La Vergne School, 1911-1949

LA VERGNE SCHOOL c1911-1949 was on the old Nashville Turnpike, on the same land given by James M. Cowley and wife Mary A. for a school in 1877.

At first a one-room frame building, rooms were added until there were three and the schoolhouse was L-shaped. By 1925 it had four classrooms with a large auditorium, and its estimated worth was $2,000.

A classroom was added in 1931; and another in 1934. Fire caused by a faulty heater broke out in a classroom when Ray Donnell was principal, but
the blaze was extinguished.

In 1936, the building was repaired and so improved by the addition of a heating plant that the structure was valued at $10,000. In 1949 fire caused by a stoker destroyed the entire building then valued
at $25,000.

Classes were held at the La Vergne Church of Christ and the La Vergne Presbyterian Church until another school building could be erected. This school was for pupils grades one through ten.

Students transferred to Smyrna for the last two years of high
school work. In 1925 there were 57 boys and 48 girls enrolled in the elementary section and 14 boys and 11 girls in the high school. By 1934 the enrollment was 138.

Teachers before 1925 were Audrey Williams, Zona Burnett, Sara Lou Sanders, J. E. McCrary, Elizabeth Reeves, Fannie Bell Paul, Liza Evans, Mona Peebles, Edith Gattis, Julia Lytle, Warmuth Peebles, and H.F. Delzell.

Some of the teachers during and after 1925 were H.F. Delzell, Lucille Mason, Lucille Sanders, Kathryn Walker, Sara Bell McDonald, Ray Harris, Bessie McDonald, Kathryn Green, Blanche Harrell, Nellie Malone Parsley, Lorine Waller, Mrs. John Alsup, Mrs. W.B. Carnahan, Vera Coleman, Ray Donnell, Frances Ross, Elsie Hall, Mrs. T.L. Goodman, Pauline Waidron, Mrs. Robert Hunter, Mrs. Lawson Nelson.

Mary Sutton Mason remembers living next door to the school and having ice cream festivals at the home of her father, Will Sutton.

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