BAXTER SEMINARY
Alumni Experiences
-BAXTER TENNESSEE-
Alumni by Class
Alumni by Name
Alumni Banquet / Reunions
Alumni Photos
Alumni Experiences
|
|
Alumni Experiences
Mary Jo (Law) Johnson I don't really know nor can I even estimate how many alumni we have while the Uppermans were here-maybe a couple of thousand and that is purely a guess. The first graduating class was 1914, and we have two members of that class who come to our Alumni Banquet every year. There were three or four classes that only had one member graduating. Each year we honor the class with its 50th anniversary and the one with its 25th anniversary. Last year we had the two sole surviving members of the class of 1923, and since then one of them has died. This year we have three members of the class of 1924, and all three plan to be here. Even the sponsor of that class is still alive, and we hope to get him there. Our banquets each year have grown until now we have to have them at Tennessee Tech in order to accommodate us all. We have established a scholarship fund to be given each year that we can to a child who represents the kind of person that Baxter Seminary would have helped. Last year was our first one, and we were really proud.
There was never any lack of school spirit. Our football teams and basketball teams were always good ones, and we won many championships. Some of the boys who played did not live in the dormitory and they would walk home for miles after a game. The Glee Club was outstanding always. I can remember going to Nashville to sing on the radio. One of my most pleasant memories is Dr. Upperman taking a quartet to sing at churches when he was asked to be a guest speaker. I can still see him keeping time with his hands on the steering wheel while we sang all the way there and back. Let us not forget our speech activities. We won so many state championships, regional and Upper Cumberland championships. The Upperman home was always open to us to come to, lie on the floor, and prepare for another speech tournament. Baxter Seminary was the first school in Putnam County to be accredited by the Southern Association of schools. I think to sum up all my feelings about Baxter Seminary, it is so odd to e that a school which is technically dead should have such a great turnout every year to a banquet for its alumni. That in itself speaks of what Baxter Seminary means to all of us. There were 275 in attendance in 1974.
BAXTER SEMINARY ‘A SPECIAL PLACE’... WITH FEELING OF FAMILY School offered ‘feeling of family’ Four weathered columns are about all that’s left of Baxter Seminary.But for many Depression-era children and others, the private boarding school in the Putnam County hills was more than just bricks and mortar. "It was a special place," said Milford Cox, who graduated from the school in 1950. "Everyone felt close. We had some students that has been in trouble with the law and had the choice of going there or to jail. "For the first time, a gathering of former dormitory students gave them a chance to exchange addresses and share old photographs. The reunion was last weekend at Vanderbilt’s Scarritt-Bennett Center. Baxter Seminary, a college-preparatory school which was open for almost 50 years the first half of this century, was run by the Methodist Church with some help from the local school board.
The school known for turning misfits into scholars, earned a reputation that attracted university professors as instructors and students from all over the country and overseas, particularly Cuba. Still, it stayed true to its purpose as a place where students could earn an education. For those who could not afford the $800 annual tuition, room and board, at least that’s what it cost around 1950, they could work their way through school. Student labor helped build most of the eight classroom and dormitory buildings on the12-acre campus. The school’s dairy farm was another source of jobs. Now a high school named after the long time headmasters of the school, Mr. and Mrs.Harry Upperman, stands in its place. The school column posts now stand in front of the Baxter City Hall and library.
"I worked 30 hours a week," Fesmire, 70 said. "Well you name it - I milked cows, morning and night, made concrete blocks the old-fashioned way and painted. "Every person I knew at that school has been successful in life," Fesmire said. "We still think of each other as family. "Fesmire went on to earn a chemical engineering degree at Vanderbilt University in two years, fly a B-24 military plane on top secret missions during World War II, study dentistry at the University of Tennessee and establish a successful dental practice in Nashville. "We had tremendous teachers, dedicated people, and they were strict," Fesmire said. I'll tell you, you didn't get to kiss a girl; no, nothing like that. I remember there was an attractive gal I took to church one Sunday night, and I couldn't resist putting my arm around her waist after dark. Well, I got hit in the back with a rod by one of the teachers. Under the direction of the Uppermans, the school developed a reputation for strong debate teams and high academics. Ironically, they had been sent to the floundering school by the Methodist Church to shut down 12 years after it opened. "People said if you were an A or B student and had a degree from Baxter Seminary, you could go to any SEC school, even the Ivy League schools, without having to take an entrance exam," said Jim Higdon, a retired U.S. Army colonel who graduated in 1950. The school, which opened with 10 pupils in 1910, enrolled classes as large as 350 in the 1940s and 50s. Graduates from the rural school included doctors, lawyers, ministers and one Nashville judge, Philip Sadler.
"I was the son of the only doctor in town, but I was going to school with kids who would have ended up as poor dirt farmers on a hillside in Putnam County if not for the seminary," said Dr. James Millis, chief of staff at Donelson Hospital. A day student, he graduated in 1949. Higdon said: "My mom was a widow, and we couldn't go with her to her job in Fort Knox, KY. I worked two hours a day for the school - washing dishes and working in the print shop - to pay for half my tuition. "There were no other high schools on that end of Putnam County so we had boarders and day students. There were all types of children there. My mom didn't own a car, but one of the kids in my class came to school in a limo. His dad was a superintendent in North Carolina somewhere." School alumni attending the one-time reunion still recite the school motto - Truth, Honor, Loyalty, Service. Those were the best years of my life," said 1947 graduate Louise Cooper Driggers,who was sent there with four siblings by their two guardian aunts. - ajlambert.com*
Frank Bain There were many opportunities at Baxter. I admired many of the teachers. I remember Mr. Earle Smith, the science teacher; Miss Smellage, senior English teacher who was encouraging; and Mr. Cunningham who taught a young boys’ Sunday school class. He took us hiking to Gentry’s Bluff, and to weiner roasts. I especially remember the Uppermans who were very influential. I have a "Miss Hill" story: Almost every Wednesday my Uncle Van went fishing. I finally took "off" one day to go with him. I had to see Mill Hill to get a note to return to class. She just about "blew her top." Mr. Earle Smith asked me later: "What did you catch?" I didn't know if he meant 1: what did I catch from Miss Hill or 2: what fish did I catch?!
My siblings were Pearl, Nell, Ruth, Phyllis, Bill, and Elizabeth. All of us attended Baxter Seminary. My father was in charge of the farm. In my career, I was a Computer Programmer at Werthan Bag Co., Nashville, and retired in 1999. My niece, Rebecca Bain, is located at the WPLN station at Metro Center, Nashville, where my offices were in the same building! She is Bill’s daughter. My class celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2002. Now I enjoy my retired life and gardening. - All Roads Lead to Baxter by Anita Cunningham Mitchell. -- ajlambert.com*
|
|
|
I can't really describe the feeling that we alumni have for each other. There is a special tie that seems to bind
us-perhaps because we were all poor and on the same social level. We all had to work, and none of us had any better
clothes than any of the others. Even the teachers were not much above our level financially because they made so
little compared to today's salaries.
"Even now, we have this feeling of family," said Anita Cunningham Mitchum, a former student whose father was dean of boys and
whose mother taught freshman English.
As one of six children of a poor Methodist preacher during the Great Depression, Robert H. Fesmire said he worked his
way through school by milking cows on the dairy farm.
After the war, it opened its doors to veterans who wanted to finish classes for a high school degree, including Cox, and
opened a trade school for returning soldiers.
I was Co-Captain of the football team which played two years undefeated.
