Chattanooga: Students recall kindnesses of teachers

By: Clint Cooper
(Contact)

Lillian Hines Smith said she learned some of the principles she later employed as a teacher at the feet of some of her instructors at West Main Street School.

The school, which dates at least to the early years of the 20th century, closed in 1961 when then-Interstate 124 (now U.S. Highway 27) was being constructed. It was later razed.

“One of the best things about that school was they taught you moral principles — moral character,” said Mrs. Smith, who attended from 1935 to 1941.

Staff Photo by Patrick Smith -- Lillian Smith holds a photo of her sixth-grade class at the former site of the all-black West Main Street School. The site is now an on-ramp to U.S. Highway 27 South.

West Main Street School, originally called Main Street, served only blacks in the then-segregated Chattanooga City Schools system. The school was located at the intersection of Main and College streets, near today’s Highway 27 overpass.

The College Hill Courts public housing development was built across from the school in the mid-1940s, said Dr. Arlyce J. Garth, who attended the school from 1940 to 1946.

The all-brick school had two stories over a basement, which contained a cafeteria and a janitor’s residence. A brick or stone wall surrounded the property, which also included a large yard for recreation (where girls and boys were segregated at recess).

West Main Street drew elementary school students from the Westside and Southside areas, Mrs. Smith said. With more the one class per grade, it was larger than many neighborhood schools. At one point in the mid-1950s, at perhaps its high water mark, it had 643 students.

Dr. Garth, 75, said the principal during his years there was strict disciplinarian John Julian.

A trip to the office first meant some time on the bench outside the door while “you waited your turn to have your case heard,” he said. A guilty verdict meant a certain number of licks on the hand with a leather strap, he said.

Mrs. Smith, 79, said she was the youngest of five children to attend West Main Street. Her first-grade teacher, she said, was Jacola Brown Goodwin, who was still teaching at the school when it closed.

“They were good, solid teachers,” she said.

At the time, Mrs. Smith said, students went to school for one semester, then would be promoted to the second semester where they might have a different teacher. In rare cases, students were promoted to the next grade in school, she said.

In the years following the Depression, she said, the school had many poor children, some of whom didn’t receive proper grooming at home.

“The teachers were so caring,” she said. “If the children were unkempt, the teachers would take them in a room, comb their hair, wash their face and made sure they were presentable to sit in the classroom. They just did all that kind of stuff then.”

Elizabeth Perry Parker, 79, remembered similar kindnesses.

“All of the teachers at the time cared about the children,” she said. “They clothed them and fed them lunches, the ones who didn’t have lunch. They’d see to it that all the children ate. They were all congenial.”

Mrs. Smith said West Main Street also had an itinerant teacher, Lena Durroh, who taught handwriting.

“Anybody who went to school during that time had good handwriting,” she said. “You could write when you left that school. A lot of my principles came from her.”

Among regular school activities were chapel programs and talent programs in which the teachers were participants, Mrs. Smith said.

Once, she said, a touring group with a group of animals came from Florida and put on a show.

The chapel programs, according to Ms. Parker, might be student-led, holiday-themed productions or offer involve instruction on how to act in a public place or how to be quiet during a program.

She said a Bible teacher came in twice a week and taught “all the Bible verses” and gave instruction in prayer and devotion.

One year, Mrs. Smith said, students from Arkansas who had been uprooted by a flood came en masse to attend West Main Street School for several weeks. While they were in Chattanooga, regular students went to the newly opened James A. Henry School, she said.

Mrs. Smith, Ms. Parker and Dr. Garth all went on to educational careers themselves.

Mrs. Smith didn’t begin her career until she had been out of West Main Street more than 30 years.

When she enrolled her youngest son in school, she said, she enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She finished her teaching degree in three years, later earned a master’s and taught in the City Schools system for 18 years, including 17 at Clifton Hills Elementary.

Ms. Parker taught for 33 years at Howard, spending time at the elementary, middle and high school levels, mostly in special education.

Dr. Garth, who received his doctorate at Vanderbilt University, taught at both Howard and Riverside high schools and concluded his teaching career at an Alabama college. He said a good foundation at West Main helped him in his career.

“It was a very good school,” he said. “The teachers kind of impressed on you to do your best because nobody was going to give you anything. I enjoyed my days there.”

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