and Mary Hart Chapel, Mrs. Goodwyn for many years also held other offices in the women's organization. Her involvement in political activities includes participation in Richard T. Fountain's campaigns for lieutenant governor, governor, and United States senator, and L.H. Fountain's campaign for Congress in 1952.

After her husband's death in 1972 Mrs. Goodwyn moved from Cedar Lane Plantation to an apartment in Rocky Mount. Though somewhat hampered by arthiritis, she still pursues the interests of her life and those of her sons and their families.

Mrs. Blanche Everett Harrison, vice-president of the class and the only one of the thirteen who did not teach, is described in "Who's Who" as "Always willing to do her part with no consideration of self. Possibly it is urgent and numerous duties that have given her the hurrying habit. Her life's vexation -- clothes and their care." Her Class Roll quotation reads, "She will bring thee togheter, all delights of summer weather." After graduation from the Training School in 1914, Mrs. Harrison continued her education at the State Normal School in Greensboro until 1917 when she returned to her plantation home to care for her sister who had become ill. Their parents were no longer living. As she explained on the questionnaire her "home responsibilities were too extensive at that time for me to consider getting a job" [teaching]. But she was active in church and community projects and drives, and was voter registrar for twenty years. Married on April 25, 1922, she lived a few miles from the plantation until her husband's death in 1949, when she returned to the homeplace to live with her two unmarried sisters. For the next twenty years she was active co-manager of her farm.

So enthusiastic is she about East Carolina Teachers' Training School and what it did for her she wrote pages about President Wright and the faculty and other staff members; and on the occasion of our visit with her, her exhuberance was but minimally curtailed by her dependence upon a walker and her tendency to tire easily. Her dark eyes sparkling excitedly, she dictated her reminiscences of her Alma Mater, the President, the teachers, the students, the buildings. With no less enthusiasm she led us on a tour of her pre-Civil War home, where she now spends week-ends only, and with obvious pride, talked about her children.

From the Class Roll, a small white folder tied with a purple ribbon and probably printed for use during commencement exercises, we learn that the motto of the Senior Class of 1914 of East Carolina Teachers' Training School was "To strive, to see, to find, but not to yield," their colors were purple and white, their flower the sweet pea, their advisor Miss Maria Graham. Also found in the folder is a group picture of and the names of the members of the class, each with an appropriate quotation.(32)

In the second issue of the Training School Quarterly the article "Commencement, 1914" appears. According to this account, Class Day exercises and literary society meetings were held on Saturday, June 5; the annual sermons to the graduating class and to the YWCA on Sunday; and the meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Alumnae Association luncheon and meeting, and the annual recital by the pupils of the Music Department on Monday. On Tuesday, June 8, graduation exercises, attended by a great number of friends of the School, took place on the hill west of West Dormitory.(33)

The Class of '14 then went forth -- to teaching, to nursing, to government service, to community and church service, to marriage, to motherhood -- instructed and inspired "To Serve" -- each in her chosen way.

That four of the thirteen known surviving members of this class, almost a third, never married and held professional positions in three areas, teaching, nursing and government service, for as long as forty-six years bears out our thesis that changes were occurring. For the other nine women, woman's traditional roles continued to be important. They worked for a while (with the exception of one) and then became wives and mothers (only three worked after marriage, two of these only after the deaths of their husbands) and spent much of their time caring for their families. That they succeeded in their chosen roles is attested by their lives of service and self-fulfillment and those of their husbands, who were successful in farming, business, and finance, and active in church and civic endeavors, and of their children among whom are teachers, doctors, nurses, homemakers, farmers, businessmen, a counselor, an engineer, a lawyer, an accountant, a chemist, a college professor, a manufacturer, and a retired Air Force colonel.

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Footnotes1) Anne Firor Scott, The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 3rd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 220.
2)The following known surviving members of the class responded to a questionnaire: Mrs. Addie Pearson Jones, Mrs. Blanche Everett Harrison, Mrs. Mattie Cox Thornton, Mrs. Essie Woolard Clark, Miss Mary Weston, Miss Bessie Lee Alston, Mrs. Carrie Manning Daniel, Mrs. Emma Cobb Bynum, Mrs. Anna Stanfield Averett, Miss Blanche Lancaster, Miss Annie E. Smaw, Mrs. Ila Daniel Currin, and Mrs. Lula Foutain Goodwyn. The author interviewed the first four of them.
3) Interview, October 15, 1977, Goldsboro, NC
4) The Training School Quarterly, April, May, June, 1914, Vol. 1, No. 1, editors, Class of 1914 of East Carolina Teachers' Training School, Greenville, NC (Raleigh, NC: Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., 1914), pp. 38-44.
5) Fourth Annual Catalog of East Carolina Teachers' Training School, Greenville, NC 1912-13 (Raleigh, NC: Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., 1913), 32.
6) Daily Reflector, Greenville, NC, September 24, 1912, p. 1.
7) Fourth Annual Catalog of East Carolina Teachers Training School, pp. 9-11.
8) Interview, October 15, 1977.
9) Fourth Annual Catalog, pp. 18-22.
10) Interview, October 15, 1977
11) Questionnaire and interviews
12)Interview, October 1, 1977, Palmyra, NC
13) Interview, October 15, 1977
14) Fourth Annual Catalog, pp. 12-13.
15) Interview with Mrs. Harrison, October 1, 1977.
16) Interview with Mrs. Thornton, October 15, 1977
17)Interview with Mrs. Clark, October 15, 1977
18) Questionnaire, Miss Lancaster
19) Interview with Mrs. Harrison, October 1, 1977
20) Interview with Mrs. Clark, October 15, 1977
21) Interview with Mrs. Jones, October 15, 1977
22) Questionnaire, Mrs. Thornton
23) Interview with Mrs. Harrison, October 1, 1977
24) Interview with Mrs. Clark, October 1, 1977
25) Interview with Mrs. Clark, January 12, 1978
26) Interview with Mrs. Thornton, October 15, 1977
27) Interview with Mrs. Thornton, October 15, 1977
28) Questionnaire, Mss Smaw
29) Questionnaire, Mrs. Goodwyn
30) William S. Powell, North Carolina Lives: The Tar Heel Who's Who (Historical Records Association: Hopkinsville, Ky, 1962)
31) Powell, p. 496
32) this folder is in the North Carolina Collection, Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
33) The Training School Quarterly, July, August, September, 1914, Vol. 1, No. 2, editors, students and faculty of East Carolina Teachers' Training School, Greenville, NC (Raleigh, NC: Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., 1914), pp. 112-13.