Yesterday: Hart School class picture

Published 12:00 am Monday, May 7, 2012

Brenda Chunn provided this old class picture of students at Hart School in Woodleaf. The one-room school was located on Hart Road. If you notice, Chunn says, the front and back door of the school is open and you can see straight through to the trees in the rear. Her father, Theodore Morrison, was born Nov. 26, 1899, and his sister Harriett was born in 1903. Theodore is in the second row, seventh from the left; Harriet, the first row, also seventh from the left. Addie Lyerly (Addie Frost, local mid-wife for the African-American population in the Woodleaf, Barber and Cleveland community) is the sixth person from left in the first row and next to Harriett. Ruth Neely (second from the right in the second row) was born in 1903, and her brother George and sister Blanche are pictured in the same row (immediately right of Theodore). Theodore Morrison became a well-known farmer with 83 acres in Woodleaf, and Brenda lives on the same farm today. The road is named Morrison Road in honor of her dad. Ruth Neely is the same Ruth Neely Myers that donated the 25 acres of land to Mount Vernon that is being developed into a community garden. She and her husband, Nelson, owned 100 acres on Woodleaf-Barber Road.