Maury High School - Commodore Yearbook (Norfolk, VA)

Page 12 text:

iss erry Notting am No honor ever bestowed upon me has st'ir1'ecl me more deeply than the dedicafton of the COIVNVIODORE' by the Class of 1938. e ' Tl1e words are the words of Miss Nottingham, spoken not once but on numerous occasions since the time she was informed of the unanimous wish of the graduating class of Maury High School that the present year-book be inscribed to her. The act, as expressed by its seniors and concurred in by the entire faculty and student-body, carries with it not merely the high esteem of theschool but the tacit implication that Miss Nottingham is still, and will continue to be, identified with Maury as one' of its very dearest instructors and friends. Miss Nottingham was born in' Portsmouth, Virginia, and admits her pride in that fact. - I love the city very -much,'l she said, and expect to be buried there. Her father was S. Severn Nottingham, who was associated with Captain James Barron Hope, whom Mr. Nottingham succeeded as editor and publisher of the old Norfolk Landmark. The original American Notting- ham family, strongly Cavalier, settled on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, to which refuge they came after the defeat of Charles I at the Battle of Naseby in June, 1645. The N ottinghams were always strongly loyal to the king as evidenced by the fact that the family still cherishes an English Prayer Book containing a prayer for the Blessed Martyr Charles, the Stuart king beheaded in 1649. With such ancestry, said Miss Nottingham, mildly fearful for her own head, I am a predestined Tory and Royalist, though, she added quickly, as if to ward off a collective attack of sorry wage-earners, not an economic royalistg there have been too many teachers in the family to have attained the necessary Wealth for that dubious honor. Today, I am a Democrat and an 'Episcopalian! Miss Nottingham's mother, Fannie Bain Nottingham, was a sister of George McK. Bain, the first Principal of Maury High School, and of Charles W..Bain, at the time of his death in 1915, Professor of Greek at the University of North Carolina. 'Miss Nottingham is, also, a great- niece of Mrs. Mollie Toomer Saunders, Professor of French at Randolph-Macon Woman's College Lynchburg, some years ago. Mrs. Saunders was the wife of the Reverend Robert A. Saunders, founder of the Norfolk College for Young Ladies. Mrs. Nottingham's sister, Miss Mary Hurt Bain, was head of the Modern Language Department at Maury High School from 1912 to 1917. Under this aunt, Miss Cherry Nottingham began her own career as a teacher and succeeded Miss Bain as head of the department in 1918. In 1937, Miss Nottingham left Maury to accept a language professorship at William and Mary College, Norfolk Division. Miss Nottingham was edudated at private schools in Norfolk, at Barnard College and Columbia University in New York, the University of Chicago, the University of Grenoble Clfrancej, Sorbonne University, and the University of Madrid. She 'holds the degrees of Ph. B. and MJ A., from the University of Chicago. Her travels have carried her into almost all the European countries, though not into Russia or into the Scandinavian group. However, she once spent eight hours in Algiers, and can therefore be said to have set foot on African soil. Cali- fornia and intermediate points in the United States are familiar to her. She has published book reviews in the Modern Language Journal and has spoken before distinguished gatherings on a number of occasions. One of her most notable lectures was on Anatole France, delivered in 1931 before Romania at the University of Virginia. On another occasion, Miss Nottingham addressed the Norfolk Society of Arts on Modern French Literature, and was, in 1932, a. speaker before the National Convention of Quota Clubs International in Memphis. Miss Nottingham was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa key at the University of Chicago in 19223 she was initiated into the Delta Kappa Gamma Womanis Honorary Educational Frater- nity in 1935, and she has been elevated to high positions in other organizations. She was president of the Norfolk Branch of the American Association of University Women from 1936 to 19385 was a member of the Quota Club, of the Woman's Club of Norfolk, of the Council of Thirty of Tidewater Virginia, and formerly held membership in the Wednesday Literary Club and in the Business and Professional Women's Club. A signal decoration was bestowed upon Miss Notting- ham by the French Government in 1933-that of Oflicer d'Academie, with Palmes Academiques. It was her maternal grandmother, of French descent, who began Miss Nottingha1n's French education-this, at the age of six. Since then until today, Miss Nottingham's motto has been expressed in the words of Benjamin Franklin: Every good American has two countries-his own and then Francef' -B. T. T.

Page 11 text:

g... 1 N , ,, fv -Mp ' 1' H5 A gap .VL FQ - ga, 5 E M w ,, N ' nm ll. .Q - : ff' 1 gg: - N7 I 1' A ,f ., is . V ' '. . -- 511. CHERRY NOTTINGHAM

Page 13 text:

W ' 1 1 1 1 i I Y n ' 1 W