This great photo of the Haywood County High School Class of 1939 was posted on the Haywood County Genealogy Facebook page managed by volunteers from the Genealogy Room at the Elma Ross Library in Brownsville, Tenn.
Vicky Morrow Hutchings wrote she found it in a corn crib at her father-in-law’s house. I am very grateful she shared it because it does include some of my relatives.
If these gradates walked across a stage, they were graduating into a county deeply rooted in agriculture, small towns and rural traditions. By that time, Haywood County had come a long way from the days of one-room schools scattered across the countryside. The 1873 state education law had helped bring more structure to public education, and in 1911, the old Brownsville Baptist Female College property became home to Haywood County High School.
But life in 1939 was still hard for many families. The Great Depression had left its mark, schools remained segregated and many rural students still traveled long distances with limited resources. That same year, a junior high school for Black students opened at Douglass near Stanton, with O.O. Calloway as principal.
This class came of age at an interesting moment when the county was still holding tightly to its rural past while slowly moving toward a more modern school system.
Those included in the photo are:
Top row: Marilyn Wilson-Rooks; J.T. Jacocks, Marie Willis, Faye Rauls, Kenneth Gagland, Elise Escue
2nd row: Elsie McCool, Judson Patton, Thelma Hendron, Marion Powell, Charlene Larde, Hargrove Wateridge, Willie Joe Carraway, Glenn Covington, Lois Jeter
3rd row: Louise Herris (Harris)?, Robert Johnson, Rebecca Tyus, S.L. Edwards, Jane Braley (Bailey)?, Ron Cozart, Martha Williams, Haskel (Hasreal) Hooper
4th Row: Lila Williamson, Sherman Taylor, Doris Evans, Lloyd Wilson (in center, under HHCS), Virginia Ragland, Louis Burford, Ovida? Haynes
5th Row: Mary Lou Beak, Tom Frekland, Margaret Hopkins, Gene Cregton? (President), Wm Bush (Vice Pres), V. Suddeth, J M Holland, Martha Fletcher
6th Row: Mary Jarrett, Homer Webb, Mary Taliferro, Edward Wenden (Wenders), Jack & Jewel Kimory? (couple below the 1939), Henry Duggan (Dugger), Sarah Chapman, Jack Seymour, Nellie Harris
7th Row: Laura Verrell?, Sara Carrell (Currell), Frank Fletcher, Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Richardson, Wm A Chapman, Mary G Smith, Jas F. Merrill, Jr.
8th Row: Deveraux Rudolph, Chas Moore, Doris Drake, Vernon Moore, Eloise Williams, Ted McWhirter, Marjorie Warren, R.C. Hawkins (Hankins), Dorris Allen
9th row: Wade Ouser?, Martha Moore, Joe Dickenson, Jennie Powell, Charlie Drumwright?, Betty Rothschild
J.T. Jacocks, pictured second from left on the top row of the high school class photo, married my grandmother’s sister, Cordelia Brantley.
Most of these young people were born around 1920, so in 2013, any of those still living are now in their 90s.
For more of my genealogy research, visit rscottwilliams.info.
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