READYVILLE SCHOOL BLACK early 1900’s-1940 was in Cannon County at Readyville near the Rutherford County line. It was on the east side of Porterfield Road about one block north of Tilford’s saw mill and the Woodbury Road.
Children from both Cannon and Rutherford Counties attended
the school.
The school, which at one time had been the Colored Church of Christ, was a one-room building with a front door. Grades one through eight were taught.
Among the teachers were Mary Meadows from Nashville, Willie Crockett Miller, Mary Hudson, Lillian Jordan Hammons in 1928, Frank Knight, Miss Harris, Eugene Smith, Bud Brandon, a Watkins, a North, a Frazier, and Ola Bell Hutchins, the last teacher.
Family names of students from Rutherford County were Robinson, Brandon, Swafford, Knight, Jones, Dunn, Jakeway, McKnight, Sanders, Odom, Laws, Martin, and Floyd.
When HICKORY GROVE SCHOOL BLACK was closed in the 1930’s, the children were sent to READYVILLE BLACK. The children walked except in inclement weather when Jack Coleman would pick them up in his school bus and take them to the Woodbury Road. There he would pick up white
children bound for KITTRELL.
When READYVILLE SCHOOL BLACK was consolidated with a Woodbury school, three Rutherford County students, among them Andrew Dunn, were bused to Woodbury to finish their last year in the eighth grade. Other Rutherford County students went to SQUIRREL HILL BLACK.
The only remains of READYVILLE SCHOOL BLACK are the concrete steps.
SOURCES: Rutherford County, School Superintendent’s Office, School Records under “Readyville.” Interviews, Feb. 5, 1986, with Willie Bell Dunn, b. 1900; Nov. 28, 1983, with Lawyer Brandon, student who graduated about
1937; Nov. 28, 1983, with Nonnye Robinson Brown, student, 1928-1936; Nov. 30, 1983, with Willie Jones, student in the late 1920’s; Dec. 1, 1983, with Lillian Jordan Hammons, teacher in 1928; Nov. 30, 1983, with Alline Robinson Newsom, student; Dec. 3, 1983, with Andrew Dunn, student.
*Mary Lawrence Barker Oliver.