Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Fleming High School Class of 1942

Class Colors:  Red and White
 
Class Flower:   Red Rose
 
Class Motto:  The door to success is labeled "Push".
 
This is the Fleming High School Class of 1942. 
 
 
Row 1: Vernon D. Gooch, Irene Kincer, Lois Marie White, Gladies Lee Sexton, Alberta Baker, Mildred Hope Tolliver, Graydon Vester “G. V.” Olive, Jr.
 
Row 2: Anna Elizabeth Goodson, Johnny Fulton, Jr., Lena Ellen Trinkle, Oscar Townson Watson Jr., Matthew Richardson
 
Row 3: Roy Tyler Reasor, Jr., Freddy Isaac Hazen, Etta Roberta Adkins, Mary Catherine Belt, Linnia Arlena Knox.
 
Row 4: Cora Bentley, Anna Parsons, Neldleen Dale, Virginia Ruth Blankenship
 
Row 5: Victoria Araco, Martha Stapleton, Archie Garrett, Pearl McMillan, Dalna Earline Wampler.
 
Those classmates not in the picture were: Marie Bartley, Bonnie Bentley, Nerva Gibson, Lenora Holbrook, Jack W. Jenkins, Thomas Wheeler Justice, Elmo Everett Parrish, Jimmie Pigg, George Winfred Sisk, Pauline Stapleton, Samuel Clinton Webb, and Helen Marie Yonts.
 
They took their senior trip by going to Cumberland Falls on a day trip.
 
When Johnny Fulton was looking for this picture, he got to thinking about his classmates and asked me how my mom got to school since there was no bus service and he knew she didn't have a car.  I told him she had walked.  I told him what I knew of her route and he wrote out this remembrance:
 
 
  • Off and on over the years I have thought of a classmate of mine in the 1942 class at Fleming High School. The classmates name was Cora Bentley.
  • She lived at the head of Millstone. What I have been wondering all these years is “how did Cora get to school?” I mean you would be amazed at how many students in those days did not have access to an automobile. There were zero student driven cars parked at the school. There was no school bus service to Millstone. Without a car or a school bus, how did Cora get to and from school?
  • Through a series of coincidences and Will Buntin's help, I have gotten in touch with Cora’s daughter, and we have been corresponding. One of the things she has told me is how her mom, Cora, got to school.
  • She walked.
  • She walked several miles on unpaved roads. She walked over a mountain. She walked a mile or so through a worked-out, dark as a dungeon coal mine shaft, and she made that trip twice a day while school was in session for four years. Alone. To the best of my knowledge she was very seldom late or absent and she managed to look beautiful and fresh as a daisy all the darn time.
  • Count your blessings, all you school kids.

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