ry Christine De Bardeleben completed high school in Montgomery in 1895, according to documents that I obtained from Columbia University that dealt with her admission there. She would have been only 14 years old at the time. She was admitted to Alabama Normal School at Livingston, Alabama in 1895. The line between secondary and post-secondary education in those days was not as clearly defined as it is today. That might mean that it is a mistake to immediately label her as “precocious”, in that many “colleges” admitted what would now be considered high school students. But she finished Alabama Normal School in 1898, and was admitted to the University of Alabama that same year, at age 17. And she received her degree from the University of Alabama in 1901, at age 20, as one of its first female graduates.
It appears that she was able to advance in keeping with her own gifted capabilities. I am not sure that is as possible today as it was then. Unfortunately, I have not been able to figure out where Miss Dee attended high school in Montgomery, or how she managed to enroll there, or what her living arrangements were while she attended high school there.
I have no indication about how Miss Dee came to choose Alabama Normal School. But in her brilliant career, it certainly seems that her contact with the brilliant Julia Tutwiler, was a fortunate choice. It seemed to make a major impact on Miss Dee’s developmental processes. My Name is Julia, the one-woman play by Kathryn Tucker Windham, relates how Julia Tutwiler, with tacit approval from her father, a college president, undertook to teach Black slave children to read, when she was a child herself. But very significantly for the purposes of this website, the play also relates how Julia Tutwiler also taught poor white children. Miss Dee certainly concerned herself with the social welfare of the Black culture. But her final “mission” was to the poor whites in Macon County, where she had been born. Her final mission was teaching at the Shorter Public school in Macon County, and I tell the story of that school on this website.
Julia Tutwiler played a major role in prison reform, and establishing separate facilities for juveniles, both Black and white. During the progressive era, she worked with Booker T. Washington in this important endeavor.
These progressive ideas must have had major impact on the developing Christian faith that motivated Miss Dee to her life work. No doubt, the influence of Julia Tutwiler played a major role not only in Miss Dee’s call to missionary work, but in the transition of that call from missionary work in Japan to missionary work among Blacks in the south. While the fact that Miss Dee was in the first class of campus dwelling females to graduate from the University of Alabama is very impressive, after studying her career, I realized that the strongest influence in her educational development was her association with Julia Tutwiler at Alabama Normal School. Not only did Julia Tutwiler open the way to the University for females, and choose Miss Dee, her work with Blacks was a precursor of Miss Dee’s “call” to mission work with southern Blacks. Miss Dee would later establish a mission for Blacks—The Bethlehem House—in Augusta Georgia. But her work with poor whites was equally important in providing a role model for Miss Dee. Miss Dee was truly a protégé of Julia Tutwiler.
I am sure that I have not collected all the information about Miss Dee’s work at Livingston, and about the influence of Julia Tutwiler. I am seeking more information, and would be delighted to receive information.
I have included this post, although incomplete, in order to describe the broad outline of the life of Mary Christine De Bardeleben. I plan to develop it further. I would welcome any information that anyone has dealing with this part of her life.
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