The Haddocks of Wiregrass

Kings Ferry School

The Rod Was Not Spared

The Kings Ferry School provided a very basic education for the community’s young people.

“We would have school, you see, when we could get a teacher,” recalled Eva Haddock Connors.

“Sometimes it would be three months, and sometimes five. Not over five months of school at any time during the year.”

The teachers, most of whom were just slightly ahead of their “students,” often boarded with local families while they taught in the one-room school for a few months.

“We loved school,” remembered Sally Connors Ward, “we had pleasure in our learning, always.”

“We had an hour at recess and we’d run-n-n home and eat lunch and then hur-r-r-y back to get to play,” recalled Ruth Connors Biddy.

The teachers ruled the children with an iron hand and often meted out discipline that even in those “spare the rod and spoil the child” times was considered severe and excessive.

The children walked to the school down the unpaved roads or cut through the forests following old trails and using fallen trees to cross the frequent streams.

At lunchtime on one occasion, Eva and her cousin decided to wade in a nearby ditch to catch some minnows. The cousin had just scooped up a hand full of minnows when she looked up to see a scowling teacher, Miss Lillian Walker.

“Oh, Miss Lillian, just look at my little fish,” the eight year old girl said proudly to the teacher.

“Yessum,” the teacher replied sternly, “and I’m going to whip you two.”

She then proceeded to get “the biggest switch and she wore that out on us,” Eva remembered.

“We had whelps on us and blue marks.”

The girls were given a sound beating simply for wading in a ditch.

Ruth Connors Biddy as a school girl.

“Talk about getting a whipping that was unfair,” responded Ruth Biddy.

“I had a whipping from Lizzy Mangum and I think that I still hate her,” she recollected to the great merriment of her family during a "down memory lane" session on September 17, 1974 that included: Sally Connors Ward, Eva Haddock Connors, Woodrow Connors, Gerald Connors, Florence Connors Dickey and Tracy Connors.

The front steps of the schoolhouse at Kings Ferry ran across the entire front of the building, Ruth recollected.

Miss Mangum “had a rule that we couldn’t come in the school room at recess time…and it was so-o-o cold that we couldn’t bear to sit on the seats. Well, Helen Mizell and I got to picking at each other, how children will do, and she somehow fell back on the next step and hurt herself. She started crying and Miss Mangum came right out and asked: 'What’s happening out here?'

Helen told her that ‘Ruth hurt her back.’

Of course, I did no such thing, but it was Ruth that got the whipping.

"She called me in there and got a switch and she was firing into me…anyway…I sat down in my seat where I sat in school and I wouldn’t get out of it. At first she couldn’t pull me out of it, but finally she did. I was so irate to think that I was getting a whipping for something that I wasn’t guilty of, and that I’d had a lie told on me, so I was so-o-o mad, I stamped my foot and said: 'You old Dog.'

"And then I high footed it for home. I ran just as fast as my little feet would carry me."

"Miss Mangum yelled, 'Catch her, Dina.' And Dina tried hard, but then let me get away."

"So, I went home and I got up behind the stove. It was cold. And, I was still fuming. And so, Mama said, 'Ruth, what’s the matter?'"

"'I’m sick,' I said. All the way home I had been thinking of the story that I was going to tell Mama. But finally, she got the truth out of me.”

Julia Victoria Haddock Connors and some of her children. (Left to Right) Sally, Ruth, Myrtle (died soon after this photograph was taken) and Fred Lassahn Connors.  Arch and Chris, her older sons, were not pictured and were probably working elsewhere.

Julia Victoria Haddock Connors took Ruth by the hand and led her back down to the school. By that time lunch was over, and the children were all back in the room in their seats. Julia knocked on the door and Miss Mangum came to the door and “Mama handed me over.”

Miss Mangum led Ruth to the front of the room, “drew a chalk mark around my feet and whipped me before the whole school room….I think that’s why I still hate her,” Ruth laughed many years later.

“If that had been my child,” Ruth said, “I would have taken my child back and handed her over and said: “Come on out, I want to talk to you. Alright, you whipped her once, don’t you dare touch her again, she’s had her lesson.”

Of course, Julia had no idea that the teacher would whip Ruth a second time. In fact, Sally remembered that “Mama was very perturbed about it.”

“I always told my children,” Ruth continued, “if they ever did anything at school to get a whipping for, don’t hesitate to come and tell me and I would see if I couldn’t take care of it. Because, a lot of time the teachers…”

“Don’t get it right,” Eva finished the sentence for her.

On at least one occasion, a Kings Ferry teacher was taken to task for excessive discipline.

Lillian Walker was teaching at a nearby school where the Davis children were attending. Lillian “had a terrible temper…when she got mad, Lord, she didn’t hardly know when to quit,” Eva remembered.

Walker “beat up one of those Davis kids and he went home and told it,” Eva related.

“His mother went to the schoolhouse and told Miss Lillian that if she came out she was going to beat her just like she beat her child.

She kept her there [at the schoolhouse] until after dark. Lillian was afraid to go outside…afraid something would happen to her.”

When a teacher told Chris Connors to “take off your coat” before he “took” the beating, he told her politely, “No maam.”

She beat him anyway…with the coat still on.

When Dan Connors found out about the incident, he confronted Chris and demanded to know “Did you take your coat off?”

Taking a deep breath and preparing himself for whatever was about to come, Chris answered truthfully, “No, Dad, I didn’t.”

“Well,” Dan replied, finally smiling a little, “If you had, I’d have beat hell out of you.”

“You know,” Gerry Connors pointed out, “it’s a funny thing. We can all remember every unjust whipping we ever got…to this very day. But we’ve forgotten all those whippings we justly deserved. I know I can remember some that I didn’t deserve. But those that I did deserve, the memories are all gone,” he concluded.

Looking over at his brother, he asked, “Woodrow you look like you’re in deep thought.”

“I am,” Woodrow replied, “I’m trying to remember just which licking you didn’t deserve,” he replied to gales of laughter from those around the table.

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