I Was "Home" Schooled
I started my public school education in September 1959 as a five-year-old at Home School in the heart of Big Level in Stone County, Mississippi. That was back when the law allowed first-graders to enroll if their sixth birthday occurred before the end of the calendar year — my birthday is in October. This rural school was located on City Bridge Road across from Big Level Baptist Church a couple of miles south of White’s Crossing. From its beginnings in 1912 and throughout its 60-year life, Home School saw many changes — buildings burned or torn down and replaced, new ones added, the addition of a high school (it originally went only to the 10th grade) and many others. While there were also a few name changes, always reflecting the current state or local educational climate, at the time of my enrollment, according to the sign above the front doors, it was Home Vocational High School, as it still housed grades 1 through 12. Regardless of the changes that came before and those still to come, it was always Home.
Throughout the1960s, in staggered fashion, the upper grades were moved to Wiggins to attend the county’s consolidated Stone High School, such that by 1965 it only housed the first eight grades. Upon completing the 8th in 1967, I, too, had to transfer to Stone High. With additional consolidation, Home closed for good in 1972 when all the remaining lower grades were finally moved into town to the county’s elementary and junior high schools. With its closing, Home School ended a long era of serving the educational needs of the children residing in the northeastern side of Stone County, being established even before Stone was created out of the upper portion of Harrison County.
One of the predecessors to this venerable old institution was an older school with an even longer history. Odom School, established in 1846, was located beside Odom Creek (now Old Creek) less than a mile away from the location later selected for Home School. A one-room for-pay school, typical of the era, Odom was one of the oldest and most prominent schools in that section of the county. Another nearby predecessor was Hope School, located a few miles further away to the northeast. My Granddaddy Lott and several of his brothers and sisters attended Hope. These rural schools were just two of the many that met in one-room log houses with one teacher instructing students of various ages. These schools were typically in session for a four-month split-term year, meeting for a couple of months in the winter and a couple in the summer, so that the pupils could be available at home on the farm during the crucial times of spring planting and fall harvest. These schools rarely went higher than the 10th grade, and most students didn’t reach that far. But things were rapidly changing. In this first decade of the 20th Century, all over the state, indeed, all over the southern U.S., almost all of these smaller, rural schools ceased to exist, either closing or merging to form larger schools during a wave of modernization and consolidation.
This is Hope School, shown in 1911, the year before it was consolidated with the new Home School. It was located about 7-8 miles from Wiggins in the upper Big Level community. My granddaddy, Dolph Lott (1897-1976), attended this one-room school; he’s the handsome young 14-year-old man in the dark suit near the image center. Two of his sisters, my great-aunts Vergie and Minnie, are also pictured,
Here is the complete lineup, as published by the Old Firehouse Museum located in Wiggins at 117 N Front Street: (Front row) Edwin Taylor, Vardaman Taylor, Stella Taylor, Iduma Berry, Pearl Breland, Ethel Taylor, Eugenia Taylor, Mildred Breland, Mamie Taylor, Norwood Breland, Broxton Berry; (Center row) Dewey Taylor, Shannon Taylor, Dolph Lott, Atsie Taylor, Connie Breland, Virgie Lott, (Back row) Clyde Breland, Quider Breland, Melton Hatten, Willard Taylor, Minnie Lott, Bertha Taylor, Versa Hatten, Talmadge Taylor, Viola Taylor and Grady Hatten. The woman at the far right is Lillian Galloway, teacher.
In 1912, Hope and Odom merged with the other small for-pay schools operating in the surrounding communities to form the area’s first public-supported institution. My great-great uncle, Judge Rufus Quitman Breland, donated 10 acres for this new school and a modern three-story building was built. Thus, Big Level had its first tuition-free school. It was quite an accomplishment and an immense source of pride for the families it served. For the students and teachers who had occupied those small, one-room schools, I suspect there was also a considerable culture shock.
Upon its founding, this new school was given a most endearing name when it was announced that it was to be called H.O.M.E. Consolidated School. The initialism was chosen in recognition of four of the more prominent schools that gave up their existence to form this modern, community-wide school: Hope, Odom, Marion, and Ena. While this clever name quickly caught on, the initialization was almost immediately dropped and the “Home” appellation became institutionalized and commonplace. Over the decades, most people, even some of the older Big Level locals, forgot or didn’t know that it started out as an acronym. It wasn’t until a historical marker was placed by the roadside just a few years ago that many came to learn of its origin.
Photo by Russell W. Lott, 19 May 2019
Both of my parents went to Home School, as did Daddy’s brother and his two sisters. So did each of Mama’s siblings, though with her family being from the Beatrice community, her older three siblings started at Powers School near Ramsey Springs before it succumbed to consolidation in the early 1930s. Additionally, many of my great-aunts and uncles and quite a few of my first cousins and more distant relatives attended Home in its heyday. But with more changes being wrought in the county school system in the 1960s, many Home School students began the exodus into town as many Big Level parents saw the inevitability of consolidation, realizing that their children would have more opportunities in the larger school environment. Even though class sizes were dwindling, my family stuck it out, transferring to Wiggins only when each of us could go no higher: Judy completed the 9th at Home in 1964, Keith and I completed the 8th in ’65 and ’67 respectively, and John the 8th in ’70. Karen and Linda had just finished the 6th and 4th grades when the school finally closed in 1972.
This photo shows the entire student body and faculty of Home School during the 1965-66 term — all eight grades, the four teachers, and the principal. I’m on the back row, my black-haired head just visible in front of Mrs. Bailey, the 7th-8th teacher, who is second on the back row between her husband and Principal Gordon. The other teachers are: Mr. Bailey (5th-6th), Mrs. Gordon (3rd-4th), and Mrs. White (1st-2nd). As you can see, with only 75-80 students in the entire student body, closing the school was economically justified. It’s surprising that it stayed open as long as it did.
Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but I had very little adjustment to make to conform to the academic climate at Stone High, as I continued to make good grades I was accustomed to without difficulty. My feeling is that this was generally true of most Home School students, for I can honestly say that I can’t remember meeting any former student who did not treasure their time there or value highly the quality of the education they received at this revered old school.
Though the Ag Building, gym, lunch room, and teachers’ homes have all been demolished, the main building, built in 1936, with its classrooms and auditorium, still stands. It’s not in good shape, and I’m afraid it won’t be around much longer. A community center was built on the property several years ago, and we are now holding our annual Bond family reunions there. Each time I’m there it’s sad to see the old school building with its windows boarded up and walls crumbling, but as Mama wrote in the introduction to the 1997 Home School Reunion booklet: “Although its hallowed halls have long been empty, the memory of that special place lives on in the hearts of all who attended classes there and romped happily on the school grounds.” Those words are certainly true for me — that special place will always be Home. In upcoming blog posts, I hope to share some of my fondest memories of my days there — I’ve got a lot to tell.
Addendum:
From the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald, 16 Feb 1914
Just as the historical marker indicates, basketball was a big part of Home School’s glory — this news item tells us that this tradition started early. Though it’s not stated here, many of those early games were played on dirt courts, possibly the same courts my classmates enjoyed during recess in ’50’s and ’60s.
From the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald, 15 Feb 1915
An unidentified Harrison County tomato club teenaged girl and her one-tenth acre plot. This 1913 photo is from “Down South on the Beautiful Gulf Coast,” Volume 30, Extension Service History Collections, Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University.
As I was digging around the Newspaper.com archives, a brief mention of the Tomato Club in a 1915 edition of the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald caught my attention; it was my first encounter with the concept. Intrigued, I could only wonder about its name and function. The context suggested that the girls may have been a pep squad, maybe for the boys and girls basketball teams, and that they were engaged in a fundraising activity. But how did they come by this name? I’ll admit the slang usage of the term ‘tomato’ to refer to an attractive girl briefly crossed my mind. Wanting to know more, I turned to Google and the answer was immediately at my fingertips. No doubt these Home School girls were cute, but cheerleading tomatoes they were not, at least not in that sense. It seems that the Tomato Club movement was one of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s early outreach programs. Since the 1890s, southern farm boys had their Corn Clubs and, starting in 1910, girls had their Tomato Clubs. From its beginnings in South Carolina to its heyday in the years leading up to World War I, the movement swept the southern United States. Singing songs and adopting mottos, girls aged twelve to eighteen planted tenth-acre individual tomato gardens, working in groups to can their harvests, and then marketing their wares locally and nationally. These clubs were early predecessors to 4-H and Home Demonstration Clubs. Well whad'ya know? I was a 4-H’er myself.
Notes:
Odom Creek, now called Old Creek, heads up just above the Home School location and traverses southeasterly down past Paramount Church Road and on across King Bee Road before emptying into Red Creek not far from the old cable bridge.
“WPA Manuscript & 1920 Census: Stone County, MS” by J. Strickland & P. Edwards (2001)
“Memoirs of Alma Hickman, 1887-1971,” published by E.M. Evans, 1992. Alma, my second cousin, was one of USM’s first faculty members. She taught in several of the area’s one-room schools early in her teaching career.
http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/articles/235/girls-tomato-clubs-in-mississippi-1911-1915
https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/greenngrowing/essay_tomato_clubs.html
TERMS TO PONDER
ac·ro·nym (noun): a word formed from the initial letters or major portions of other words. Acronyms, unlike other initialisms, are pronounceable as words. 'Scuba' (for ‘self-contained underwater breathing apparatus’) is an acronym; 'FBI' (for ‘Federal Bureau of Investigation’) is not.
www.lexico.com
to·ma·to (noun): from Spanish tomate (mid-16c.) from Nahuatl (Aztecan) tomatl “a tomato,” said to mean literally “the swelling fruit,” from tomana “to swell” (related to tumor). Spelling probably influenced by potato (1565). Slang meaning of "an attractive girl," is from the notion of juicy plumpness, is first recorded in 1929.
www.lexico.com
SONG OF THE DAY
“I Feel Home” by O·A·R (Souls Aflame, 1999)