As a Vermont Yankee public school music supervisor, a turning point in my life came when I, a deaconess candidate, was told that I was needed at Allen High School as music teacher. This meant coming South and leaving the green hills and familiar valleys of the "Green Mountain State." It was a decision-making time!
Among
the lessons I quickly learned were 1) I was readily accepted into
the black community which was to become officially my local
church–Berry Temple–on my second Sunday there, and 2) I
was plunged into a world of two drinking fountains at
Woolworth’s, segregated schools and churches that usually
were "white" or "black." Never a saver, I,
however, began hoarding newspaper clippings, Allen brochures,
commencement programs, piano and voice recitals, choir trip
programs, and especially a fat folder of our momentous trip to
Troy Conference. There we sang fifteen times in thirteen days,
including my hometown. Julia Titus, principal, also from that
conference, had been dreaming about this for years, and for her
and for me it was a dream come true. Among the many benefits was
the purchase of THREE NEW Everette studio pianos for practice
rooms.Most of the contents of these boxes have been resorted. Interviews and visits with staff members for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone followed. Two graduate students are particularly interested in those turbulent years following the May 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision on segregated schools. The materials are already being looked at, sorted and discussed. Various interviews are happening with former Allen staff and students, including several people in Asheville who join me in believing that Allen Home and Industrial School/Allen High School’s story needs to be preserved. Berry Temple United Methodist Church, an outgrowth of the school, shares in the history and ongoing story. For me, as I answered the Call and moved away from home, it was an important and needed decision, and opened my eyes unmistakably to the guidance of God in my life. I give thanks for those years and the witness I am still called to make as I follow my Lord.