History of Iberia Academy

 

​(Printed in the New Iberian, 1981)

 

The date was April 23, 1891 and the Articles of Agreement stated, “We, the undersigned citizens of Missouri, residing in Miller County, being desirous of forming a corporation to be known as Iberia Academy do formulate the following as our Articles of Agreement, in words following, to wit: and including therein the names of our President, Secretary and Treasurer and the names of all our members: Marcus W. Fancher, G. Byron Smith, C.W. Farnham, Mary C. Wagner, Mrs. M.C. Hume, George Johnston, Mrs. G. Byron Smith, R. Tom Tallman, Henry McDale, Zella Johnston, L.J. Timmons, Mary F. Jacobs, Henry R. Hoover, Mary L. Tallman, Maggie L. Timmons, Mary Jones, Maggie McDale, W.W. Pearce, Laura Johnston, Lucy A. Fancher, M.J. Stickney and Zepporah Timmons.”

Article One…The name of this institution shall be called Iberia Academy…and thus began the saga of this wonderful old school often referred to simply as Iberia.

But our story really began two years prior in 1889 in Galesburg, a small college town in Illinois, the home of Knox College. George Byron Smith and Miss Mabel White were members of the Senior Class of Knox College in 1889.

 

He was a native of Princeton, Illinois born there on June 7, 1865, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel J. Smith. He graduated from Princeton High School in 1884. Mabel White was from a small community of Macomb, Kansas. The fact that I have stated Mabel White was a native of Macomb, Kansas may cause some comment because in most of the material I have gathered, it is stated that she was a native of the state of Illinois. I got my information from the official list of the members of the Knox Senior Class of 1889 and their respective home towns. Mabel’s was listed as Macomb, Kansas. Their Senior Class numbered thirty two students although one of the members, M. Newton Hurd, died before his graduation day. The majority of the students were native Illinoisans with the exception of four who represented the state of Texas, Minnesota and Kansas. When I contacted the school’s archivist librarian, Lynn Metz, he sent me a wonderful assortment of comprehensive information pertaining to G. Byron and Mabel White Smith’s senior days at Knox. I caught a fleeting glimpse of the personalities of Professor and Mrs. Smith as young folk in their college years and I saw them through a different mirror reflecting an unusual contrast of image than most of their former students will remember today.

G. Byron was a member of the Adelphi Literary Society in his senior year and Mabel was a member of the L.M.I. Society where she served as Second Critic the first term of her senior year. Both G. Byron and Mabel were active members of the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. on campus. Mabel served as Vice President of the Y.W.C.A. in her senior year. This religious association was a joint organization at Knox until 1884 and in that year they emerged as separate institutions.

Professor Smith was always a small man in stature. His senior year, when he was twenty four years of age, he stood five feet, seven inches tall and weighed 140 pounds. His religion was Congregationalist, his politics, the Prohibition Party (which at that time had a very small assembly of members). The most interesting thing I learned in the statistics polled through his Senior Class was that he left the space blank that referred to his hopes for a future occupation. When he was asked to speak the thoughts of others that would reflect his own thoughts, he chose the following quotation…“Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.” Perhaps he had great expectations for his future in the world of education, but did not want to express them too freely…therefore he would “not be stepping o’er the bounds of modesty” in his future dreams.

I got a beautiful image of their life at that time when G. Byron was asked to express his favorite song and lo and behold! When I turned the page, the song he had chosen was entitled “Bonnie Mabel.” At this time, I believe he was contemplating marriage because in another passage he quoted in the school’s yearbook called “The Gale” this particular passage of literature…“Oh! Fie, upon this single life, forego it!”

So you see, I feel that since I studied these youthful phases in the lives of G. Byron and Mabel Smith, I feel I know them much better and I can continue to write their marvelous story because the Iberia Academy is definitely just that…Their Story!

Two trains play a major role in their story. The first one Professor Smith took and the other one he missed! Just a few days after graduation from Knox College, G. Byron found himself on a crowded railway car heading westward and somewhere along the way, a good natured drummer (traveling salesman) sat down in the seat next to him. They struck up a conversation and when the drummer learned that G. Byron was a newly graduated college man, he asked him a very profound question, “Now you got it, whatcha goin’ to do with it?” His answer was simply that he really didn’t know at that time and he went on and related his story to the drummer. Let me quote to you a few of the things he had on his heart that day. He said, “I don’t want you to think I’m a fool, but sometimes it seems to me as though I have been born too late. It seems as if all the really worthwhile things in the world have been done and nothing left for us young fellows to do but beat the same old paths and do the same old things that our fathers did. I envy the fellows who lived a hundred years ago for they had a wilderness to conquer and unknown lands to explore and a chance to work among people who had nothing.” When he spoke this last sentence, the drummer perked up and said to him, “Sir, I get it, you’re achin’ for a place where folks ain’t got nothin’ and don’t know nothin’: am I right? Well young man, I guess you ain’t never heard of a place called Iberia, Mizoury!”

The drummer informed him that the little village of Iberia was situated at the foot of the Ozark Mountains. He told him to catch a train to Crocker and then drive twelve miles north over the Ozark foothills and at the end of those twelve miles of the worst road he would ever again see, he would find “some little cabins, some women smokin’ corn cob pipes and some grown men playin’ marbles to help ‘em forgit they’re alive. And son, when you reach that place, you’ll know you have hit Iberia.”

After staying in St. Louis for two weeks, Professor and Mrs. Smith set out on a night train arriving at the Crocker station in the early hours of morning. They were met at the train by an Iberia preacher and they all set out on a tiresome drive across what seemed a thousand hills until at last they came to a halt on the crest of a hillside and looked over into a beautiful valley with the town of Iberia sprawled here and there across the center of the valley.

Professor Smith was informed about a school that was standing empty in the town. The poor school had been kicked around from “front fence to back gate” and one teacher after another had drifted in, taught awhile, but were soon gone. The school had no other destiny but failure and when it closed there wasn’t another accredited high school in southern Missouri within a 20 county radius. The people of Iberia had the potential but not the opportunity to prove their capabilities for it was said of our Miller County folk, “they are the purest blooded Americans in the United States. You never saw more splendid people. Rub your hands across them only half a dozen times and you are astounded at the ease with which they take on polish. But there was no one to give them those half a dozen rubs.” (Taken from an article in the American Magazine in the year 1916).

Iberia had a reputation in those years of being the toughest town in the mountains and the men seemed to be proud and boastful of this reputation. A question was once asked of them: “Why do you fight? What is the use of it anyway?” The answer: “They fought for the same reason they married early and for the same reason they played marbles…they simply had nothing else to do. Suppose there was nothing, absolutely nothing to do or to look forward to but monotony, boredom and more boredom, well, you would fight.”

Needless to say, this young man and his wife from the civilized world of a college town certainly had their work cut out for them in this new life among these backwoods, mountain people.

The Normal School was a five room building with only one room completed for use. In October of 1890, it had a $1000.00 mortgage against it when Professor Smith decided he could make the academy a success. His first year he managed to finance the school, primarily from his own meager funds. There was only one pupil capable of taking academy work that year with 15 or 20 students at the elementary level of education, but that one pupil was given the full academic course. This first year the Smith’s lived in Iberia was one of the happiest of their lives for they realized that these children of the hills were starved for a proper education and absorbed so thoroughly everything taught them. But in June of 1891, the world crashed and tumbled around Professor and Mrs. Smith. Some local business men of Iberia who held the $1000.00 indebtedness against the Normal School walked through his doorway and informed him they had some fantastic news: “They were going to sell the school building because they had received an offer they couldn’t refuse and it would be used for a livery stable in the future!” This was a devastating blow to Professor Smith and he could not reason with the business men for they had waited for years to get their money back which had been invested in what seemed a “bad venture.”

A few days later he had the heartbreaking task of informing his students that the school would no longer be in existence and that he and Mrs. Smith would be returning to their home in Illinois. One child had walked barefoot thirty miles to enter this school and he cried, “Perfessor, you told me you would git me fit fer college” and other children voiced the same opinion, begging “please don’t go!” I can almost feel the agony he must have felt at such a pitiful plea when he knew there was nothing he could do to prevent the school’s closing.

And now I will tell you about the second train in the life of the Smith’s…the one they missed!

When G. Byron and Mabel left Iberia that June day with their horses and carriage, they traveled southward heading toward the railway station at Crocker for they had a train to catch. But fate intervened in the form of Mother Nature…overnight the Tavern Creek had flooded and when they arrived on the north bank they could not ford the creek anywhere. They were stranded there for a long time and when they finally were successful in crossing the Tavern, they hurried full speed into Crocker, but their train was gone and on its way to St. Louis.

They waited for twelve hours before they could catch another train which would take them into St. Louis. On board the train at last, Professor Smith could not rest because he was haunted by the sea of children’s faces pleading silently to him. Sitting across the aisle from him was a man who was to play a very important role in the story of the Iberia Academy. He engaged in a conversation with G. Byron and after a hundred miles of listening to a story about a crude log cabin bursting with eager faced children pleading for the chance to have a proper opportunity to get some “book learnin”, he made a decision that changed the course of Iberia’s history. The man was William Jones, a St. Louis attorney who told Professor Smith that he must return to Iberia. He said that he would put up $500.00 himself and the old “hardshells” of Iberia could put up the other $500.00 needed.

You know the rest of the story…Professor and Mrs. Smith did indeed return to Iberia and remained for over fifty years at their Academy.

The academy was started on faith…a one man idea. For years its struggle for existence was keen. Its buildings were few and poor; its equipment most meager; its methods were looked upon with distrust. Finally, it won out, its work was approved and it ranked among the best high schools in the state. It was sometimes spoken of by President Hill of the State University as the “Mother of High Schools of south central Missouri. This Academy has shown herself to be a factor in molding the educational opinions of the state and this through boys and girls of the Ozark Mountain type.”

These foregoing words were spoken by Mrs. Smith in 1929 and they show so eloquently that the school had been a success in the 38 years that she and Professor Smith had been there, so I will return to the beginning once again and show you that their early years were difficult at times but so rewarding.

On October 1 1890, the first term of the school began with Professor and Mrs. Smith its only teachers. He taught Natural Sciences, Languages, and Higher Mathematics. Mrs. Smith taught Literature, History and Civics. The school had no library and very few items pertaining to scientific apparatus. The school yard was small, approximately one acre and was unfenced. The Academy had only one student that first year…. Miss Stella Moore, daughter of Dr. John H. Moore of Iberia. At the beginning, the Academy offered a three year course with each year divided into three terms of twelve weeks each. Later this was extended to a four year course with two types of courses offered…the Latin Scientific and the English version. By 1907, five courses were given instead of the original two which included the Classical, the Normal course and the Business course.

At first, no music classes were available to the student, but by 1907, a department of Music had been established equipped with three pianos, an organ, and a cello. Special instruction was given in piano, harmony, analysis, counterpoint, and Musical History. Every year two musical recitals were presented in which the music students took part. On November 13, 1896, the following program was presented: Piano solos were given by: E. Florence Bittle, Ella Mace, Maude Benage, Annie Johnston, Fanny Mace, Ophilia Harper, Eugenia Brown, and Mrs. H.M. Garner. Special songs were presented by James Bond, Mr. McCubbin, Mr. Groves, Mr. Benage, A. Bertha Cushing, Sallie Johnston, and a recitation was delivered by Frank Lombar entitled, “Seein’ Things.” 

The Science Department was started in 1890 and the Department had a few chemical agents and a human skeleton, but by 1907, there were two large laboratories with a substantial inventory of materials for the chemistry, botany, zoology, and physiology classes. They had three compound microscopes, dissecting microscopes, and necessary instruments. There was a herbarium of more than 500 plants, an entomological cabinet; an ocean cabinet of specimens; 300 microscopic slides of histology and embryology. They had a projective lantern which could be used for class demonstrations and a reference library of scientific works. I was simply amazed to discover that this early school had such a marvelous collection of scientific and biological materials and apparatus in the year 1907.

The hill people of the Iberia area were poor folk in the latter portion of the 19th century; therefore low tuition was charged them so that everyone who wanted an education could afford it. The first year (1890), the full term tuition amounted to $6.00 for the Academy and the Common School charged $3.00 for the Primary Department, $4.00 for the Intermediate Department, and $5.00 for the Advanced Department. Board could also be had for $2.00 per week. By 1910, the tuition had increased to 9.00 per year and board was secured at the ladies’ Hall for $1.85 per week or in town for $2.25 weekly. Self boarding students often found rooms for as low as 15 cents per week!

As the school grew in size, there came the need for an inexpensive boarding house, especially for the girl students. The Alumni Association undertook the project of building a dormitory on campus and they were given much support and financial assistance by the citizens of Iberia and its surrounding communities. In 1907, this new three storied building was finished and was christened by Mrs. Stella Moore Gardner, the Academy’s first graduate (class of 1893). Professor Smith delivered a short address that day, followed by a special address by Dr. John L. Benage (Class of 1895) who was a practicing physician in Lebanon, Mo. Dr. Benage was also the Alumni’s president that year. The name chosen for the girl’s new dormitory was “Alumni Hall” which was constructed at the cost of $10,000.00 

The parlor and music room were used by all the girl students and many young men who roomed in town, took their dinner at Alumni Hall as well.

A second dormitory was also on the campus called “Girl’s Cottage.” It was a six room house used by the girls who wished to board themselves. Mrs. Samuel Smith, Professor Smith’s mother, acted as matron to the residents of the Girl’s Cottage and lived with them. The girls brought their own food from home and used the large kitchen in common. The rooms were comfortable and homelike…one even had a piano in it. The girls living in the cottage had privileges at Alumni Hall and could use the parlor and the music room.

One of the first societies organized at the Academy was called the Atheneum which was a training ground for members to learn to debate. It was later called the Academy Debating Society. In 1899, a new Society was formed from the two previous ones and it was called the Philorhetians. They met once weekly and once a year, a medal was presented to the best debater as a prize. In 1901, the officers of the Philorhetian Society were: Frank Lombar, President; George Duncan, Vice President; James Findley, Secretary; and Everett Fancher, Treasurer. Other members included Arthur Alexander, Hugh Atwell, Zeb Bear, Elmer Barton, Charles Brown, Clifford Clark, H.M. Garner, Frank Howell, Willie Jones, Barnard Jackson and Walker Jackson.

The Pilorhetorian’s published two papers during their existence first called “The Index” and later called “The Cad.”

The young ladies of the Academy had a Literary Society which they called Asteres. Their primary aim was to cultivate ease in speaking. Frequently they held joint sessions with the Philorhetians Society. The ladies of the Asteres Society apparently assisted the men in editing their paper called “The Index” for in 1903 the staff members named were: Hugh Murphy, Jr., the editor; Maude Benage, the assistant editor; Charlie Brown, the Literary associate; Clifford Clark, Athletics Department; Rosa Fancher, Alumni department; Edith Irwin in charge of the YWCA and the YMCA; and Frank Lombar, the manager.

There were religious societies on campus as well as the literary ones. A Young Men’s Christian Association was organized in 1895 and later the ladies organized their religious society called the YWCA. Chapel services were held every school morning and all students were required to attend.

For many years Academy prayer meeting were held on Saturday nights to which all students were invited. For a number of years, an Iberia delegate was sent to the summer conference of the YMCA held every year at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. In 1904, George Duncan was the delegate and in 1906, the Iberia representative was John Sherrick who was the Y’s President. The girls also attended these summer meetings at Lake Geneva and in 1901, Miss Olive Bear received the honor; Gertrude Wright was chosen in 1902. In 1904 Edith Irwin attended, and in 1906, Myrtle Irwin and Lou Bond were chosen to attend the Waterloo, Iowa conference.

The Academy not only stressed the importance of mental training, but also the physical. Early in its existence, a fine athletic program was instigated and the principal games played were baseball, football and tennis. In 1901, the boys and the girls each had an Athletic Association. The officers of these two organizations included: Frank Lombar, President; Hugh McCoin Garner, Vice President; Clifford Clark, Secretary; and Otis Wright, Treasurer.

The Girl’s Association officers included Beth Laughlin, President; Mary Howell, Vice President; Miss Morgan (a teacher), referee; Sarah Shelton, Captain and Gertie Wright, Captain. They had rules for their athletes in those days that had to be strictly obeyed including perfect class attendance; no one would receive any pay for their services on the teams; could only participate in any contest with the permission of the Faculty Committee on Athletics, etc. Every year at the climax of the athletic program, the School had a Field Day where the students could participate in running, jumping, and pole vaulting events. They produced some fine athletics over the years.

Commencement time was a busy time for the School. There were so many events scheduled for such a short period of time. A typical week of commencement began with examinations, followed by Musical Recitals; an Academy Picnic; Children’s Day exercises held at the Congregational Church; a Baccalaureate sermon; Field day activities; a musical reception and exhibition; Commencement Night, followed by a message to members; and a Prize Speaking contest where the winner received a five dollar gold piece. The Baccalaureate and Commencement services and also the receptions were held in the Academy’s Chapel.

The following are a few participants of the Prize Speaking Contest I mentioned above:

In 1894: Genie Brown, O.M. Waite, Elbert Barnes, Herbert Hays, Mabel Armistead, Fred Benage, Stephen Timmons, Otto Benage and Drusa Allen.

In 1898: Perry C. Burks, Mary Nelson, George Bear, Isabella Ferguson, J. Frank Johnson, Olive Bear, Wendell Phillips and Lillian Prock.

In 1899: Margaret Shackleford, Frank Fike, Delia Hays, G. Bernard Jackson, Emma Garner, and Belle Ferguson.

In 1900: Beth Laughlin, Logan Allee, Cora Wickam, Sarah Shelton, and Frank Howell.

In 1905: Ralph Wickam, Walter Smith, John Sherrick, John bear, Edith Irwin, William F. Jones, and Effie May Sherrick.

The school had its own newspaper published in the interests of the students called “The Academy Student” which coincided with the other two papers: “The Index” and “The Cad,” printed by the Literary societies. In 1899, The Academy Student was edited by Ms. Cora Wickham and she was assisted by Frank Howell. In 1900, the editing duties belonged to Ms. Beth Laughlin assisted by Sarah Shelton. (Isn’t it interesting to note that at the turn of the century, the girls were heading up the staff duties of the school’s paper?)

I am reprinting some excerpts from this paper in the early years of the 1900’s and I know you will find them interesting:

January 1, 1900:

“Professor and Mrs. Smith entertained the Senior Class with a Thanksgiving dinner. We draw the conclusion from what we hear that Mrs. Smith knows how to cook!”

“Some of the boys are getting quite skilled in stonemasonry as well as football.”

“The self boarding boys of one house invited Miss Tooker (a teacher) and the other self boarding students to their home on the last Saturday night of the term to a peanut cracking. After eating all the peanuts we could, we had a good social time until ten o’clock when we thanked the boys for their kindness and returned home.” (Friends, I believe our young people in today’s world should learn a few of these old customs such as peanut cracking, whatever on earth it was!)

April 1, 1900:

“Work upon the stone of our new building is progressing nicely…a gang of ten to fifteen boys work two hours each evening after school and fifteen to twenty all day Monday…the stone is ours for the asking and the boys are ready, willing and glad to work.” (I believe they were constructing two extra rooms onto the original Normal School building that was standing but not in use in 1889 when Professor and Mrs. Smith first arrived in Iberia.)

 

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