08/17/2024
Sharing excerpts with folks from the 1858-1958 Centennial Book gathered by Lincoln Borglum, Teal Adkins, D. L. Pieratt and W. C. (Dub) Sanders.
First schools in Beeville
G.W. McClanahan taught in his one room wooden house, which was used as a church and school. The first public school teacher to use the courthouse was John R. Schook. Sessions of school were held in various frame house over the village until March, 1877, when the school trustees, A.C. Jones, A.A. Scott and R.R. Gillett, bought the Methodist Church property at the present side of the Southern Pacific depot. John W. Flournoy was in charge of the school in 1879. Two years later the Professor and his bride, Miss Gussie Hitchens of San Domingo, taught around eight pupils. The Flournoys taught the school until 1884, when the Professor began the practice of law and his wife assisted Professor J.P. Holtsclaw in teaching.
Captain A.C. Jones gave the school several acres of ground near the present Thomas Memorial Hospital for a new location and donated the school property for a dept in order to get the railroad through Beeville in 1886.
Second school in Beeville
This three-room school building was built in 1886 by John Impson, who suffered losses during its construction due to a severe hurricane. J.W. Cook, H.J. O’Reilly and R.W. Archer were the trustees and Professor T.R. Royal was superintendent. This building housed almost one hundred pupils. “Miss Gussie” (Mrs. John W. Flournoy was one of the teachers. Her buggy in front of the school was a familiar sight to her pupils.
Beeville Builds Brick Schoolhouse on first permanent site
Schoolhouse number three was built in 1894, one year after the citizens voted to incorporate for school purposes, permanently. First to use the building were: Professor Smith Ragsdale, L.W. and J.W. Bell, Mesdames Ida Nations, Gussie Flournoy, and Josephine Humphreys, and Misses Mattie Mussett, Maggie Smith, and Lela Lawley.
When old-timers saw the picture of the old building, they thought of Professor W.E. Madderra, who started his teaching career in Beeville in 1898, and left to be superintendent at Nacogdoches for one year. Professor T.G. Arnold was ill in 1900; his nephew, the “Professor,” as Robin Borglum reported, returned “for a short time…and remained until his death in 1936.”
Down went the old building in 1949. Its replacement was named the W.E. Madderra School, in honor of the man who personally taught over ten thousand Beevillians, with five daily classes, two and on-half days absence, and annual summer normal for teachers. Though he built six buildings, still standing, a greater monument lies in the memory of the fine example Professor Madderra set.
Saint Mary’s Academy
Many a buggy rounded the corner of Steiner and Filmore streets to greet Beeville’s first Sister Gertrude and two other Sisters of Divine Providence (see sketch attached), who open the first parochial school in the city during the fall of 1896. Within a year, another teacher and a large two-story day and boarding school were added. Fire destroyed the academy building in December of 1930. The present St. Joseph’s School was built on the same location.
