Lina McDonald: The First Campus Mystery

Graduating Class of the State Normal and Industrial School, 1893
Lina McDonald is not pictured

Working at the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives is always interesting. Recently, I came across one of the earliest campus mysteries – the tragic accident of a student who lost her life several months before graduation when she was struck by a train and killed, not far from campus.

A Forsyth County native, Miss Lina McDonald was a graduate of Peace Institute (now Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina) and arrived at the State Normal and Industrial School (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) when the doors opened in the fall of 1892. Although she had gained teaching experience in the nearby towns of Winston, Shelby, and Concord, Miss McDonald decided to apply to the State Normal to acquire a certificate and additional experience.  In addition to her responsibilities as a student, she also served as an assistant faculty member and soon took charge of the Department of Vocal Music and Education where she quickly gained the reputation as a conscientious and caring teacher. She was described as having a lovable nature, a good character, and winning cheerfulness which made her well-liked by both the students and the teachers. Her sweet personality and reputation as a powerful teacher made her untimely death an even greater shock to the college and to the community.

The circumstances surrounding the accident were never fully understood. There were no actual witnesses and the last person who saw her alive reported that she was safe on a nearby embankment. What happened next is purely conjecture.



A remembrance of Lina McDonald written by members of the faculty

It was not unusual to find Miss McDonald taking long walks. As an assistant member of the faculty, she was not restricted to campus and she was known to relieve the stress of teaching and studying by walking, either with members of the staff or friends in the community. On the afternoon of January 16, 1893, Miss McDonald was returning from a visit with her friend, Mrs. James Glenn in South Greensboro when her path took her close to the railroad tracks, presumably because it created easier walking conditions in the snow. A local man, T. J. Trent, told authorities that the young woman had passed him while he was making his way south, away from the city. He noted that when she was approximately 200 yards beyond him, she paused and appeared to contemplate her path. She then reversed course and headed back toward to the city, passing him again. About that time, Mr. Trent heard the sound of the oncoming train, but had lost sight of Miss McDonald who he believed had continued to her destination. It was only later that he heard that she had been struck by the train; her body discovered by a local hunter, lying on the track in the snow. Sadly, the engineer had not seen her and the accident had gone unnoticed by the train crew or the passengers.

As a crowd gathered around the lifeless body, no one could identify her. It was only later that evening when someone discovered a college laundry tag reading “Lina McD ” on her clothing that someone remembered a young woman by the name of Lina McDonald attended the State Normal, and college president Charles Duncan McIver was notified. Two days later, McIver and several members of the faculty accompanied Miss McDonald’s remains to her funeral in Raleigh.

The mystery of how she was hit by the train when she was last seen safely on a high embankment was never solved. The official inquest did not hold the engineers responsible for her death and it was generally believed that she may have panicked when she heard the train, causing her to lose her footing and fall on the track. Another proposed explanation was that somehow the train caught part of her clothing, pulling her onto the rails, and causing the train to pass diagonally over her chest. Whatever the circumstances, Lina McDonald was truly mourned and ten years later when asked to write about the first graduates of the State Normal for the campus yearbook, The Decennial, her classmates and colleagues included her in their number.

Charles Duncan McIver and the Rise of Teachers Institutes in North Carolina

Charles Duncan McIver, president and founder of the State Normal and Industrial School (now UNC Greensboro), had an interest in expanding women’s education which began much earlier than the founding of the college in 1891. His dedication to teaching and his commitment to meeting the challenges of educating women in the post-Reconstruction South began during his college years at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). While at the university, he and his classmates, Edwin Alderman and James Joyner, became aware of the miserable condition of education in their state. The young men discovered that the problems stemmed from citizens’ general indifference toward education and their reticence to fund it with tax dollars. They realized that there needed to be deep changes of attitude, as well as legislation, to truly revolutionized North Carolina education.

Charles Duncan McIver with a group of educators at a Teaching Institute

In addition to these educational challenges, North Carolina faced severe economic issues in the years following the end of the Civil War in 1865. Many of the state’s citizens were impoverished, earning meager livings on small farms. The western part of the state was even worse off than the rest, due to its relatively rural and isolated population. In addition to these considerable financial and logistical obstacles, McIver found the state unwilling to embrace change. The population’s general opposition to taxation and state legislation over regional education made the improvement of the public-school system almost impossible. Funding for education, therefore, was sparse. Those who could afford it attended church-affiliated private schools, and those who could not were left with underfunded public alternatives.

After graduation from the University of North Carolina, McIver and Alderman found teaching positions and quickly gained reputations as leaders in public education in North Carolina. In 1886, McIver became Vice-President of the Teachers’ Assembly and began to openly advocate for educating young women to become teachers and help close the state’s abysmal education gap. He understood that providing women with adequate education would afford them a certain amount of freedom and life choices while also helping improve North Carolina’s educational system. Although his ultimate goal was to establish a teachers’ college supported by tax payers’ money, that dream proved to be ahead of its time. Even though the Teachers’ Assembly supported the idea of a woman’s college, it ultimately failed to pass the state legislature in 1887 and 1889.

Charles Duncan McIver and Edwin Alderman

These legislative efforts, while ultimately failures, featured passionate speeches and debate from McIver and his allies. An accomplished and charismatic orator, McIver made a good case to the General Assembly, stating “Is there any good reason why we should make annual appropriations for the benefit of our sons and disregard this modest and only request that our daughters have ever made in that direction?... Unless some such measure as this is adopted, these girls, and those of coming generations similarly situated, are doomed to live and drudge and die without ever having known the blessing of being independent, and frequently without having ever gone beyond the borders of their own counties.” (1)

Yet despite his arguments, the General Assembly was unwilling to support a public women’s college at that time, although, they did approve week-long teachers’ institutes to be given in each county. These institutes would provide professional training to North Carolina teachers (men and women) and would eventually demonstrate to the legislature - and to the public - that this type of training was needed and appreciated.

Rewarding their commitment and perseverance, McIver and Alderman were chosen by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to create the teacher institutes. To help with this monumental task, they were given the charge to recruit others of like mind and abilities, and they engaged their college friend J. Y. Joyner, as well as other committed educators. The men felt that they were facing an uphill battle against deficient schoolhouses, incompetent teachers, lack of uniformity in textbooks, and parental apathy. (2) Thus, they began the grueling task of traveling to each county, attempting to train the over 5000 public school teachers, focusing on how to organize a class, how to manage students, and how to teach effectively. (3)

They held the teaching institutes for three years and they were extremely popular. This was due, not in small part, to McIver’s strong and charismatic personality. His friend James Joyner described him and “the most irresistible and convincing speaker I ever heard,” and Alderman believed that he was “the most effective speaker for public education that I have known in America.” (4)

State Normal and Industrial School

Finally, in 1891, the legislature approved the creation of the State Normal and Industrial School, which was designed to “prepare young women to earn a livelihood in teaching or in business.” The school opened in October 1892, with McIver as its president and Alderman as a professor of English and History. Joyner came later, becoming the head of the English Department on Alderman’s departure.

(1) The Decennial, Greensboro, NC: State Normal and Industrial School, 1902.
(2) Interestingly, the participating teachers would also be asked to assess the program to improve the “efficiency of the system.” Reports of Conductors of County Institutes in North Carolina; Report of Prof. E. A. Alderman, 1889-1990. Charles Duncan McIver Records, 1855-1906, Box 139.
 (3) Ibid.
(4) Notebook, Lula Martin Mclver Papers, Folder 1, Charles Duncan McIver Records, 1855-1906, Box 139.; Edwin A. Alderman, "The Life and Work of Dr. Charles D. Mclver,” North Carolina Journal of Education, 1 (December 15, 1906): 6.
 

The First Day of Class at State Normal, ca. 1892

When a current UNC Greensboro student walks down College Avenue, they see quite a different campus than an earlier student would have experienced. On October 5, 1892, the State Normal and Industrial School welcomed 176 students to the new girls college. There were only three building on the grounds – Main Building (now Foust), Brick Dormitory, and founder Charles Duncan McIver’s home. When the young women arrived, the buildings were new and unfinished, and the campus was not landscaped. It had just recently been a 10-acre corn field surrounded by farms and wood

State Normal students arrive at their new school

That first year, all of the students roomed in the large Brick Dormitory. One girl later remembered that she and her fellow students were collected at the train station and dropped off at the dorm, sitting on either side of the main hall until they were given their room assignments. They students slept four to a room, sharing two double beds. Hailing from all corners of the state, almost 80% grew up on farms. In some cases, it was their first trip out of their own county, and they were both excited and anxious.

Early students spill out of Brick Dormitory

On the first day of class, the girls gathered in Main Building and were asked to form a line according to their height, with the shortest at the front. Then, they marched to the assembly room, which also acted as a chapel, filing uniformly into each row. This allowed the taller students in the back row of desks to have a clear view of the proceedings, as they only had shorter classmates in front of them. This routine continued every morning at 8:45 after the morning bell was rung. President Charles Duncan McIver addressed the students, leading a chapel period, during which he read from the Bible and made general announcements. Dr. McIver also conducted the morning ritual of “mail call,” announcing letters and packages received from home. The students would eventually move to classes, which related to their choice of academic track - pedagogy, home economics, or business. All of the classrooms were located in Main Building. The students also took science courses, such as physiology, which included the study of a real skeleton that the girls named “Miriam” in honor of Miriam Bitting, the first campus physician. 

Dr. McIver with his students

In the early days, the buildings on campus were lit first by oil lamps, then by gas lamps, and finally by electricity. Each student was responsible for her own lamp, as well as for keeping her room clean and her bed made. As there was little money from the state to hire additional kitchen workers, the girls also helped in the large dining hall that was located in Brick Dormitory, taking turns setting the tables, serving the meals, and washing the dishes. 

State Normal students had very little personal freedom during the first years at the school. They had to receive special permission to leave campus and only after passing the inspection of Miss Sue May Kirkland, “lady principal.” Kirkland was “custodian of manners and morals” and “referee in matters social and domestic.” Wearing hats and gloves was mandatory and acting in a proper demeanor was expected at all times. Although Miss Kirkland was committed to decorum, she was also kind and sympathetic and the students were devoted to her.

Miss Sue May Kirkland

Some of the most popular activities on campus were memberships in clubs (such as the YWCA, the bird club, the glee club, the drama club) and literary societies. Although McIver did not allow social sororities on campus, he gave the girls the opportunity to join either the Adelphian or the Cornelian literary society, which hosted debates, plays, dances, teas, and other campus entertainments. The students also valued sports, especially tennis, basketball, and field hockey, which they played in blousy black serge gymnasium outfits with black cotton stockings and leather shoes. Special events were also planned, such as the “County Fair,” which was held in 1894. The outdoor pageant featured students from each county in the state putting on a skit representing a unique characteristic of the area. The fair proved so popular, it was held several times, especially for visitors.

Students participating in the "County Fair"

 As the student population grew during the next few years, the campus began to expand, adding Guilford/Midway Dormitory, the Students’ Building (incorporating classrooms, a large assembly hall, and space for the literary societies), and the Carnegie Library (now the Forney Building). Other buildings disappeared, such as the first barn and Brick Dormitory, which burned to the ground in 1904. As expected, new faculty came to the school, and others moved on. Other changes were unforeseen. The school’s energetic and charismatic founder and first president, Charles Duncan McIver, died in 1906, just a few weeks short of his 46^th birthday. 

Yet, on October 5, 1892, the campus crackled with excitement! The students were thrilled to be a part of the first class of State Normal. They knew that Dr. McIver and Miss Kirkland were at the helm and all was right with the world.

Lucy Robertson: Academic and Activist

While Lucy Henderson Owen Robertson (1850 – 1930) was a member of the staff of State Normal and Industrial College (now UNC Greensboro) for only a short time, she made a lasting impression on the college, the city of Greensboro, and education in the South. Robertson was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, but grew up in Hillsborough, attending Miss Nash and Kollock’s School for Young Ladies, then Chowan Baptist Institute (now Chowan University). Robertson liked to tell the story of when, as a young girl, she visited a palmist who told her fortune. When the woman read her palm, she said that Robertson’s heart and head line were parallel, and it was hard to tell which was longer. She determined at an early age, that it was her heart line.

Lucy Robertson

In 1869, she married Dr. David A. Robertson and moved with him to Greensboro, raising two sons. Perhaps unusual for women of her time, she had a career in academics.  In 1875, she took a position at Greensboro Female College (now Greensboro College) as an assistant in the Literary Department, then head of the English Language and Literature Department. She became a widow at thirty-three years of age and dedicated the rest of her life to teaching.


In 1893, Robertson was enticed to accept a position at the State Normal to teach in the Department of English and History. When the school opened in 1892, this was a combined department, but it was eventually split into separate areas and Robertson became the head of the newly established Department of History. The fact that she was made department head reflects college president Charles Duncan McIver’s willingness to hire women for important positions. McIver may have also liked the fact that she was a native of North Carolina. During the early years, the College took pride in recruiting its professors from the South, specifically North Carolina.

State Normal Faculty, ca. 1893. Lucy Robertson is on the far right

 Described as “tall and graceful, well educated, well-traveled, and vitally interested in people,” Robertson was an immediate favorite with the students of State Normal. She developed a curriculum for the History Department that stressed a “familiarity with the great names and events” and a chronological sense of history. She particularly emphasized Greek and Roman history, medieval history, English history, and U.S. history. The Department used textbooks in all classes, but also encouraged “topical study, parallel reading, and independent research in a library.”

Robertson only taught seven short years at the State Normal before returning to Greensboro Female College in 1900 to accept the position of Lady Principal, and then President. In fact, she became the first woman to hold the office of college president in the state and in the South. She remained President until 1913, when she made the decision to return to teaching. Robertson also spent time traveling both in the United States and overseas, visiting eleven countries.

Annual History Department Report written by Lucy Robertson, 1898

In 1917, as the country began to mobilize for World War I, Robertson was appointed to the Executive Council of the North Carolina Division of the Woman’s Committee.  Specifically, she was chosen as Chair of Child Welfare.  She was considered to have the credentials and experience to be an effective state representative and the connections to recruit students and faculty from North Carolina’s well-established network of women’s colleges for war work.

Robinson was also involved in spheres beyond academics, becoming involved in many organizations and president of the Western Conference of the Women's Foreign Missionary Societies, the United Society of Foreign and Home Missions, and a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Woman's Club of Greensboro.

In her later years, she continued to work, teaching “Bible and Religious Education” at Greensboro Female Academy until a few days before her death in May of 1930. She died in the infirmary of Greensboro College. She was buried in Green Hill Cemetery, Greensboro.

Walter Clinton Jackson and the Documenting of the Great War

This year marks the centenary of the United States’ involvement in World War One.  Over the course of twenty months (April 1917-November 2018), the nation mobilized its military, natural resources, industry, and citizens to fight an overseas war in Europe.  Realizing that maintaining public morale was critical to achieving victory, the federal government and the state of North Carolina promoted the concepts of patriotism, service, and sacrifice.  Here on campus, the students, faculty, and administrators of the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College (now known as UNC Greensboro) rallied to the cause and enthusiastically supported the war effort.  Their activities included: buying Liberty Bonds, training stenographers, making bandages, conserving food, and serving as Red Cross volunteers. 

The school was also deeply involved in documenting the contributions of North Carolinians to the war.  President Foust sought to both promote and document the school as a leader in war work.  For example, President Foust had professional photographs taken of the school’s students canning food, maintaining the grounds on campus, and harvesting crops at its farm.  Copies of these photographs were sent to Raleigh as evidence of the institution’s wartime work.  Moreover, Dr. Walter Clinton Jackson, head of the State Normal’s Department of History, championed the collecting of information detailing women’s war work on and off campus. 

Dr. Walter Clinton Jackson

Responding to a July 1917 letter sent by the North Carolina Historical Committee to President Foust requesting that all “materials bearing on the war” be preserved, Dr. Jackson and the History Department took up the call to collect.  The History Department published a 1917 pamphlet that made the case for documenting women’s war work.  The pamphlet declared that “it is the purpose of the State Normal and Industrial College to make a systematic effort to collect for permanent preservation all the material related to the work of women in this great crisis, so that when the historian who tries to write of woman’s part in the life of former days, he will not lack for ample and correct records.”  The pamphlet asks the reader to direct any communication relative to this work directly to “W.C. Jackson, Greensboro, N.C.”

In 1918, Dr. Jackson and the History Department published three additional pamphlets on collecting war-related materials.  The first publication “Women and the War in North Carolina: Suggestions for the Collection of Historical Material” was widely circulated amongst students and alumnae.  The pamphlet addressed the types of materials found in each of the collecting areas.  These collecting areas included: newspaper clippings, official and semi-official documents, manuscript material, pictorial material, educational material, and propaganda.  Readers were asked to mail any war-related items to Professor Jackson so that “it may be properly filed and preserved at the State Normal and Industrial College.” 

Drawing on the materials received from throughout the state, the second publication, “The State Normal and Industrial College and the War,” detailed the college’s wartime activities that included its work with the Red Cross, the YWCA, food conservation, as well as war-related lectures presented on and off campus.  In a lengthy introduction to the pamphlet, President Foust noted that the responsibility of war work should be shouldered by students and faculty since they enjoyed the advantages of a college education.  The third publication, “Women and the War in North Carolina” was written by students Mabel Tate and Naomi Neal of the Class of 1918.  It reported on the work accomplished by the state’s women from April 1917 to April 1918.   Working with Dr. Jackson, the authors of the report summarized the types of women’s war work performed in the areas of fundraising, knitting and sewing, food production, and nursing activities.  The pamphlet also listed the types of materials being received at the State Normal.

On November 11, 1918, an Armistice was signed and the fighting on the Western Front ended.  When news of the peace reached campus, President Foust allowed students to stage a victory celebration as well as join the citizens of Greensboro for a parade downtown.  With the conclusion of the war and demobilization, many individuals and organizations began to look towards peace-time reconstruction.  The state of North Carolina recognized the need to formalize and centralize documentation efforts.  Legislators felt that these preserved records would serve to honor and commemorate the heroic efforts and sacrifices of its citizens.  In 1919, the state’s General Assembly authorized and funded the position of ‘Collector of War Records.”  The veteran and educator, Robert House was hired to serve as Collector.  To support his efforts, House decided to reactivate and broaden the wartime network of citizen historians.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Walter Clinton Jackson was recruited to help document the homefront mobilization in Guilford County.  A committee of “collectors” for Guilford County was formed in 1919.  Jackson was selected to serve as the committee’s Chairman.  Jackson and the committee developed an ambitious plan to gather documents from local government agencies, civic groups, social organizations, and soldiers.  In 1920, Robert House, the state’s “Collector of War Records,” recognized the successful work of Walter Clinton Jackson and his committee.  He urged other county collectors to embrace Jackson’s collecting model. 

Through the tireless efforts of Professor Walter Clinton Jackson, a substantial number of State Normal records that relate to World War One were preserved.  Jackson met and surpassed his charge to preserve materials relating to women’s war work for future historians.  Indeed, these records can be found both in the department of Special Collections and University Archives at UNC Greensboro as well as in the North Carolina State Archives in Raleigh.  

125 Years Ago: Starting Classes at State Normal

On October 5, 1892 – 125 years ago this week – the doors of the State Normal and Industrial School (now UNCG) opened its doors for an initial class of 198 women from across North Carolina. The institution was originally chartered by the State of North Carolina in February 1891, with a mission of training female teachers and instructing them in “drawing, telegraphy, type-writing, stenography, and such other industrial arts as may be suitable to their sex and conducive to their support and usefulness.” Leading the charge in the establishment and development of the school was Charles Duncan McIver, a staunch advocate for public schools, teacher education, and higher education for women. After the state legislature approved funding, McIver was named the first president of the State Normal.

View of the State Normal campus from Spring Garden Street, 1894

Four North Carolina communities put forth offers to be the home for the new school: Durham, Graham, Thomasville, and Greensboro. Ultimately, Greensboro won due to its relatively central location and the convergence of railroad lines from six directions (see this post for more information on the selection of Greensboro as the school's site). McIver and other school boosters quickly set about identifying a location in Greensboro where the new institution could be built. Ultimately, in November 1891, the site that was selected was one referred to as the "Pullen Site," located about a half mile west of Greensboro Female College on Spring Garden Street. This site was also within view, but not directly on, the railroad line. Two Raleigh real estate speculators and philanthropists, Richard Stanhope Pullen and Robert T. Gray, donated the ten acres that would house the school.

After a year spent planning the new school and constructing its facilities, classes began at the State Normal on October 5, 1892 (the date we now celebrate as Founders Day).Courses of study were divided into three departments: normal (teaching), business, and domestic science. The normal, listed as the leading department, included pedagogy classes as well as coursework in English, history, math, science, foreign language, art, music, and physical culture. This department also served as the academic home for McIver. In addition to serving as President of the school, he taught courses in pedagogy, education, and civics – courses that maybe went on a bit longer than anticipated. A memoir written by a staff member noted that “both in class and in chapel, he kept the students after the appointed hour so frequently that faculty members tried to avoid having their own classes scheduled in the following periods.”

President Charles Duncan McIver and the State Normal faculty, 1893

The standard course load for these new students included 22 to 27 class meetings per week, divided among six or eight individual courses. Study time was curtailed by the dormitory lights-out rule from 10 pm to 6 am, designed to ensure that students got adequate sleep. Every freshman regardless of major took the same eight courses in algebra, English, general and English history, Latin, physical geography and botany, drawing, vocal music, and physical culture (although domestic science students substituted sewing for drawing).

Founding the State Normal proved to be a milestone in education – and particularly women’s education – in North Carolina and throughout the United States. McIver and the early educators and students at the State Normal set the groundwork for UNCG as it stands today. One hundred twenty-five years after the first classes took place, the legacy remains.

Viola Boddie: Belle of the Early Faculty

A native of North Carolina, Viola Boddie (1864 – 1940) was a charter faculty member of the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial School (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). Graduating at the top of her class at Peabody Teachers College in Nashville, Tennessee, her diverse teaching experience gave her a deep understanding of the poor conditions of education in North Carolina. Miss Boddie traversed the state in an open carriage pulled by a mule, exploring country school houses that had such wide gaps between the log construction that you could “throw a cat through, if not a dog.”i  Considered a pioneer of early women’s education, she worked with “early radicals,” Charles Duncan McIver and Edward Alderman to open State Normal and Industrial School, the first public college for women in North Carolina.

Miss Viola Boddie

At the age of 25, she accepted the position of head of the Department of Latin at State Normal – a title she would hold for the next 43 years. Miss Boddie seemed a very romantic figure to the young women in her charge. They found her beautiful and her mode of dress very stylish. Her students knew that she had turned away many gentleman callers, and they even imagined she might be in love with President McIver.ii In the early years, Miss Boddie hosted parties for her students and was known for her love of flowers, which she always kept in her classroom. Her graciousness, wit, and interest in world affairs, made her a very popular teacher, but she tended to be more reserved than some of her colleagues and was considered a taskmaster who broached no nonsense in her classroom. 

A Faculty Outing with Miss Boddie (top left), Dr. McIver, Miss Petty, and Miss Mendenhall

Until 1914, Latin was required to gain an A.B. degree at the college; therefore, for almost half of the registered students, the coursework was mandatory. By 1919, Latin became an elective and enrollment dropped substantially. Although Miss Boddie blamed the falling numbers on the elective system, others believed that the drop reflected the professor’s increasingly harsh, sarcastic manner and “fearsome disposition.” Her popularity began to wane and she was relieved of her dormitory duties in 1918. She began to be viewed as “behind the times” by both the administration and the students. As the college grew in both size and viewpoints, many felt that restrictions on student privileges should be loosened, yet Miss Boddie led the charge to keep the more traditional values of the school’s early years. Additionally, she was not inclined to collaborate with other campus departments, believing in such cases, there was a “danger of the big fishes devouring the little fishes whenever departments were asked to work in tandem.”iii 

The Always Fashionable Miss Boddie

Eventually, there was talk of replacing her; yet, Miss Boddie was not going to make it easy for administration to do so. In 1926, when a new teacher, Marie Deneen, was hired to teach Latin, Miss Boddie used her position as head of the department to block college credit for the new professor’s classes. As the years went by, the Latin Department had progressively fewer students, reflecting both a national trend and Miss Boddie’s increasingly contentious personality. By 1934, she agreed to partial retirement, only teaching one course, and took permanent retirement the next year. Soon after, the Latin Department was folded into the new Department of Classical Civilization, headed by Dr. Charlton Jernigan, a dynamic young professor from Duke University. Miss Boddie passed away in 1940 and was buried in Nashville.

i Greensboro News, October 11, 1925
ii Trelease, Allen W. Making North Carolina Literate: The University of North Carolina at Greensboro from Normal School to Metropolitan University. (2004)
iii Ibid.