Tag: educators

[ARTIFACT] My grandmother’s 1943-1944 Kentucky Education Association (KEA) membership card

My grandmother’s Kentucky Education Association, Inc. membership card, 1943-1944.

1943-1944

Kentucky Education Association Incorporated and Commonwealth of Kentucky seal

This Certifies That

Mrs. Pleas Mathews Co. Jessamine

having paid the annual fee of $1.50, plus the Regional District dues, which includes subscription to the Kentucky School Journal, is an active member of the KENTUCKY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION (incorporated) and the Regional District Association for the year dated July 1, 1943 to June 30, 1944.

James Richmond President

W. P. King Secretary Treasurer

BRING THIS CARD TO THE CONVENTION

As I sit pondering this, there opens up potential sources for discovery, including archives of KEA and copies of the Kentucky School Journal. And, I wonder what the conventions were all about. And, how hard was it to spare that $1.50 and other dues?

In ’43-44, Fanny Dean was wife of farmer Pleas, disabled WWI veteran who had one of his clavicle bones removed, which profoundly impacted life on ol’ homeplace. She was a mother of four children (12yo, 11yo, 9yo, 6yo) and would give birth to her fifth in August 1944. Teaching. Farming. Moming. Caregiving. Did she ever sleep?

Given those realities, I am curious whether she had to live away from the family while teaching, as was a common practice of the time. That would have been even more challenging for the family on the homeplace. Traveling to and from the schoolhouse on a daily basis would have left very little time for much else. It would likely not have been by motor vehicle.

Many more inquiries in my head. More research rabbit holes with questions I may never answer. I am not deterred.

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that.Kentucky.girl

A 6th-generation Kentuckian on a journey to find out – follow along

  • [ARTIFACT] 1984: The Jessamine Journal, Thursday, October 18, 1984

    SENIOR CITIZENS ENTER FLOAT IN JAMBOREE PARADE – Jessamine County Senior Citizens Center entered an “Autumn Memory” float in the Jamboree Parade, held here October 6. Tagging along behind the entry was a horse-pulled wagon carrying other seniors. Pictured on the float are O. F. Sanders, David Willhoite, Cleo Willhoite, Mary Shearer, Arval Durham, Violet…

  • [ARTIFACT] 1776 Deed: James Douglass, Jessamine Co, KY

    This deed is the legal origination of land that eventually served as my father’s family childhood homeplace. James Douglass was an appointed deputy surveyor of Colonel William Preston, county surveyor, when Kentucky was known as Fincastle County of Virginia. In April 1774, Douglass joined John Floyd, Hancock Taylor (uncle to future US President Zachary Taylor),…

  • PHOTO: Spot and Violet

    Spot, the Faynes’ farm dog, from my grandmother’s youth. Violet Fayne and her family lived in and around Little Hickman along Sugar Creek Pike in Jessamine County. She was the middle sibling of the five children and was born in June 1913. If she was still living at home when this photograph was taken, it…

  • [ARTIFACTS] Obituary keepsakes from January 1963

    In Memoriam HERALD-LEADER Lexington, Ky. January 8 1963 Mrs. Martha B. Corman Mrs. Martha Bradshaw Corman, 81, the widow of Suber* Corman, died at 7 p.m. Sunday at St. Elizabeth Hospital, South Fort Mitchell. She was a native of Lexington. Mrs. Corman lived at 6 Floral Avenue in South Fort Mitchell and was a member…

  • [ARTIFACT] 1906 Deed: Corman, Henry H. to James M. Lowry, Jessamine Co, KY

    The transcription below is my attempt to decipher the handwriting and legal jargon of the late 1800s. You will notice question marks and placeholder text that informs my research. Additionally the FAN (friends, acquaintances, neighbors) approach yields rich opportunities with the names of Stifers, Rhorer, Welch, Campbell, etc. The deed is the third in a…

  • Violet’s biography

    A resource* housed in the Jessamine County Public Library on Main Street, Nicholasville, KY, was published as a commemorative Jessamine County history and included individual citizens’ written accounts. My grandmother, Cutters, contributed her own biography which was included in this publication. What I find funny or ironic is that whoever proofread or otherwise made an…

PHOTO: The Corman Carers

You might say educating is in my blood and these women were paramount in my own formation. Educators, living their Christian service and love instilled by the Shaker-educated youth of Martha Jane Bradshaw Corman, mother, and three of her daughters – Madeline, Viola & Fanny Dean. Two of the sisters taught school at the elementary and middle grades in northern Kentucky while the other, my grandmother, taught in one-room school houses throughout the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, specifically Jessamine County, with names like Sweet Home and Oak Hill.

Fully enjoying summers traveling, they invited the grandchildren-age generation of cousins on their annual summer trips across all these United States. The ORIGINAL aunt camp (*credit: S. C. Mathews – I see you Pebby). And, the original Ya-Ya’s, as we say in our family.

Photo: (left to right) Iva Madeline Corman, Martha Jane Bradshaw Corman, Viola Josephine Corman, and Fanny Dean Corman Mathews, my grandmother.

I remember visiting Frankenmuth, Michigan, as well as author and artist Gwen Frostic’s studio/visitor center in Benzonia. I have a beautiful collection of her work gifted to me, purchased by me and bequeathed to me through the estates’ transitions. It is on that trip with Aunt Vi & Aunt Madeline that I began with Christmas tree ornaments collecting as mementos from my travels.

It feels as though caring is woven in my DNA and was nurtured along by simply spending time with my great-aunts. My grandmother passed when I was in 4th grade living in Pittsburgh, PA, and my memories with her are fuzzy. When I look around my home, I pause to appreciate the things from my family, much of which ties back to them. Any artifact’s value perhaps felt priceless only to me, ultimately. It is the STORIES I crave and these hand-me-downs bring the memories and my soul to rejoice. I want to protect and preserve.

Maybe my heart’s call as service to others honors my ancestors, lives out in legacy. I can confirm I am a lifelong learner – and, most often the hard way. But, if it comes from the heart, is it ever wrong? Let me tell you, if you keep with these ancestry storylines I’m putting down – along the way, your heart will ache. Fair warning.

But, let’s first take a moment to reflect with some levity. Where my educators AT?!

Check out this excerpt from my WKU folk studies professor William Lynwood Montell’s 2011 publication, Tales from Kentucky One-Room School Teachers:

In 1872, the Kentucky State Legislature formally mandated its nine “Rules for Teachers”:

  1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, trim the wicks and clean chimneys.
  2. Each morning teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
  3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
  4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they attend church regularly.
  5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or any other good books.
  6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
  7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
  8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good cause to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
  9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week for his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Okay, with so much to unpack here, is it even possible? Take a moment. Read it again. Read it aloud to someone. I wonder how much of this was still codified when my grandmother was a one-room school house teacher almost 50 years later.

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Ever learning, ever loving

that.Kentucky.girl