Hickman Street School

Hickman Street School was the home of my family for at least three generations. Mam maw would have attended around 1910, Dad around 1930, Uncles Gene and Gayle around 1940, and my brother and I in the 1950s. The picture to the right shows the building as it stood before the 1940s. Large and impressive from the street, and stately to the onlooker. It had changed quite a bit before my brother and I attended with the front, back right, and sides much different looking. The lower left of the picture shows the bell tower of our main street church, and the top of Brown-Proctor Hotel just beyond. This drawing would have been made before the large Presbyterian Church was built and after 1873 when our Main Street church was built. No clear date is given on the drawing, but 18-- something is shown in the upper left.



The second picture shows my brother's first grade class of May, 1956. The picture is taken on the steps of the large Christian Church which stood on the hill across the street from the school. Here, the steps provided an ideal stage for class alignment, and provided the photographer a way to get all the faces in the picture. Four rows, equally spaced, and about equal shoulder to head ratio seems the pose.

My brother, Henry, is third row up, second from the right with that Jones straight line smile. Little did he know that the pretty little girl, Marcia, second row up, second from the left, would prove to be more than just a first grade classmate. For it was in this very church that some 14 years later they would come down these very steps as husband and wife. What a deal! Hickman Street School brought more than one family together.