"The Norfolk Angel and the Model T" by Thomas Garrett Neal of Eden (born 1914 in Caswell County) in Lasley, R. T. and Holt, Sallie, Editors. Life in the Good Old Days in Alamance, Caswell, and Rockingham Counties. Hickory (N.C.): Hometown Memories Publishing, 2005.
"And now, back to the good old days at Trinity School. I can't remember many of my teacher's names. One was Mrs. Hodges and one was Miss Brannack. I liked them.
"The first grades through fourth were in one room and the fifth through seventh in the other room. The principal taught the higher grades and I was always afraid of her.
"Papa always told us that if we got a spanking or switching at school, he would give us another one when we got home. He and Mama did not take excuses for misbehavior at school like people do now, so there wasn't much trouble at grammar school or high school.
"At Trinity, we had a fifteen minute recess in the morning, forty-five minutes (sometimes an hour) for lunch and a fifteen minute recess in the afternoons. And we had lots of fun during this time.
"Before noon each day, some of us would go to the spring to get water for lunch. The spring was down behind Trinity Church near the pool that the church used to baptize people. We used ten quart buckets to bring the water back and we poured it into coolers that had spigots to dispense the water into our individual water cups. I wonder what the Health Department would say nowadays if they saw that operation. I think Clarence Rice, G. (George) Walker and I usually went to the spring during my seventh grade year. For some reason, Gee Walker was always the best liked boy in the school.
"I finished Trinity School in 1927 and at that time, no one in that area had a way to high school. There were two or three students below home who wanted to go to Yanceyville High School, so Papa went to the county superintendent and got an old T Model car that the sheriff confiscated with whiskey. He allowed me, at age fourteen, to drive us to Yarborough's Store to catch a bus to Yanceyville. The second year at Yanceyville, Glenn rice drove the bus. He drove it until I graduated."
Click school photograph to see a larger version.
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Thomas Garrett Neal (1914-2006), son of Robert Lea Neal (1885-1969) and Amy Wall Garrett Neal (1889-1992).
Clarence Poe Rice (1915-1981).
Glenn Andrew Rice (1913-1941), brother of Clarence Poe Rice.
The G. (George Walker) mentioned most likely is George Weldon (Gee) Walker, Jr. (1914-2004).
The Yarborough's [sic] Store most likely is that operated by Webb Chipman Yarbrough (1877-1956).
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The location of the school is not known. However, the reference to nearby Trinity Church may be helpful. Trinity Baptist Church in southwestern Caswell County near the Rockingham County line was established May 2, 1840. This is on Highway 150 before the intersection with Ashland Road/Camp Springs Road.
From a letter from Lelia Neal Essic dated October 6, 1998: "Trinity Church was a wooden structure when I was growing up and to the right of it was a little wooden two room school house which is where I attended my first four years. A tree fell on the building and destroyed it, but consolidation was taking place at the same time and we were assigned to Bartlett Yancey. Where the school stood is not part of the graveyard. My first four years were very happy ones in that little school. We all walked, of course. My home was (and is) about a mile from school toward Rockingham County."
Source: Scott, Jean B., Compiler. In the Beginning: The Churches of Caswell County, Jean B. Scott, Editor. Yanceyville: Caswell Parish, 2001, pp. 109-110.
Lelia Jones Neal (1922-2021) married James Edward Essic (1919-2010).
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