Tag: W. B. Myers

Mary Helen Robison

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Miss Mary Helen Robison

The subjects of a November 2021 post on this blog, the Clarence Colton Dawsons, wrote a caption on the reverse of the above photograph identifying its subject:

Miss Helen Robinson [sic], Home Economics Teacher at Goodlettsville, Tennessee, standing in front of Mrs. W. B. Myers home where we all boarded. [signed] Mr. & Mrs. C. Colton Dawson

That the W. B. Myers mansion served as a boarding house for more than one of the teachers at Goodlettsville High School [GHS], not just the Dawsons, was new information to me. This research was complicated not only by the various spellings of her surname, but also by the fact that there were two other Helen Robisons teaching in Tennessee when this Helen was teaching.

Mary Helen Robison (1910-2005) was born in Williamson County, TN to William Thomas Robison, Sr. (1858-1915) and Lillian “Lillie” Mai Wilson (1857-1939), the eighth of ten children. W. T. and Lillie were also natives of Williamson County and he was serving his third term as county trustee at the time of his death. Helen graduated from George Peabody College for Teachers with a bachelor of science degree in June 1931. The Census of 1940 listed her residence in 1935 as “Corners,” in Marshall County, TN, which probably refers to Cornersville where I suspect she taught at the high school.

Helen was the Home Economics teacher and the Home Economic Club sponsor at GHS in 1938. Here are two photographs of Helen that appeared in the 1938 GHS yearbook, Les Memoires:

Goodlettsville High School Faculty, 1938
Goodlettsville High School Home Economic Club, 1938

I’m not sure how many years Helen was at GHS before 1938, but by February 1939 she had moved to Memphis and joined the Teacher Training Faculty at Memphis State College [MSC]. In the Census of 1940, Helen and fellow faculty member Pauline Hilliard were enumerated as renters of apartment #2 at 449 Patterson street for $37.50 per month. Hilliard eventually became Dr. Francis Pauline “Polly” Hilliard (1909-2005), an author and professor of elementary education and curriculum who was chair of the education department at the University of Florida’s College of Education from 1960-1968. Their portraits appeared in MSC’s 1940-1941 yearbook, the Desoto:

Helen Robison and Pauline Hilliard in the Memphis State College Yearbook for 1940-41.

Helen married Lawton Reginald Wadsworth, Sr. (1909-1996) in November 1941. Lawton was a teacher in the Shelby County [Memphis] school system after having been educated at Lambuth College and George Peabody College. Lawton was a native of Ripley, TN, as were his parents, the Rev. Lawton Rhette Wadsworth (1855-1966), a school teacher before answering the call to ministry in the Methodist church, an Eddie Mai Bibb (1888-1838), also a teacher.

Helen was a Methodist, an active member of Alpha Delta Kappa, and served in the Order of the Eastern Star. Lawton was also a Methodist and a Mason. They are buried together in Ripley Memorial Gardens.

The Caption

W. B. Myers House

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Caption on the reverse: Mrs. W. B. Myers’ home-Goodlettsville, Tenn. Where we lived the first five years of our married life. From Sept. 1927-June 1932. Also Summer of 1933.

The caption on the above photograph appears to have been written by Clarence Colton Dawson (1897-1966), a teacher born in Linton, Trigg County, KY, the son of Thomas Arnold Dawson (1871-1944) and Leona Alice Ricks (1880-1851). He married Mary Elizabeth Riggins (1898-1988) in August 1927. Mary was born in Mintonville, KY, the daughter of John Byron Riggins (1859-1934), a farmer, and Orpha Jane McClure (1869-1962), natives of Columbia, KY. They had one child, John Thomas Dawson (1937-2001) who, apparently, never married.

The house is located at 127 North Main Street in the village of Goodlettsville, TN which is located about 12 miles north of Nashville, the county seat and state capital. It was built circa 1907 by William Benjamin Myers (1870-1925) and his wife Mary Olivia Milam (1872-1956) to replace a house that burned down that year. Myers was the proprietor of B. F. Myers & Son, a dry goods store across the street from the house which his father, Benjamin Franklin Myers (1843-1907), established before the American Civil War. B. F., who was born in New York state and brought to Goodlettsville as a child, was also a founder of the Bank of Goodlettsville of which W. B. was later a vice president. Today the house is the home of the Cole & Garrett Funeral Home and Cremation Services which bought it in 1933. The funeral home is decorated with art depicting Goodlettsville’s history and you can see other photographs and take a virtual tour on their website.

The Dawsons taught school in Goodlettsville while they lived in this house, he in the high school where he taught business and coached athletics, and she as a teacher and basketball coach in the grammar school. Colton, as he was known, received a master’s degree from Nashville’s George Peabody College for Teachers while living there (1931, and another in 1938). Mary received a bachelor of science degree in commerce from Peabody in 1938. Both Mary and Colton were very active in the civic life of the village while they lived there.

Mary taught in West Virginia, Georgia, and Adair, Warren, Franklin, and Trigg Counties of Kentucky. She was a member of the Columbia Christian Church and the Kentucky Education Association, and had been a vice regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution James Thomas Chapter of Trigg County. Colton was chairman of the Department of Business at Berea College and was an assistant professor in the business department at Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College. After his 1928 bachelor of science in commerce from the University of Kentucky and the master’s degrees mentioned above, Colton did graduate work at New York University, Ohio State University, and the University of Kentucky. He worked on a PhD dissertation, History of Tax Administration in Kentucky since 1850, but never received the degree. He was a veteran of WWI, a Mason, and a Methodist. They are buried with John Thomas in East End Cemetery in Cadiz, Trigg County, KY.

Colton (center) was faculty sponsor of the Commercial Club at Goodlettsville High School in 1931 (Nashville Banner, 21 March 1931, p. 28)

I’m doing research for another project and came across this photograph in an online auction a few weeks ago. It was a diversion, but I learned a lot, including some information informing the other project. I was raised in Goodlettsville and a century’s worth of relatives on my father’s side were buried by the Coles and the Garretts. My earliest memories recall being sad, confused, and bored at funerals in that house, open caskets, a break room full of food homemade by friends and relatives, unceasing cigarette smoking and coffee drinking, a bewildering array of relatives (I had about 60 first cousins). Walking the halls of Goodlettsville High School (1917-1985), I frequently looked up at the class photographs hanging in the hallways and probably gazed upon the faces of students taught by Mary and Colton; I probably knew their descendants who were fellow students.