History of Iberia Academy Continued....

 

July 1, 1900:

“The two string bands were much appreciated during Commencement week. There were eight in the ladies’ band and seven in the boys’ band.”

October 11, 1900:

“There are about 25 self boarding students already and more are expected. Miss Tooker has charge of the girl’s home and is proving herself most capable and popular.”

June 15, 1902:

“The students, as usual, went fishing May first.” (This was an annual event held on May Day when the teachers and the students ventured out to the Big Tavern Creek and spent the day fishing, picnicking and strolling along the creek bank.)

June 15, 1901:

“The moonlight orchestra has been doing some splendid work on the Post Office porch the past two weeks.”

1907:

“The Cad,” “Who put the bell under study hall?” (This refers to an episode which occurred that year and was planned and carried out by a group of “future inventors.” A rope was fastened to a bell under the study hall and it was brought up through a small opening in the floor. It was easily operated by a student who was sitting very innocently and nonchalantly in the room!!)

Prizes and scholarships were awarded almost from the beginning of the school. A $50.00 scholarship was awarded each year to the student having the highest average. Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, offered a $50.00 yearly and the winner of this one was left to the judgment of the Academy’s faculty. Every year a five dollar gold piece was awarded for excellence in declaration and a gold medal was given at the annual Debate. In 1900, the winner of the Drury scholarship was Perry Burks; the five dollar gold piece was awarded to Cora Wickham and the second prize in that category was a set of books awarded to Della Hays. A Certificate of Admission to the freshman class of State University was awarded to Logan Allee, who later became a Miller County physician in the Eldon vicinity.

Professor and Mrs. Smith first lived in a house on the corner across from the school. The house is still there today known as the “Fatty George Mace” home.

I have been told that the young “roughnecks” of Iberia gave them a difficult time when they first settled here. It seems that they loved to play tricks on Professor because he was what they considered “citified and educated and we were just plain country folks and old timers.” Sometimes overnight, a few late adventurers would slip out to where he kept his buggy or hack parked and would switch all the wheels on it! But over the years, as the Iberians came to know them, these pranks were stopped and all who knew them came to deeply respect and admire them for their spirit and courage.

The decade of 1910-20 saw a new growth in the school due to Professor and Mrs. Smith’s untiring efforts. Their dreams were becoming a reality and this gave them the initiative to strive harder and set new goals for the school.

Approximately in the year 1906, Harriett Smith, known to all as “Mother Smith,” the widowed mother of G. Byron, came to Iberia to live with her son and his wife.   

“Mother Smith” was a native of Ohio and lived there until shortly after her marriage to Samuel Smith. As a young married couple, they emigrated to the state of Illinois, sometime during the Civil War years. They settled down in Princeton, one of the early colonized New England settlements of that western state. Her two children were born in Princeton, George Byron in 1865 and a daughter, Clara, who died as a young girl. She was a great influence in G. Byron’s formative years, persuading him to choose Knox College. When she came to Iberia in 1906, she became a familiar sight on campus. She did not sit down in her proverbial rocking chair and peacefully let her life slip by. She took a great interest in Iberia Academy and its students. She had a child like faith and an unbreakable will to see that her son’s dream would succeed and she threw herself into this work wholeheartedly. There was a time the school needed an additional cow to furnish milk for the kitchens, but could not afford to buy one. Mother Smith purchased the animal out of her own funds and presented it to the school. Her most generous gift of all is still standing at the school’s entrance, “The Gateway of Opportunity” constructed of stone and this entrance way has seen many, many young men and women come through it gates and emerge prepared for the opportunities the world had to offer them.

She saved the money for the construction of this “Gateway” by taking the kitchen and dining room work into her own hands for a term. There was a time when she loaned a sum of money to the school when it faced financial problems and she was not a wealthy woman; she had only a “slender capital.” She was willing to sacrifice what she possessed in order to see the Academy become a self sustaining school.

Mother Harriett Smith died of apoplexy on Saturday, July 23, 1917 at the home of her son on the Academy’s campus. She had lived here in Iberia for eleven years and she became a great influence to many lives whom she touched. A funeral service was held on campus in the midst of her family, pupils, alumni and friends of the Academy. A second service was held in Princeton, Illinois in the chapel of the First Congregational Church where she had been a devoted member for over fifty years. Both services, at Iberia and Princeton, were conducted by her old friend and pastor, Reverend A.H. Armstrong.

By 1912-1913, the Academy and campus encompassed twenty acres, including an athletic field and three good buildings. The Academy building contained five recitation rooms, a chapel, a library, and two laboratories. Alumni Hall, the girls’ dormitory, was a well built three story building which contained a parlor, music room, dining room, kitchen, china closet, and three rooms for Professor and Mrs. Smith on the first floor; the second and third floors were dormitory rooms used by the young ladies and the female teachers.

Professor and Mrs. Smith had a telephone in their quarters and it was used by all students in the Hall. The third building on campus was a two story cottage which was the home for the girls who could board themselves. They had a kitchen area with a good range that all the girls shared. The Alumni Hall had a furnace, but the cottage was heated with ordinary wood heating stoves.

The library had an inventory of over 7,000 well selected and catalogued volumes. It also had a reading room where many of the best periodicals and newspapers were stored and was opened daily for the use of the students.

The year’s tuition, various fees, board, and miscellaneous expenses averaged the student approximately $140.00 total expenses yearly in the time era of 1912-15. But lack of funds did not deprive anyone of an education who was willing to work. Professor and Mrs. Smith helped each student who could not meet expenses by letting the child work his way through his education. There were various means of obtaining this including work in the library, binding books, household chores in the dorms, summer work for the citizens of Iberia and jobs in the fields, etc. One former student told me she worked her way through the Academy in the time era of 1917-19 laboring in the summer months for 7 ½ cents per hour and when she received a raise to 10 cents per hour she was thrilled beyond words!

Some of the early subjects taught in the school included Ancient History, Rhetoric, English, Math and Algebra, Agricultural Science, Biology, Geometry, English Literature, Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, American History, German Grammar and Literature, Greek Grammar including Xenophon and Homer, and Latin Grammar including Virgil, Cicero and Caesar.

At the beginning of the second semester, a five week Agricultural course was offered to the local farmers and their sons and daughters. The latest method of scientific farming was studied and was taught by highly qualified men who were sent by the Missouri Department of Agriculture. Over 200 were enrolled in the first class offered with an attendance averaging well over 1000 persons over the five week period.

Demerit marks were given to any student who persisted in class absences, tardiness or misconduct. When one had received a certain amount of these demerits, he was required to report for work on Saturday morning at the Academy building and had to spend the entire morning at whatever was assigned to him. For misconduct often times a student was placed under censure. While he was under censure, he could not receive financial aid from the Academy; was barred from social activities; forbidden to participate in the prize contest; and could not publicly represent the school in any way on a public program or athletic field. These may seem harsh punishments by today’s standards, but they were strictly enforced and apparently they worked! There were other rules set down that were also enforced and would probably be ridiculed and disobeyed by today’s youth…one in particular was that all students were required to keep study hours and all who boarded in town were required to be in their rooms after 7 p.m. on study nights!

In 1913, the Ladies’ Aid Society of the First Congregational Church of St. Louis presented the Academy with a Star Grand Piano. These ladies were great friends of this old school and through their efforts and generosity, the campus Chapel was presented this beautiful instrument where it was used for recitals and other entertainment and was a great help to the entire school.

The same year a fund raising project was begun to pay off the debt on the property. They proposed to raise $5,000.00 and with this amount, they would pay off the outstanding debt; buy some new equipment; have the buildings painted; put in new concrete walks; put electric lights in all the buildings; put new desks and office equipment in some rooms; buy some needed apparatus for the science department and whatever else was needed to put the school in a first class condition. Can you believe they proposed to do all that with a $5,000.00 project? Today, we would be using a six figure number!

Professor Smith made a trip to St. Louis and spent months raising the $5,000.00 and he was successful in his efforts when he brought back $5,200.00. It took him almost two years to raise that figure, but his persistence paid off and the fruits of his labor began to be seen. The entire population of Iberia and vicinity were so proud of him for his work in the community and on the Sunday night after his return from St. Louis it was proven. Almost the entire population of Iberia formed a torch light procession: they marched to Alumni Hall; loaded Professor into a buggy drawn by an enthusiastic group of boys followed by a hundred torch bearers, automobiles, and hundreds of excited citizens, marched down Lombar Avenue and halted in front of the Modern Woodmen of America Hall and he was called on to make a speech. He was so overcome with such a triumphant demonstration, but he did make a marvelous speech to the townsfolk. At the close of this exciting, evening, the town’s band played one of Professor Smith’s favorite pieces of music.

In 1914, the school had very modern equipment including Remington and Underwood typewriters, a mimeograph machine; office equipment of vertical letter files; card cabinets and other supplies in the Business Department. The Business teacher that year was Mrs. L.S. Diven who had had thirteen years of experience in that particular field and she was considered one of the very best and qualified to prepare the Iberia students for good positions in the business world.

In 1914, the music teacher was Miss Myrtle Hoyer, a graduate of the Knox Conservatory of Music. She was very popular on campus and she organized a music club that year which met every two weeks. The orchestra was also very popular. Iberia was considered as having one of the best accredited Music Departments in the South Central Missouri area. They had a brass band, and orchestra, a musician’s club and a chorus. As early as 1900, they also had acquired a violin teacher.

In 1913, the Academy had a great football team, but it only played two games that year! The first was held on October 18 at Iberia with the Rolla High School. Can you believe that the score was 78 to 0 in favor of Iberia? The second game was scheduled on Thanksgiving Day with the same team, but was to be played in Rolla. When it came time for the game, the Rolla team “desired” that the boys play the School of Mines instead. (It sounds as though our boys had placed “dreaded fear” in the Rolla team!). The Miners were made up of men of more experience and they had eleven substitutes which they kept sending in throughout the entire game, while Iberia’s first eleven played the whole game! Rolla beat them 20 to 6 but I think it was fantastic that the Iberia’s defensive team kept the score so low considering their odds. The Rolla newspaper, “The Rolla New Era,” said of our Iberia boys: “they have a Number One team, all the men playing their positions like stars of the larger and stronger teams.”

With the school free of debt, its value of 1917 was placed at $35,000.000. From one student taking high school work in 1891, the number had increased to almost 100 students in 1917. In the twenty six years since its beginning, the school had graduated 114 high school students and 76 of this number had gone on to college with 56 graduated or still attending a college in that year (33 at Drury, 19 at Knox, and 11 at State University). Needless to say, Iberia had certainly changed in those twenty six years. She had progressed from an “Ozark Mountain hill town” called Iberia, Mizoury to a town that had seen a new era arise out of the old customs of the mountains and their children were receiving all the”book learnin” that their hearts desired.

The Academy was in a great shape in 1917; their debts were paid; the buildings were among the best in the country. School had begun in the Fall of 1917 with many spirited students prepared for the new school year. On October 30 (some reports say October 29), a great calamity occurred. A great fire destroyed the main Academy building. For awhile the fire threatened to spread to the other buildings on campus, but men were stationed on the roofs of these other buildings and kept the structures saturated with wet quilts and buckets of water. Mother Nature once again intervened on behalf of Iberia Academy when she deluged the area with frozen rain and snow. I believe that had not the heaven sent rain and snow fallen, the entire campus would have perished for there was not the necessary equipment available in those years to hold back a raging inferno. For even in 1939, much of Iberia’s downtown area was destroyed by a great fire and could not be held back or controlled.

It was thought the fire was started in the Music studio in the southeast corner of the building where a fire was kindled in a stove a short time earlier. A defective flue in the room was probably the origin of the fire. The fire raged out of control very quickly and seeing that the building could not be saved, the citizens and students alike began to try to save some of the furniture and most importantly, the books inside. Through the heroic efforts of many, all the books were saved except about 1,000 volumes. But some of these were in a very poor condition for they had to be thrown out the second story window into the mud, ice and rain. The library had a value of $12,000.00 placed on its contents in that year so it suffered some monetary loss. Some of the laboratory equipment, a few chairs, and one of the pianos was all that was saved along with the books, but they were all fire damaged. Professor Smith estimated the loss at $15,000.00 but this could not begin to replace everything lost. There was only $5,500.00 insurance on the building and contents…insured with the Central Insurance Company. Despite the heavy loss, Professor Smith once again demonstrated his spunkiness and courage and arranged for a $30,000.00 fireproof building to be designed and built. The week of November 17 through November 28 of 1917 was set aside as the “Iberia Academy Campaign.” Sunday, the 19th was called “Academy Day” and union services were held at the Woodmen Hall. They had a slogan “something from everybody” that inspired them on. Committees were formed and began a canvass of the town and surrounding communities. Many of the townsfolk were inspired on in this quest and formed eight teams to canvass and solicit funds and pledges. The local schools and churches all joined in the campaign and through this wonderful community effort, the first week they had raised $4,635.00. Wanting the $5,000.00 figure they had set as a goal, they set out again and when they returned they had $5,529.00 in hand. Isn’t that incredible? This $5,529.00 would not build a $30,000.00 fireproof building but it was a good step in that direction.

The alumni raised an additional $1,000.00 and after this was raised, plus the $5,500.00 insurance, the people of Iberia had over $12,000.00 to put into this new school building. Additional funds were solicited from friends of the school and the St. Louis members of the Board of Trustees and soon there was enough to build the new Iberia Academy!

In May of 1920, the cornerstone was laid with a special service on campus. Dr. W.T. Nadal, president of Drury College in Springfield, delivered an address followed with a brief talk by Professor Smith. His dreams had not been crushed; his vision of a school for the children of our Miller County area became a reality once again. Mr. Austin E. Fitch, a member of the First Congregational Church of St. Louis, and an architect with the firm of Ferrand and Fitch designed the new school. Mr. P.H. Wall of St. Louis was given the contract to construct the building which was made of native stone quarried from the Academy’s campus. The stonemasons who constructed the building were local men including my grandfather, Frank “Cap” Smith and his brother, Felix “Pea” Smith. The new two story building contained the James S. Stevenson laboratories; the Oscar L. Whitelaw Chapel; the William E. Jones library; the President’s office and recitation rooms. These rooms were named in honor of men who had played a major role in the Academy’s existence.

Iberia Sentinel
March 29, 1912

“The $1,000.00 from the Sarah R. Sage Estate was received last Monday. This is the first legacy which has fallen to the Academy.”

There were many material and financial gifts given to this Academy and numerous people who were the school’s benefactors in its early days and it was their generous gifts that kept it successful. The names of some of these important people who played such a major role in the school’s existence included: Miss E.C. Ames of Boston; Delos R. Haynes; Attorney William E. Jones of St. Louis; The Congregational Church Educational Society of Boston; the W.H. Danforth family of St. Louis; Oscar L. Whitelaw; the Pilgrim Church of St. Louis; Professor James S. Stevenson of the St. Louis Schools; Wilbur E. Jones, son of William E. Jones of St. Louis; Julius C. Birge of St. Louis; Charles L. Martin of St. Louis; Alice Barber Phlager; Mrs. C.E. Zelle; Dr. Arthur H. Armstrong; Captain F.E. Lombar of Iberia; Dr. A.K. Wray of St. Louis; Philo Stevenson, son of Professor James Stevenson; Ralph T. Whitelaw, son of Oscar W. Whitelaw; Mrs. Eleanor Martin and her daughter Frances of Webster Groves; Mr. and Mrs. Edward F. Jackson of St. Louis; Reverend Russell Stafford of St. Louis; Mrs. Gertrude Kopplin of St. Louis; and many more names that I could print if space permitted.

The Academy had been a school of higher learning for twenty six years in 1916 and it was in that year that a gymnasium building was first proposed. Edmund C. Little, St. Louis Architect, was commissioned to design a new building for the campus. He drew up plans of a gymnasium that would cost approximately $6,000.00 to construct. The plans called for a stone building with a balcony on the inside and lockers for the boys and girls at the ends. It was designed to be used as a community center as well as a gym. The main room was to be equipped with a moveable platform and chairs that would seat at least 500 people. In 1916, a fund was started for this proposed building, but it was over ten years late before it became a reality. In 1926, the gymnasium was in use, but it was far from being a completed work. The outside design of the building had a different look than the original one first planned. (Looking at the two architectural designs, I am much more impressed with the gym that we eventually got rather than the original design.)

Commencement exercises were held for the first time in the new building in the Spring of 1926 and in the Fall of that year, it was used for the annual Get Acquainted Social. But at that time, it lacked a permanent roof; concrete steps; doors and windows; a hardwood floor; all inside furnishings and a heating system. Although it lacked many things, it was debt free! About twenty of the Academy boys were working on it at that time without any pay for the funds had dwindled to nothing and the boys did depend on their labor wages to further their education at the Academy. By January of 1927, the approach and the front steps were finished and the roofing material was there and ready to be laid as soon as the weather permitted. It was hoped the building would be finished by the next school term for basket ball games. The work was greatly helped by a generous gift of $250.00 from Edgar H. Bradbury of the Pilgrim Church in St. Louis, given in memory of his wife.

In December of 1927, the Board of Trustees met in St. Louis and decided at that time to go ahead and finish the construction of the gymnasium until the building was completely finished. $1,000.00 was subscribed to be used and the balance needed would be raised. So, after it was finished, the building was one of the most beautiful structures in central Missouri. It was built entirely of stone, had a hardwood floor; a gallery on two sides; a stage for dramatics; and it seated one thousand people! It contained a full size basketball court and room for volley ball and indoor baseball. It was erected and named Martin Gymnasium as a memorial to Charles L. Martin of Webster Groves, one of the truest and most faithful friends that the Academy ever had.

From the “Iberia Academy Bulletin” printed in September of 1926…“Iberia Academy and Junior College opened last week with the largest attendance and finest prospects of any year in the history of the school…Every effort has been made to maintain the same high standards in the Junior College and to meet fully the State requirements for an accredited school…It was recognized that the opening day would be historic as the beginning of the first college in South Central Missouri…” And it was indeed a historic day because the Junior College became a very popular school in our Central Missouri region. The year 1926, the school had a faculty of ten including Ms. Virgie Wynn, head of the education Department and a graduate of Berea College in Berea, Kentucky; Ms. Edna Hammack, a Latin teacher, who was born and reared in the Iberia community and was a graduate of Iberia Academy; Gerard Schultz, a graduate of Knox College, the Head of the History Department; Charles R. Brassfield, also a graduate of Berea College and was Coach of Athletics and Dramatics; Ernest Brooks, a graduate of Drury College, headed up the Music Department; his wife, Mrs. Ernest Brooks, also a graduate of Drury College was the instructor in Voice and Theory of Music; JoAnn Spearman, who was Dean of the School, a native Iberian; Ms. Mabel Willis, Dean of Women and Head of the English Department; and Professor and Mrs. Smith who rounded out a very able bodied faculty for the students in 1926. By January of 1927, several courses had been added to the agenda including German, Citizenship, European History, College Algebra, Psychology, and Harmony. These classes compared to the average college courses offered in any other accredited school in the state and it was advanced work that was meeting a real need for the Miller County students as they prepared for their further education in other Universities across the country.

In 1927, a work program was begun that they called “fireside industries.” The original purpose was to furnish labor for the girls who had to work their way through school and at the same time train them to do something useful and beautiful. They were taught weaving in a basement classroom at that time, but due to the interest of Mr. and Mrs. William Danforth of St. Louis, they began remodeling an old log cabin which stood on the campus with funds donated by the Danforth’s.

They had already donated several looms to the classroom that were being used by the girls in their weaving classes. The old log cabin was rich in Miller County history also. It had been the home of a former Negro slave family who had lived in the old cabin in the years before Iberia Academy had been established. There were others in the Schell family who had lived there in the years following the Civil War including Ester Schell and her children. She had acquired 6 acres of land in 1875 and kept it until the year 1892. It was rumored that this Negro family relocated in the Kansas City area where there may be descendants living today. Mr. Austin Fitch, the architect who had designed the new academic building and the Martin Gymnasium, drew up the plans for the reconstruction of the old slave cabin. It was preserved in every possible detail to a pioneer Miller county home. There was a wide open fireplace, looms and a spinning wheel. Rugs for the floor and the curtains at the windows were hand made on the looms and it had the appearance of an authentic pioneer home which it most definitely was! The generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Danforth helped to carry out this project and it was restored to its original state. Unfortunately, the old log house, which was one of the few left in the area, has been torn down. The old fireplace still stands in the original place with a newer home built around it. In 1927, these words were printed in the Academy Bulletin… “log houses are rapidly disappearing from the country and the effort is being made to preserve this historic type of building on the campus for coming generations of students to see and as a memorial to our pioneer fathers to whom we owe so much.”…I am sorry my generation can not see this historical building nor continue to preserve its history!

On June 16, 1932, Mabel White Smith died at her home in Iberia. This marvelous team of two dedicated teachers, split by death and sadness, was felt by the many friends and students who had known her. She had been known by forty two classes of students since she and Professor Smith first came to their little school in 1890. Letters poured in from all over the country praising her work and dedication. Many of these letters came from former students who had gone on into the unknown world and made a success of their lives. She left an endowment of $3,000.00 to the Academy and it was her wish that the school would be known as an institution that radiated beauty while at the same time it would develop scholarship and character. She had loved the cultivation of flowers and shrubs and devoted the last years of her life working on the campus’ landscape planting many shrubs and flowers…especially roses. When Highway 17 was built through the backside of the Academy’s campus, it was her determination to have a beautiful back yard encompassing the campus, so her endowment of $3,000.00 was used for that purpose. Some of the many fruit trees planted in those years can still be seen on the campus.

Professor Smith continued on in his quest of maintaining a higher school of learning after the death of his wife. The school continued to thrive throughout the 1930’s and the 1940’s producing many graduates who left Iberia and entered other universities across the country to further their education. The War years of the early 1940’s cut into the enrollment of young men, but the school’s faculty and students remained in number through those difficulty years that our nation, as a whole, experienced.

In 1945, Professor Smith, who by this time was an aged man, decided to retire after having spent the past 57 years of his life at Iberia. I am sure he wanted to spend every hour possible at his beloved school, but his health by this time was failing, so reluctantly he left Iberia and returned to the home where he had been 80 years before in Princeton, Illinois. Throughout his lifetime, he and Mrs. Smith had taken many tours, visiting numerous countries in the world. At the time of his retirement, these words were spoken of Professor by two old friends of the Academy, William H. Danforth and William J. Hutchins…“Dr. Smith is one of the most modest men we have ever known. He has lived on approximately $1,000.00 per year through these fifty years and whenever the Trustees vote to increase his salary, he has demurred. But when the increase is granted, he has given back to the college all over $1,000.00.

 

 

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