Miss Apple: Letters of a Maine Teacher in Kentucky
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There was one instance in which Ethel was totally rejected by one of her students, one from whom she least expected it. It happened when one day she missed Robert Jackson from class, and the next day, and the next. Robert had been arriving early so she could tutor him in arithmetic. None of her other pupils seemed to know the reason for Robert’s absence. Seeing his older sister in the hallway one day, Ethel inquired as to where Robert was and why he had not been in school. She was told he was in jail. On further inquiry Ethel found that he had stolen fifty dollars, had been caught, and that was why he was not in school. When he did not show up for more than a week, she decided to visit him. She had high hopes for Robert; there seemed to be higher than average intelligence in this handsome young man. Ethel further discovered that Robert was actually on a juvenile farm for delinquent boys on the edge of town. She could get there by trolley. One afternoon she boarded the trolley near the school and headed out to visit Robert. The building was an old, dilapidated building. At the top of the worn steps she pushed open the heavy wooden door. A grim-faced officer in a rumpled uniform sat at an old desk, reading a newspaper. When she asked to see Robert Jackson he gave her a sneering look of disapproval, and slowly led her down the hall to a square plain room where he told her to wait. There was an old battered table in the center and two rickety chairs. Ethel took one of the chairs which faced the door, while the officer went to get Robert. Robert shuffled in behind the officer, handcuffed and sullen. When he saw his teacher his eyes opened wide and the semblance of his old smile appeared fleetingly. He sat in the other chair; the officer stood in the hallway outside the door, watching them. Ethel told Robert about events in school, the baseball team, the work he had missed, and that she had missed him and hoped he would be back soon. He made no reply. The visit lasted about half an hour. Ethel was glad she had gone to see Robert. She wondered, did he know she cared about him? Did he hear what she said about making something of his life? On the way home she resolved to visit him again. A few weeks later when Robert still had not returned to school, Ethel took the trolley to visit him the second time. The grim officer again admitted her, but there was cold hostility in his eyes, as if to say, "Why have you come again?" Ethel sat down in the same room to wait. When Robert walked in, again handcuffed, she sensed something had changed. There was no smile. He refused to look at her, keeping his eyes on the floor. He would not speak. He sat sideways on the chair, his head down, with his elbow on the table and his hand shielding his face from her. No matter what she said he made no response. It suddenly struck her, what she had been told was true! A Black man in the South does not dare associate, nor make friends, with a White woman. Ethel realized she must leave immediately. As she signed out at the desk the jailer muttered under his breath, "If you teachers from the North were as smart as you think you are, you’d stayed home where you belong. We in the South know how to handle these Ni----s, and we don’t need your help." A cold rainy drizzle wet her face and mingled with her tears as she almost ran to the trolley stop. Ethel was appalled. She had never heard such ugly words. She was filled with feelings of chagrin, hurt and anger...chagrined that she had unwittingly placed Robert in such a precarious position, hurt that he had spurned her who only wanted to be his friend, and angry at the surly jailer telling her she wasn’t wanted in the South. But most of all she was shocked at the terrible discrimination by Whites against the Blacks. She looked at the math book in her hand that she had meant to leave with Robert. He was not to be blamed for his attitude toward her. Now she understood he had been scared, very scared. A smile, a look of recognition, could get him a brutal beating, or worse. (Lynchings, she remembered, were not uncommon in the South.) This awful hatred and animosity toward the Black race pervaded the very air. That, she now knew, was what made the South so different from the North. But not so at Chandler School. Here was friendly territory, and the Black children knew it. Here no one threatened them for having a White teacher friend. Here they were valued, encouraged, loved. But evidently other inmates at the juvenile institution, and no doubt the officer as well, had made it painfully clear to Robert that he would be in major trouble if he so much as spoke to his White teacher. With all her heart she hated this racism and vowed never to let it be a part of her. A love for her unfortunate Negro students in her classes who were obliged to live under such prejudice swept over her. A longing for her beloved northern homeland brought the tears. She arrived home during the supper hour, cold, wet, and discouraged. She went quietly up the staircase to her room, lay on the bed and cried.
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About the Book
In 1998, Eleanor Cunningham found twelve letters which her mother, Ethel V. Applebee, had written to her mother in 1920-21. She wondered why Ethel had left her beloved Maine to teach at Chandler Normal School in Lexington, Kentucky. She learned through research and two trips to Maine that her mother was one of thousands of Northern teachers sent to the South by the American Missionary Association to teach black children after the Civil War. The letters told of her mother’s adventures as a white teacher in a southern town. There were joys and heartaches, trials, and rewards. She loved the children, some of whom called her "Miss Apple." Then Eleanor discovered another, more personal reason why her mother went to Kentucky to teach – a promise made to a dear friend before he died. While in Kentucky, Ethel Applebee became acquainted with another Maine teacher, Sara Leighton. The following summer she introduced Ethel to her brother, Howard, back in Maine on the family farm. It was love at first sight. Letters exchanged by Ethel and Howard helped their daughter to envision her parents in their youth as she read of their developing romance, engagement and wedding at Ethel’s home in Bucksport, Maine. Miss Apple: Letters of a Maine Teacher in Kentucky is a wholesome read for those who love children, the teaching profession, and history.
About the Author
Eleanor Cunningham was born and reared in Rockville, Maryland. After high school she chose a business career, and graduated in 1941 with honors from Temple Secretarial School in Washington, D.C. While a school secretary, her collection of poems, This Place: Love Letters to a School, was published by the Montgomery County Public Schools. Always a lover of history, Eleanor has published several historical pieces. Her essay, "Dad’s Well" was runner up in the Maryland: You are Beautiful writing contest for senior citizens in 1990, and it was later published by the Montgomery County Historical Society. She wrote an article for the Montgomery Journal in 1997 on the occasion of the grand reopening of tiny Montrose School, "Montrose School: Back to Its Roots as Teachers and Students Return." Miss Apple is Eleanor Cunningham’s fourth book. Eleanor entered a Christian writer’s contest at Warner Press, Anderson, Indiana. Her book, He Touched Her, won second prize and was published in 1973. Peerless Rockville, the preservation organization that saved and restored Montrose School, asked Eleanor to write history of the school she attended in the 1920 and 30s. Her book, Montrose School: The First Ninety Years, was published by Peerless Rockville in December, 1999. In 2000, she published a History of the Gaithersburg Church of the Nazarene on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary. Over the years she has volunteered at Gaithersburg HELP, the Recovery Thrift Shop, and as a second grade tutor. As missions director at her church she led three work teams to Paraguay and the Philippines, and has enjoyed teaching both children and adults in Sunday school. She is a member of a weekly writer’s group at the local senior center. She and her husband Floyd, now deceased, had three children, Floyd Timothy, Janice Ethel, and Diane Kathleen. She has one grandson, Ethan Wesley Leclerc. Eleanor Cunningham is retired and lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.