Curtis School Reunion Coming Up

Drawing of Curtis School as Carolyn Wilson Johnson remembers it

This Saturday, October 13, alumni of Curtis School which was located 8 miles from Opp and 8 miles from Elba, AL, will gather for the 22nd reunion. Some of the older alumni wanted to have a school reunion in the 1980's and my aunt Mattie Lena talked me into organizing one. I was living in Winston-Salem, NC and had helped with my Elba High School 30th reunion and my aunt said I was "experienced" and knew what to do. I contacted one of my classmates from Curtis School, Janice Cowen Hudson, and she said she would help. Thus the Curtis reunion was "born". The school closed in 1967 and students started attending school in surrounding towns, mostly at Elba. A few years later the school burned, along with records of the school that had been left in the building.

An Alabama Historical sign was purchased with donations and installed at the site of the old building where the Coffee Co. Farmers Cooperative store is now located. When I was trying to get the historical sign approved, I was asked if there were any outstanding alumni from the school in order for them to approve the historical marker. I replied that there were so many that there wouldn't be room to list them all! So they used the narrative I sent, listing principals and date school opened, etc.

HISTORY OF CURTIS SCHOOL

The site of the first Curtis School is where New Ebenezer Baptist Church now stands on Highway 141 South, Elba (Curtis Community). The Coffee County courthouse discarded all records pertaining to Curtis School, therefore the exact date of organization cannot be determined. Interviews with some older residents indicate 1900.

Mrs. Lucy Grimes Donaldson, born in Nov. 1893, and interviewed just a few years ago, stated that she first attended school at the Foley Schoolhouse which was a one room school located about 2 ½ miles west of Curtis, on what is now Hwy. 84. The land was donated by William (Bill) Foley, and is now owned by Mrs. Enoch (Jimmie Lou) Cowen.
About 2 years after Miss Lucy started to school, Foley School disbanded and a new building was erected near the present site of New Ebenezer Baptist Church. It was named Curtis School. This was in the early 1900’s. There were other small schools in the vicinity; Mt. Zion, Danley’s Cross Roads and Rhodes School.

An increase in population required a larger, more centralized building. Mt. Zion, Rhodes and Curtis schools consolidated in 1926 and a building was erected at the present site of the Coffee Co. Farmers Cooperative, commonly called Curtis Coop. Danley’s Cross Roads school joined them in 1931.

Before the schools were consolidated, students walked to and from school. This was usually the highlight of the day. Friends were made, disputes of the day were settled and sometimes fights broke out along the way.

After consolidation, busses were provided to transport the students. The busses were owned by the individuals who drove them. Some of these were: Jim Cowen, Arthur Johnson, J. C. Jones, Grafton Young, Mixon Young, and Dick and Dot Daniels.

The school closed for a short time during the depression despite the efforts of parents and teachers. The teachers taught without pay and some families provided free board for the teachers.

In 1940 the building was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in the same location, and school resumed operations in the new building sometime in l941. During the construction of the new building, students attended school in surrounding churches. Grades 1, 2, and 3 used New Ebenezer Baptist Church; grades 4, 5, and 6 used the Church of Christ building at Danley’s Cross Roads; and, grades 7, 8, and 9 used the Bethany Primitive Baptist Church building located on Hwy 166, about 1 mile east of Danley’s Cross Roads.
The new school building was completed in time for the 1941-42 school term, but had no indoor plumbing or lunchroom facilities. Indoor plumbing was installed about 1944. During the school year of 1945-46, a lunchroom was established. Some of the

first cooks wereLena (Mose) Grimes, Bonnie Taylor, and Buna Daniels. Other cooks were Sallie Jacobs, Jessie Lee Donaldson, Fannie Foley, and Cora Donaldson.

The school also had music teachers during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Mrs. Mary Ringsdorf was the first teacher, then Mrs. Lena (Mose) Grimes.

Curtis School always had a good basketball team and good coaches. Mr. E. C. Griffin was coach and also principal. He held this position until the school closed. When the school first consolidated, there was also a girls basketball team and on Friday afternoons, they played other area schools. The smaller children looked forward to this.

The teachers worked hard for minimal pay during those years, and for that we owe our gratitude. They not only helped to educate us, but instilled character-building values. Some of those teachers were: John Grimes, Miss Maude Byrd, Viola Byrd, Lucille Campbell, Tex Kilpartick, Hazel Grimes Lee, Lena Grimes, Doris Pinckard, Jean Lee Johnson, Hilda Lunsford, Mary Ringsforf, Frances Taylor, Jean Meacham, Cammie Ballard Johnson, Arvie D. Fuller, Ora Kelley, Mae Morris, Syble Wise, Evelyn Hocutt, and others. The principals who served were: C. H. Byrd, J. E. Cheatam, Dan B. Nelson, F. T. Walton, R. L. Farris, and E. C. Griffin.

Father time took its toll on Curtis Junior High School, as it did many other country schools. The rural population slowly shifted to the cities and small towns where the factories, mills and other industries offered employment for the parents. Farming had become mechanized and many of the farm workers were no longer needed. Modern transportation provided students the opportunity to attend larger, more progressive schools. All of this meant too few students left
in the country schools.

Curtis Junior High School closed at the end of the 1966-67 school term. It was indeed a sad day. A few years later, the building was destroyed by fire completely erasing all visible evidence of the school. Nothing can erase the memories in the hearts and minds of the men and women who attended school at Curtis.

The land on which the building previously stood, was purchased by Charles Cowen in 1974 who erected the present building and established Curtis Seed and Feed business. Cowen sold the business to Coffee County Farmers Cooperative in 1978.
(This article was researched and compiled by: Jimmie Lou Smith Cowen and her daughters, Janice Cowen Hudson and Mary Cowen Flagg, for a previous Curtis reunion.)

Sugar Cane and Syrup-Soppin' tales

Today a friend told me they were going to a "Syrup-Sopping Festival" near Auburn next week-end. My, how the memories start coming back to me about syrup making days on the farm.
                                              
My dad always had a cane patch at the edge of the field. We had to help plant the cane, which was cut in short lengths, and then laid end to end in a trench and covered with soil. In the fall, several stalks of cane had been placed in a hole dug in the ground and covered with pine straw and sand to keep the cane from freezing in the winter. Little green shoots would come up and become cane stalks during the summer. I copied a photo from the internet to show a cane field.


Around Thanksgiving time, and often on Thanksgiving day, we went to the cane field to "strip" the cane. I really dreaded this chore because I was short and the cane leaves had sharp edges and would always cut my arms and face as we walked thru the field, stripping the leaves off the stalks of cane with sharp knives. Daddy would come along and cut the stalks, then chopping off the top leaves and stack the cane in a big pile to be picked up later and taken to the cane mill near "the spring". That part I always enjoyed - picking up the cane stalks and feeding them through a machine to squeeze out the juice. We loved drinking the foamy cane juice, especially after it was chilled. Many people used mules to turn the cogs on the press to squeeze out the juice. Our dad was a good inventor and he rigged up a gasoline motor to turn the wheels on the press. In later years he hooked up his tractor with a belt to the cog machine.


The juice followed a sluice from the machine to the vat where it was filtered through a piece of burlap before going into the syrup pan to be heated. The material collected in the filter was dumped into a large wooden barrel called the "Pummings" barrel. This was collected for several days during syrup making (daddy make syrup for all the neighbors). After a couple of warm days, it started fermenting and was covered with honey bees. One day we went to the area where the cane mill was located to milk the cows nearby at the cowpen, and the hogs were rolling all over the place and squealing and acting funny. They were drunk!! They had gotten into the pummings barrel. They started chasing my granddaddy and one actually bit him and he had to go to the doctor.
While the cane juice was cooking for 4 or 5 hours, a large dipper was used to skim the foam off the top. When it became dark syrup, daddy would remove the "stopper" at the end of the vat and fill tin buckets with the thick syrup. It was so good on cold winter mornings, and we ate it with hot buttered biscuits, sausage, and I really like pouring it over salmon patties (which I still do today). We would put a hole in the side of a biscuit, add a little butter, and fill the hole with syrup and this was a delicious snack when we came home from school. I must show my granddaughters how to make "syrup and biscuits" when we get together again. It's difficult to find pure cane syrup anymore. And when you do, it's very expensive. The empty syrup buckets were put to good use. Many were used as lunch buckets for school. They came in handy for picking blackberries and huckleberries. After a few months they would start to rust and new ones would have to be bought for the next syrup making.


When we retired and moved to the farm in 1996, the old syrup cooking vat was still there and we cleared away the vines, etc. to expose the brick fireplace where the vat sat on top. The old fire grates were still inside the brick structure, and the old metal chimney rusty so it was taken down. The metal pan had rusted and fallen apart so we removed the remnants and made a flower bed inside the structure. I'll post a photo when I can locate one in my collection.

The cane mill was sold to my Cousin Coleman Redmond when my father died. He set it up near his home and every fall would grind cane and make some cane juice. He gave us some and I liked it but Jim had a hard time trying to drink it. Maybe it's because he never had any as a child and it wasn't a special treat for him. I'll admit it didn't look very appetizing!

People I've met along the way

In July, 1984, I went to Los Angeles to attend the American Home Economics annual meeting as a delegate from NC. I took some extra time to tour Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knotts Berry Farm and some other sights. It was Donald Duck's 50th birthday and also mine in 1984. I had my photo made with Donald for James. Right away he wanted to go to the "real" Disneyworld. He had been to the one in Florida but knew there was one in Calif. long before there was on in FL. Later we took him to Disneyland and that is another story for another time.

On a VIP tour of Universal Studios, we were taken "behind the scenes" and got to see things and people the public doesn't normally get to see. We were traveling in a trolley when we stopped for traffic and guess who was walking to the studio right beside our trolley. None other than Arnold (from Different Strokes TV show) and his pal Michael Jackson. They were on their way for Arnold to tape one of his programs. I had seen Arnold on his TV show but I had no idea who this Michael Jackson fellow was. That is until I showed James this photo, and he said, "Michael Jackson!"This was before he became well known. We were told by our tour leader that Michael and Arnold were best friends.

While living in Haleyville in 1986, I was a Chairperson of a national committee and attended the Amer. Home Economics annual meeting in Kansas City, KS. Senator Nancy Kassebaum sat at our table at a luncheon one day. I had lived in Kansas in the 1950's and enjoyed talking to her. She was at the meeting to speak on behalf of the Equal Rights Admendment. She was the first woman to be elected to the US Senate without succeeding her husband into the job. She was a Kansas Republican Senator for three terms. She told me that her father, Kansas Gov. Alfred Langdon, ran for Pres. against Franklin Roosevelt and was badly beaten. He was proud of her for winning her senate seat. After graduating from college and working awhile at Hallmark as a receptionist, she stayed at home and lived on their farm and raised her children. Then she decided to enter politics and she separated from her husband and left Kansas and took the kids to Washington, DC. I was fascinated with her ambition. I have followed her political life with great interest since that day. She later married Howard Baker and is now Nancy Langdon Kassebaum Baker. She left the senate in 1997. She is only 2 years older than I.

On being the first grandchild

I was the first grandchild for both sets of grandparents. I was born at home on November 25, 1934 in the Curtis community between Elba and Opp, AL. My parents were living in a small frame house next door to his parents. Not long after I was born, we moved in with Mama and Papa Wilson.

They then rented the frame house to sharecroppers who helped on the farm. One family was the Stewarts, parents of Alberta Martin, the last surviving confederate widow, who is buried with her parents at New Ebenezer Baptist Church (Curtis) cemetery. Her father played the fiddle. I don't remember them living there. I just remember people living there but don't know much about them. When I was around 10 years old, the house was torn down and my father built a sawmill on the site.

My dad was one of the few people in our area who owned a car. He was a good mechanic and kept all the neighbors cars running. When I was a baby, I was told that he and mother would put me in the car and ride around in the evenings when it was so hot, so I would go to sleep. The roads were not paved so it must have not been a very smooth ride.

My mother was one of the oldest in her family so she had lots of siblings at home when she got married. The younger ones were very jealous of me (they told me this). They did not want their mother (Mama Smith) to leave home to help take care of my mother and me when I was born. My Aunt Ida, was was 15 when I was born, tells me that she had to prepare Thanksgiving dinner when I was born and she didn't really know how to cook. Mama Smith was not a good cook and didn't teach her daughters how to cook either.

I was not the only grandchild for very long since Christine was born on Christmas Day, 1936. Eventually there were 6 girls and 1 boy in our family, with the boy in the middle. I ended up with 25 first cousins and I was #1 (the oldest that is)!!

My First Christmas Memory - 1937

Nell and 1-year-old Christine - Dec 1937

When I was 3 years old, I received a "Little Mother's Laundry Set" and I remember that so well. I remember setting up the little folding ironing board and mother heating the little tin iron (I wonder what kept it from melting) and I would iron and iron. And we considered that fun? There was a clothes line and some little wooden clothes pins in the box and mother would tie the clothes line between some posts so I could hang out my "laundry". Kids would not be happy receiving an ironing board and iron in these modern times!

We were living in this big house with my paternal grandparents. The two big arborvitae bushes (evergreens) at the edge of the doorsteps were also useful when ironing. Mother would break off the end of a limb about the size of her hand and place it near the end of the ironing board to smooth her hot iron when the starch started sticking to it. She would place the iron on the greenery and I can still remember the

fragrant odor from the hot evergreen limb. These irons were very hot when she would take them off the stove or from in front of the fire in the fireplace. They were called "sad irons". One meaning of sad in nineteenth century dictionaries was "heavy." Although many of these irons were small, they were very heavy. Thus the name "sad irons'. I used to think they were called "sad irons" because people were sad to have to iron! So you can see my fascination with owning my own iron and ironing board! I was mother's little helper.

My mother's ironing board was a board about 12 inches wide and about 5 feet long, tapered at one end and wrapped with an old sheet for the ironing board cover. She placed the board between two ladder-back chairs or placed one end on a table and the other end on the back of the chair. She would lower the ironing board for us to use as we got old enough to handle the hot iron. We used a folded cloth to hold the red hot handle. Some irons had wooden handles but they were more expensive. I always burned my hand or arm when I had to iron. I DID NOT like to iron when I got older and this chore was assigned to me. I was the oldest of 7 so I had to do a lot of ironing. We didn't get electricity (REA) until I was in the third grade. And much later we got an electric iron.

Probably that red wagon was a Christmas gift also. We always had a red wagon around when I was growing up, but never got one with wooden "sides" on it - and I always wanted one of those. I guess they were too expensive. Looking back at the photo, those shoes I was wearing had buttons for the straps, not buckles. I remember how hard they were to fasten and I was glad when my new shoes were not "high tops" and had buckles, not buttons. When I was 4 or 5 I got some black patent leather Mary Jane's and I loved my new shoes. We would use a left-over biscuit to "shine" our patent leather shoes (I guess all the fat in the biscuit made the shoes shiny).

Riding an elephant

I had always wanted to ride an elephant (loved Rudyard Kipling's Jungle stories) and I got my wish in the summer of 1982 at the Cincinnati Zoo. I was attending the American Home Economics Association annual meeting and one evening we were treated to a picnic at the zoo.

Zookeepers were on hand to answer questions and to give tours. I saw the elephant and asked if I could have a ride. For some reason, there wasn't a line formed for this ride. I wonder why?  You climed up the steps and the elephant handler moves the elephant near the steps. Then you sorta jump up to get on the elephant seat. It's a little tricky with the rail around the seat. It is much easier to get on than to get off! My legs are so short that once seated, they stuck out on the elephant's sides. I felt very awkward. The trainer took the rope and led me all over the Cincinnati zoo - what a view from up high. We were going along and the elephant stopped and was looking around. I was so scared. I didn't know what he might do. He saw a pool of water and decided to walk over and get a drink. I just knew I would roll over the top of his head and fall in the pool when he leaned over to get a drink of water. Fortunately the seat was fastened to his back and I held on as tight as I could to keep from falling off.

I decided to pat the elephant's head and found the little hairs on top of his head were like thin steel spikes sticking up.


I got a lot of stares from the people in the park. Except for being a little nervous, I had fun and it was a new experience for me.


I drove from Winston-Salem, NC to Cincinnati, traveling along the Ohio River for a long way. The scenic drive was beautiful. I came home via interstate highways and that was a little boring.
I was an officer in the NC Home Economics Association and a delegate from NC to the AHEA annual meeting. Another highlight of the meeting was a dinner cruise on a big steamship on the Ohio river going northwest from Cincinnati. I remember the beautiful sunset over the high cliffs along the river. And the good German food we had that night, and German band.

My first (and only) deep sea fishing trip

In February 1986, we were living in Haleyville, AL. I took a trip to Myrtle Beach, SC that month to have some maintenance work done at our condo there. A friend, Nancy Stovall, went with me. One day while we were having new carpet installed in the condo, we decided to go deep sea fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. This was a new experience for me. We went on a 1/2 day trip and since it was off-season and not many tourists wanting to to fishing, the boat captain took us a long way out into the ocean and we were gone almost all day. I can remember how hungry we were since we didn't take any lunch so the captain shared his food and drinks with us. Everybody was having a good time. Nancy and I were the only two females on the voyage. Most of the others were serious fisherman and tried to tell us what we were doing wrong.

I was amazed at how easy it was to catch fish on the huge fishing poles containing several large hooks. Once I caught 3 fish at one time! I almost fell overboard once when something so big and strong almost pulled my pole out of my hand. I had help reeling it in and it was a big white sand shark! One of the fishermen wanted it to eat and to take the teeth to his grandson. I gladly gave it to him. I caught mostly black sea bass and when the red basket was almost full, I stopped fishing. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all those fish. Nancy caught about the same amount. When we got off the boat, we saw people cleaning their fish at a table near the landing and we offered to pay them to clean our fish, and they did. We bought a styrofoam cooler and filled it with ice and packed our fish on ice and brought them back to Alabama the next day. Jim was very surprised when I showed him the fish I had caught. They were very good to eat, except for the many bones.

My dad taught me how to clean fish when I was growing up and I could have cleaned them myself but it was cold and getting dark when we got back to shore. I was happy to pay someone to do it for me. We got back to the condo, after stopping in Calabash, NC to eat seafood for dinner, and all the condo work was finished and it was ready for another rental season.

We left early the next day to come back to Haleyville. I was happy to have someone with me to help drive on the long trip home.

NOTE: Don't you just love those fashionable glasses I'm wearing!!