Oakwood University - Acorn Yearbook (Huntsville, AL)

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,.....,-c..... .,.. Dairy Barn were reported as unconverted. Oakwood was fulfilling its mission of preparing workers. The school management was ever alert for suitable industries. A greenhouse was built under the direction of W. H. Williams. This was the beginning of what grew into a fairsized business of handling bulbs, plants, and nursery stock. On one occasion a whole carload of caladium and tuberose bulbs was shipped to the Hastings Seed Company of Atlanta. The Chase Nursery of Huntsville took much of the shrubbery and plant stock. As much as fortyftwo acres was given at one time to growing bulbs and stock. Shoe cobbling was put in as a very practical line, serving to keep students' shoes in economical repair. A mechanical department taught the use and care of tools. These various industries came into good play in the year of 1906, when the drought was so severe that the ground could not be worked. From a small beginning of two or three students, not used to doing much work for a living, trying to pay their way through a few hours of indifferent labor, Oakwood, in 1906, had grown to a well conducted industrial school. Producefawas still being sold to about S500 worth. More garden produce and less cotton was now the order. Twelve acres of peanuts were planted. Fruit growing was done scientifically. Agriculture and horticulture were of recognized value as school activities. Besides the farm and garden interests, there were other industrial features, such as blacksmithing, carpentry, poultry Riding the plant setter 1908 ia 1g --'T 1 i i 5 5 fig '- 'ixr vi 4. :M , Q '.'..L, limi? i .Nr na, , .. aw. ' ' 'WA-i ,f , , 3- ,A - --1:-r-P , .. .--. Y . . ,..,..-4----,- V ..,.- .,-., ew -asf- . .- . Mg.. L .. .- fag. 11... .. A -, -lei... f? g -. f '-1-2I '! Part of dairy herd 1909 raising, carpet weaving, cooking, plain sewing lessons to good advantage. Bee culture and the sale of honey was included. Considerable fruit was put up for school use, for example, 1600 cans in the season of 1906. The appearance of Oakwood was constantly improving, with the buildings going up and shrubbery planted and landscaping going on. In the earliest days of my visits to the place I have more than once walked out from Huntsville and learned the turns of the road pretty well. The grounds, with its then fourteen line large oaks, from which Oakwood got its name, always loomed in welcome sight as l neared the end of the tiresome walk carrying my suitcase. ln later years the approach by automobile was no less welcome as one could note something new being added. The name of Anna Knight should be mentioned as that of a sound, sensible, and sincere supporter of the school and its interests. Besides her earnest and hard work in pioneering a school by herself, under most difficult conditions, she gave herself unsparingly to Oakwood's progress. As a member of the Board for many years, she by her counsel and influence has contributed much toward the school's welfare. Oonlining this sketchy account to the smaller beginnings of Oakwood, we must leave the bigger things for others to tell. Probably no one person can cover them all. l dare say no one can come anywhere near telling what Oakwood may yet accomplish. Louis A. HANSEN Takoma Park, lviaryland, March, 1946 X T . ru- 's I I1 I XX + 1653931 4 I Q . v r- '1'. i vi I 4 4 . f : EY- .Q E A1527 fl . l! . ,rpg

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states legislatures had passed laws against education for the colored, and it was feared that similar action might close Oakwood. Elder Daniels made a report of his visit through the Review and Herald, and Elder G. I. Butler made strong appeals in behalf of the school through the paper. In the following year there came a real turning point for the school, and a new program was inaugurated. A meeting of the executive committee of the Southern Union Conference was held at Oakwood itself and thus brought on to the grounds our responsible leaders of the work in the South. Mrs. E. G. White and her son, W. C. White, were also in attendance. Thorough inspection of the school farm and buildings was made by the company. Two impressive talks were given by Mrs. White. She told how the Lord had shown her, years before, various features of the place, many of which she pointed out: buildings, fruit trees, and the general appearance. She spoke in the highest terms of the school and its prospects and the possibilities of the soil when properly worked, adding 'not one foot of this land should be sold. In visualizing the possible future of the school she said that instead of fifty students in attendance there should be a hundred. W. C. White estimated a possible attendance of 150 to 250 under proper management. At this time some six or eight small schools had developed in the South, particularly in Mississippi. Considerable feeling had been created as to the relative importance of these schools and the one at Huntsville, affecting quite a bit the attendance at the latter. With the question of how to secure closer cooperation of all, F. R. Rogers, who was in charge of the schools in Mississippi, was elected superf intendent of Oakwood. A Summer School held in July of 1905 gave a bit more impetus to Oakwoods progress. The enrollment of Oak' wood proper was now seventy students, including five from Panama. Thirteen converts among the students could be counted that year, leaving only four or five not taking their stand. With the erection of Study Hall, serving also as boys' dormitory, the new day for Oakwood seemed indeed materializing. Then on October 10, came one of Oakwood's most poignant sorrows, the burning of this, its main building. In a very little time the Ere destroyed it all,-the new bathrooms, broommaking machinery, carpenter shop and tools, carpet loom, forty tons of coal, everything except one chair and one typewriter. One boy, Will Willingham, against the earnest appeals of others, went back into the burning building for some of his belongings and was lost. Another boy, John Green, had a very narrow escape by carefully working his way along the eave roof to another room. Well do I remember the sad morning four days later when our Southern Union Conference Committee viewed the ruins. And I have not forgotten the allfnight session of our committee in the old mansion as we worked out a rebuilding program and the further development of the school. Elder Butler, our Union president, was a hard man when it came to committee work, he could persevere to the very end. That allfnight session had to go through. Daylight came with a brighter outlook for Oakwood. Instead of one building we voted for five, one for school use only, including chapel, recitation rooms and offices, a boys' dormitory, a onefstory building for bath and treatf ment roomsg a workshop and a kitchenfdining room building. These were to be scattered some distances apart for prof tection against firefspread. Further assured support for the school was given at the Union Conference Session in january of 1906, when a number of individuals pledged suflicient amounts to support each student for a year. That meant a very definite interest in the work at Oakwood, and when the school reported, near the close of the year, twenty two students baptized that interest seemed Well warranted. Only three students

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PICNEE S F. W. Halladayfs astronomy class 1917 Graduating class of 1917 I Early Experiences at Gakwoocl They called them the gay old nineties . Nevertheless, the last decade of the last century was freighted with many movements of far reaching and serious purposes. Not least among them was the construction of the little missionary steamer, Morning Star. The servant of the Lord, Mrs. E. G. White, had borne a deep burden for the colored people of the South since emancipation days. But how to reach them through the almost forbidding situations of those years was the problem. This same burden was picked up by Mrs. Whites son, Elder E. White, who conceived the idea of using a little steamboat with a chapel on its deck from which to preach the gospel of the Three Angels' Messages. To this day, we think of it as a very unique and practical plan, for we had no colored ministers of those years, and for a white minister to find meeting places for colored people in a strange and hostile land was almost unthinkable. Elder White, with the help of friends, built his boat at Allegan, Michigan, floated it down the river to Lake Michigan, had it towed across to Chicago, took it through the Chicago drainage canal and down the Illinois River to the Mississippi. As it stopped at Cttawa, Illinois, a young man became interested, joined the crew, and soon became its engineer. This young man was E. W. Halladay. For several years this floating movable chapel tied up at villages, large plantations, and towns along the lower Mississippi and its tributaries. Its work met with furious opposition in places, and members of its crew could repeat some very stirring experiences passed through by these white messengers to the Children of the Night, but nevertheless churches sprang up and little schools were established. The chains of ignorance and superstition began to give way and school books and Bibles were carried into backward regions, The Entrance of Thy Word Giveth Light. At one time we operated about thirty little mission schools taught by colored teachers who had qualified in a way for the work of teaching. But for more efficient work, a training school had to be established. And so, we now turn to another event in the last decade of the other century. Two ,men, Elder C. A. Olsen, President of the General Conference of Seventhfday Adventists and G. A. Irwin, soon to be president of the General Conference, set about Departing for the canvassing jield I