Beuna Nell Crew: A Timeline

Beuna Nell Crew is my half first-cousin, three times removed. Her mother, Lula (Scott) Crew and my 2x-great-grandmother, Scoatney (Scott) Cooper, were half-sisters. Following in her mother's shoes, she devoted her life to education, teaching generations of Black students in Georgia's segregated schools between the 1930s and 1960s. Her legacy is well-remembered today, especially among her former students at Vocational Tech / Fairmont High School in Griffin, GA, where she spent the last 18 years of her teaching career.

Beuna Nell Crew, 1950-51 Fairmont H.S. Yearbook, Griffin, GA. Courtesy of Mike Kendall and the Griffin Spalding African American History Project.

 

I’ll use this timeline for the basic details of Beuna's life and will update it and add links as I find more info and write more posts about her.

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1915, Feb. 27: Beuna Nell Crew is born to Lula (Scott) Crew and Henry Crew in Lithonia, Georgia. Lula, a schoolteacher, and Henry, a stone quarry laborer and farmer, have been married for just over a year and Beuna is their first child. World War I is raging, but the United States is still officially neutral.

1917, July 10: Beuna becomes a big sister when brother Lamar is born just a few months after she turns 2 years old. In between her birthday and his, the United States declares war on Germany and enters World War I.

1929: The stock market crashes, ushering in the Great Depression. Beuna is 14 years old.

1933-1938: Beuna follows in her mother’s footsteps and attends Spelman College, where she majors in Biology. In the first semester of her Junior year, she suffers a major blow, when her mom passes away. She steps back from school for a bit and returns in the 1936-1937 school year to complete her junior year.

1938, July 8: Almost immediately after graduating from Spelman, Beuna suffers another blow: her father, Henry, dies of tuberculosis. But in the midst of this, there is good news: Beuna lands her first teaching job, at the Monroe Colored School in Walton County, GA.

1939, Sept. 3: Tuberculosis strikes again; Beuna loses her younger brother, Lamar, to it just over a year after their father had died of the same malady. Beuna is 24 years old and the only remaining member of her immediate family.

1939-1945: World War II pits the Allied Nations against the Axis in a years-long struggle. The year that the war ends, Beuna decides to leave her position at the Monroe Colored School. In her seven years there, she had made an impact.

1947-1965: Beuna works as a biology teacher at Vocational High School / Fairmont High School in Griffin, Spalding County, GA. She is an active member of the school community, serving as a department head and advisor to a variety of clubs and activities, and was deeply involved in the production of the student yearbooks. When President Kennedy is assassinated in 1963, she delivers the news to some of the students at her school.

1984, Nov. 3: Beuna passes away at Griffin-Spalding County Hospital. While she never married or had children of her own, and had been predeceased by everyone in her immediate family, she left behind a nephew and a “foster sister” to remember her, as well as generations of students and community members who speak her name to this day. She is laid to rest at Oak Hill / Rest Haven Cemetery in Griffin, Spalding County, GA.