The Choctaw Freedmen Part 28

This loss was a staggering blow to the superintendent until he learned the next day that the matron, Miss Weimer, with the co-operation of Miss Hall, was willing to practice the self denial needed to make a heroic effort to recover from it. When this information was received, twenty of the larger girls were constrained to remain, while the rest were sent home. Some of these were provided for in the second story of an addition to the academy building, then nearly completed, and the school room under it served for a dining room and kitchen. The school work was resumed the next day, under Miss Hall with student a.s.sistants. The girls that remained proved helpful in executing the extra work then necessary, and the experience of self denial no doubt proved a profitable one to them.

The old log farm house 46x16 feet, was the last of the four Oak Hill buildings to yield to the flames. It was built by the Choctaw Indians about the year 1840, soon after they were transferred from Mississippi.

It was very substantially constructed and by skilled workmen, who no doubt came from Fort Towson. The Girls' Hall stood between it and the well, indicated by the aeromotor east of it.

This building was the pioneer home of the academy. The stages of progress in its use were as follows. The native school was transferred to it in 1884. Eliza Hartford began to occupy it in 1886, first as a day school, and three months later as her home with a boarding school. In the fall of 1887, a kitchen was added to the west end of it, and it was then used as a home for the teachers and girls, and the school was transferred to the new school building. Two years later it became a dormitory for the boys. After 1895 it was used for storage, a smith and carpenter shop. The picture showing it on fire is from a photograph taken by Miss Weimer, after the roof had fallen and the Girls' Hall was entirely consumed.

DAVID ELLIOTT

The erection of the fine building known as Elliott Hall, was made possible by the receipt of a gift of $5,000 from Mr. David Elliott, of LaFayette, Indiana, who expressed the desire that a school might be established among the Freedmen that would be a memorial of Alice Lee Elliott, deceased, his previously devoted wife. It was dedicated to her memory on June 13, 1912.

Elliott Hall is now the commodious and comfortable home of the Oak Hill family. It provides a convenient office for the superintendent, library and reception room, places for the boarding and laundry departments, rooms and bath rooms for the girls. It occupies a beautiful and commanding position on the gentle elevation known as Oak Hill. It stands on the very site previously occupied by the old log house, but parallel with the survey lines. It forms a center around which all other needed buildings can be conveniently and permanently located.

Elliott Hall is the largest and finest of the buildings. .h.i.therto erected at the academy, and the first of the larger ones to be built by the local Freedmen. This noteworthy achievement, occurring so soon after the reopening in 1905, and the introduction of industrial training in the shop as well as on the farm, is suggestive of the real and substantial progress made by the young men.

It is also an encouragement to every patron of this inst.i.tution, for it practically ill.u.s.trates the progress that may be made by every thoughtful and industrious youth. In view of the fact that there are few or no opportunities for the young Freedmen to learn carpentry and painting elsewhere in its vicinity, this achievement becomes one in which every Freedman may justly manifest a laudable pride and express devout thanksgiving.

The memorial offering of Mr. Elliott, that made it possible, is the largest individual donation yet made to this inst.i.tution. It came at a time of our saddest and greatest need. It is a gift to be very greatly appreciated. Every Freedman in the region of country benefited and blessed by this inst.i.tution, may well be profoundly thankful for this manifestation of personal interest in your intellectual and material welfare.

ALICE LEE ELLIOTT

Mrs. Alice Lee Elliott, in memory of whom Elliott Hall and the Oak Hill Industrial Academy were named in 1910, was the faithful and devoted wife of David Elliott, an elder of the Spring Grove Presbyterian church near LaFayette, Indiana. She was the daughter of John and Maria Ritchey, who left Ohio soon after their marriage to found a new home of their own on the frontier in Indiana. She was born, January 7, 1846, and was called to her rest in her sixty-first year, June 27, 1906.

She received a good education in her youth and her marriage occurred March 2, 1875. Three years later she became a member of the Dayton Presbyterian church, of which her husband was already a member, and at once became an earnest and zealous christian worker.

When in later years Mr. and Mrs. Elliott transferred their members.h.i.+p to Spring Grove Presbyterian church, because their services were more greatly needed there, she became a very successful teacher in the Sabbath school and an enthusiastic leader in their missionary work.

She was amiable and winsome. Although she lived amid the surroundings of wealth, she was the constant friend and helper of all cla.s.ses. Her home was always a delightful retreat for the ministers of the gospel and those who represented worthy causes of benevolence and charity. The Bible, the favorite family church paper and the missionary magazine were always on the center table and read regularly.

She was animated with the n.o.ble desire to be eminently useful and took advantage of every opportunity to benefit and bless others. Others were captivated and enthused by her happy, hopeful spirit, and have accorded to her this beautiful tribute, "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

When her voice became silent and her eyelids closed in death it seemed to her surviving husband that she was worthy and the world would be made better by the erection of a living or useful, as well as granite memorial. Accordingly when her last earthly resting place was duly marked with an appropriate granite memorial, he made a donation of $5000 to the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen, for the establishment of an educational inst.i.tution for the benefit of the colored people of this land, that should bear her name.

After the loss by fire of two of the main buildings at Oak Hill Industrial Academy in 1908 and 1910, this fund was used for the erection of a main building--Elliott Hall--and the school has since been called the Alice Lee Elliott Memorial.

The Bible and shorter catechism are to be regularly and faithfully taught to all pupils, as fundamental in the development of a good moral character. The hope is indulged that the beautiful story of her unselfish and eminently useful life will prove an incentive to constant, n.o.ble endeavor on the part of every one that enjoys the privileges of the inst.i.tution that now bears her honored name.

ENDOWMENT

Other friends who have it in mind to leave a legacy to this greatly needed inst.i.tution, will do well to consider the propriety, if possible, of sending the funds to the Freedmen's Board while living, as Mr.

Elliott did, and receive from the Board, if desired, an endowment bond bearing interest payable annually to the donor, during the continuance of the donor's life. By this arrangement the gift becomes a profitable source of annual support to the donor, and an immediate benefit to the inst.i.tution, without costs and discounts.

XXVIII

UNFAVORABLE CIRc.u.mSTANCES

LOSS OF HELPERS AND BUILDINGS.--BOLL WEEVIL.--STATEHOOD CHANGES.--EFFICIENT SERVICE REQUIRED.--INFERENCES.--BURDENS AND FRIENDS.

"All these things are against me."--Jacob.

The new era, that had been so auspiciously continued for three years, and gave promise of rapid and substantial material development, was destined soon to be interrupted by the experience of three dark days that occurred, one soon after the other.

On June 5, 1908, one week after the end of the term and after three and one half years of faithful and efficient service as a matron, the death of Miss Adelia M. Eaton occurred at the inst.i.tution.

On the 7th of November following the Boys' Hall, and most of its contents were consumed by fire.

In the spring of 1909 Mrs. Flickinger experienced a serious injury by falling from the open conveyance while on the way to Valliant, and, going home for treatment during the summer was unable to return in the fall and resume her former duties.

On March 13, 1910, the Girls' Hall, laundry, smokehouse, wood house and Old Log House, together with most of their contents, suddenly disappeared in smoke.

Nothing was then left of this cherished and promising inst.i.tution, except the chapel, temporary hall for the boys, built the previous year, and a lot of ashes and burned rubbish, the sight of which suggested the loss of comforts and working outfit; hopes and plans indefinitely deferred if not completely blasted, and the expenditure of a vast amount of labor and time to replace and refurnish the buildings destroyed; and the utter impossibility of any immediate recovery from the oft-repeated and fatal checks imposed on the enrollment, ever since the loss of the Boys' Hall in 1908.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOYS' HALL 1895-1908]

Two rays of light relieved the darkness of the gloom that followed the experience of these staggering losses.

(1). All of the lady helpers manifested the real spirit of missionary heroes. Presuming they were greatly needed during the period of reconstruction, instead of running away when there seemed to be no suitable place for them, they discovered a readiness to suggest possible and acceptable arrangements for their comfort. (2) There was also available for a.s.sistance, a clever squad of intelligent and trained student boys, one of whom, having served for a term as an a.s.sistant teacher, was believed to be capable of serving as a foreman of the carpenters; thus making it possible to erect buildings entirely by the aid of colored workmen and princ.i.p.ally by student labor.

THE BOLL WEEVIL

In 1903 the Mexican boll weevil in its northward migration from Brownsville, Texas, crossed Red river and, during the next seven years, continued to deprive the farmers in the country north of that river of all profit on the cotton, their princ.i.p.al money crop; and greatly to injure the corn, their food crop. These long repeated ravages of the weevil came at a time when the colored people were by no means prepared to meet them.

In 1904 and 1905 they had been allotted 40 acres of unimproved timber lands appraised at $3.23 an acre, or $130. The allotment was the occasion of many changes in their location. They were really pioneer settlers, in their own native country and without funds to make needed improvements. They were happy in the possession of a home they could call their own, and entertained great hopes for the future. But this new and destructive pest, year after year for seven years, completely checked the prosperity they had so hopefully antic.i.p.ated. The years came and went and they had nothing to sell worthy of mention to bring them money.

In April 1905, at the first meeting of the Presbytery after the reopening, many of the colored people voluntarily and enthusiastically united in making pledges for the purchase of the land needed for the buildings and farm at Oak Hill. But of the many generous hearted friends, who united in pledging about $300.00 at this time, only ministers and teachers receiving aid from the board, and a couple of others ever became able to pay these pledges.

Parents bringing their children to school, with only a few or no dollars in hand, would make pledges of payment during the term. The amount proposed was $25.00 for boarding a pupil seven months, about one half the real cost. When they became convinced they had no money to send, some would send for their children during the term, while others would leave them at the end of the term without notice, and even make it necessary for the superintendent to pay their way home.

These disappointing experiences had a two-fold effect on the school.

They meant the loss, not merely of some expected income, but almost invariably of the pupil and patron, and the constant change of the student body prevents the development of the higher grades which must be reached by the students, if the school is to accomplish its mission, namely the training and development of christian teachers.

The term reports of the last eight years will show that all the full term students that continued long enough to reach the higher grades, 7th and 8th, were self supporting ones, who were either sent to remain at the academy during the vacation periods until they completed their course, or were accorded the opportunity to work out a part of their expenses at the academy. The full term students whose boarding was entirely paid by their parents did not average a half dozen a term.

Inability to provide for their board, meant the loss of the brightest and most promising pupils of the earlier years, about the time they reached the fifth grade. But a good boarding school can be developed only where the conditions are favorable for the continuance of the pupils from year to year, until they reach the higher grades. The fact that the 7th and 8th grades were reached only during the last two years and then only by the self-supporting young people is quite suggestive, not merely of a past embarra.s.sment, but of that which should be an important feature in the future management of the inst.i.tution, namely, a constant endeavor to increase the opportunities for young people to support themselves by the employment furnished at the inst.i.tution.

STATEHOOD CHANGES

Another embarra.s.sment was experienced as a result of the changes incident to the establishment of statehood.

The const.i.tutional convention that met at Guthrie, the old capital, Jan.