For Mary Christine De Bardeleben, Macon County was always home. She returned there again and again. That pattern began early in her career. After completing her teacher’s degree at Columbia Teachers College, Miss Dee returned to Macon County to teach in the one room public school at La Place. No doubt, at that time her grandmother was still living on the plantation at La Place, and Miss Dee returned to live with her, within walking distance of the Laplace one room School. After the death of her grandmother Haden, she would usually stay with her cousin, Mamie Ross Lightfoot, and her husband, Dr. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot. After retirement, when she had returned to teach at the Shorter public school, she had her own house, built by fellow teacher, Ralph Parrish, on land gifted by the Dr. and Mrs. Lightfoot.
In the 1960 interview, with reporter Katharine Tyson, Miss Dee explained that in her initial teaching job in Macon County, she taught “all grades from alphabet to advanced arithmetic.” That was after she finished at Columbia, and before 1906. Public education was just beginning to develop in Macon County, and one room schools dotted the Macon County countryside. Usually there was only one teacher, and that was the case with the La Place school.
The one room school at La Place was Miss Dee’s first teaching job in Macon County but it would not be her last. There is scanty evidence, and at least a possibility that she returned to back Macon County as a teacher in the mid-thirties. She took course work from what is now Auburn University extension service in Tuskegee in 1936 to qualify for teaching, but I have found no evidence of actual employment in Macon County in that time frame. After 1936, she was back at Oklahoma University, as I discuss in another post. Her final teaching mission was at the Shorter public school. That likely began in 1945. Over a lifetime of teaching and missionary work, Miss Dee saw much progress in education in the County that she loved and always called home, to which she always returned. From her broad perspective, she saw, and tried to address the intense needs, in the public education system in the County.
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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