Union College - Stespean Yearbook (Barbourville, KY)

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Book One he College

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Mrs. Fanny Speed — Our Patron Saint During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a beautiful child, Fanny Henning, was born into one of Virginia ' s best old families. She was a lineal descendant of Dr. Walker, who built, near Barbourville, the first house in Kentucky. While Fanny was yet in her girlhood, the Hen- nings moved across the Mountains into the Bluegrass. She was educated at Science Hill Academy, and in 1842 married Joshua Speed, a wealthy young business man of Louisville. Their life- long devotion to each other is now a tradition in the Speed familv. Mrs. Speed, strong in her religious nature, had e:.rly united with the Methodist Church, South. In 1865, she joined forces with the Loyal Eighteen and thus became one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Kentucky. Though Mr. and Mrs. Speed were slave-holders, they were Abolitionists at heart. With the coming of Emancipation, the Speed slaves were all retained as family servants, and if one of them was sick, or in need, he was cared for tenderly to the end of his life. Mr. Speed was the warm personal friend of President Lincoln, and his able adviser during the Civil War. Through the influence of her pastor, Dr. Daniel Stevenson, Mrs. Speed became much inter- ested in establishing a school of higher learning for the youth of our mountains, and Union Col- lege stands today, a monument to her loyalty to Dr. Stevenson. During his presidency at Union, she paid his salary and all deficits of the school until her death. Her gifts supported the fam- ilies of man} ' poorly paid mountain preachers, kept many a poverty-stricken but worthv voung man in school, and made Fanny Speed Hall possible. She never kept account of the money she spent in this way. By her will, $250,000 became the nucleus of our endowment fund. Mrs. Speed was a woman of rare beauty, with sympathetic brown eyes and refined features that were a constant benediction to all who knew her. Talent, influence, wealth were hers, and she used all to relieve suffering and hardship wherever she found them. A frail body never en- shrined a lovelier spirit. Her life of sweetness and consecration inspired all who knew her with a desire for higher things.