Working Wednesday: Beuna Nell Crew Becomes a Teacher

In mid-July of 1938, Beuna Nell Crew had just graduated from Spelman College with a degree in Biology. She had also just lost her father to tuberculosis a couple of weeks ago. Her brother, Lamar, had been married for a year and a half, and, with his wife Annie, had a son who had recently passed his first birthday. 

Her uncle Borden was up in Chicago working as a postal clerk and possibly also practicing medicine, while other relatives were both clustered in Georgia and sprinkled across the nation. Some of her cousins were farming in Georgia, like her aunt Scoatney’s kids Daniel, Andrew, and Julia. Others had migrated north or west, like Scoatney’s children Noah and his wife Nancy and Noah’s brother, Ben, and Ben’s wife, Alice, who were all now up in Washington, DC. Her Aunt Masonia and her kids Cherrye Ann, Thomas, Henry were over in Portland, Oregon, where Henry worked as a red cap porter for the railroad and Cherrye Ann worked in retail. Her uncle James’ children Masonia and Ruth Scott were also over in Portland. James had passed away, but their mother had remarried and they were all keeping on and finding away. And on it went for others in the family as well.

Meanwhile, aviator Howard Hughes had just set a new record by flying around the world in 91 hours and Superman had appeared in hist first comic book. Former veterans of the Union and Confederate Armies of the American Civil War had just gathered in Pennsylvania to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Hitler was planning the invasion of Czechoslovakia, having just annexed Austria. And Black boxer Joe Louis – world heavyweight champion – had just knocked out German boxer Max Schmeling in a two-minute rematch of their 1936 fight, a not-insignificant blow to Nazi propaganda.

And, amidst all of this, Beuna Nell Crew needed a job.

She found one in Monroe, Georgia, about 45 miles east of Atlanta and 26 miles northeast of her hometown of Lithonia.

Monroe sits smack in the center of Walton County, and serves as its county seat. Since the 1890s, the city had become a major home for cotton mills, and many of the city’s residents worked in the textile industry or supported the workers who did. Farming still dominated the countryside outside of the city, however, and many of the Black residents of Walton County worked the land. But over the decade from 1930 to 1940, when the U.S. Census provides useful information for this part of our family story, the city of Monroe’s population saw a bit of population growth, even as Walton County’s overall population dipped. In 1930, the city had 3,706 residents, 2,719 of them white and 987 Black. By 1940, it had grown by almost 500 people, 242 of them Black. Beuna was one of them.

In fact, Beuna had been living in Monroe since at least October of 1938, when the Spelman Campus Mirror, in reporting on the whereabouts of the Class of 1938, published this as her location.

Spelman College Campus Mirror, 15 October 1938, p6. Georgia's Historic Newspapers, https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn38019897/1938-10-15/ed-1/

Two years later, the 1940 census shows Beuna, now 25, living as a lodger in a house rented by 30-year-old Alice Green, a recent transplant from Dothan, Alabama.

Beuna Crew and Housemates in 1940 U.S. Census for Monroe, Walton County, GA. National Archives and Records Administration.

In fact, all five of the women living in this home – all of them Black- share a transplanted status. None of them had been living in Monroe, Georgia five years previously. According to the census, 26-year-old Fannie Rowe had been in Atlanta, GA, as had 25-year-old Garnie Ison. Beuna is listed as having been in her birthplace of Lithonia, GA, though we know that she in fact was also in Atlanta, studying at Spelman College. And 34-year-old Mila B. McIver was, at least according to this record, living in Thomasville, GA in 1935.

So, what had brought them all to Monroe by 1940? The census gives a clue:

Beuna Crew and Housemates in 1940 U.S. Census for Monroe, Walton County, GA. National Archives and Records Administration.

Jobs. Beuna and all of her housemates are working as teachers in a local public school. A little digging and the help of the Monroe Museum turned up the name of the school: the Monroe Colored High School. Per Museum historian Steve Brown, Monroe Board of Education records show that Beuna was “first elected as a teacher at the Monroe Colored School on 29 July 1938.” This is just under two months after her graduation from Spelman, and just 3 weeks after her father Henry passed away. Historian Steve continues, “She was reelected each year after that.” The records don’t show what Beuna was teaching, but he speculates that she was spending at least some time focusing on her area of expertise, biological sciences.

Here's an image of the Monroe Colored High School, taken ca. 1935, about the time that the school was constructed.

The Monroe Colored High School, ca. 1935. Courtesy of the Monroe Museum.

The Monroe Museum believes that the brick building on North Broad Street may have been a project of the Works Progress Administration, one of the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt to employ out-of-work Americans while strengthening the nation during the Great Depression. Perhaps a new building created new jobs, explaining not only Beuna’s arrival, but also that of her teacher housemates between 1935 and 1940.

Beuna taught at the school for 7 years, until 1945. Monroe Museum historian Steve Brown notes that minutes from a 9 April 1945 school board meeting show that, by then, Beuna had voluntarily resigned her teaching position. Interestingly, in 2003, the historical press Arcadia Publishing released a book in its Black America Series, called Walton County, Georgia. The book contains a photo of the graduating class of 1947 in their caps and gowns. They may all have been taught by "Miss Crew," and certainly would have seen her in the halls and out in the community. The book also contains photos from the 40th reunion of the Class of 1944, featuring graduates Dorothy Carlton and Evelyn Jackson, both later graduates of Clark College in Atlanta, and their classmates Evelyn Bush, Junius Smith, Eleanor Franklin, and Sarah Braswell Starling. They, too, would have been taught by Beuna. One wonders what they would have said about her.

By 1947, Beuna had found another teaching position, and another group of students would have the chance to get to know her. In taking these roles, and building these relationships, Beuna was following in the footsteps of her mother, Lula (Scott) Crew, who served as an educator in Georgia's small towns until she drew her last breath. While her mother wasn't there to see Beuna land the teaching job in Monroe, it's easy to imagine that she was somewhere smiling down. 

 *     *     *

A Note: I can’t end this post without mentioning that the year after Beuna left Monroe, GA, the outskirts of the city were the site of a terrible act of racial violence. With my surface level reading on the topic, I know that I can’t begin to do the story – or its victims – justice, so I recommend that you look up information about the Moore’s Ford lynchings, also known as the Monroe Massacre or the 1946 Georgia lynchings, on and in trusted sites and sources. One wonders how Beuna felt, knowing that this had so recently been her community. It’s likely that she was well-acquainted with, and possibly even friends of, the victims. 

  *     *     *

Do you know anything about Beuna's time at the Monroe Colored High School, or in the city of Monroe overall? Or have another thought to share? Please drop a note in the comments below!