‘my my a dy that we knew as Miss Dee was born in 1881—in a rural community in Macon County, Alabama, that was named La Place. That was the same year that Booker T. Washington came from Hampton Virginia to nearby Tuskegee, also in Macon County, Alabama, to establish Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). Her birth on January 23 was less than16 years after Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. All of the adult Negroes who lived nearby—and there would have been a lot of them in predominantly black Macon County—were former slaves. The Federal government under Andrew Jackson had removed Native Americans from the place in Alabama where she was born only slightly more than forty years before her birth. She was born on what she sometimes called a plantation, located on the Old Federal Road. The Old Federal Road was the Road over which many Alabama settlers traveled from Georgia to become residents of the Alabama. General Lafayette, the French general who had assisted in the American Revolution travelled the Old Federal Road on his tour of America, making one wonder if he was involved in naming La Place, the community where Miss Dee was born. That road, established in 1811, only 70 years before Miss Dee’s birth, had been one of the precipitating causes of the Creek Indian War that gave Andrew Jackson the pretext for the removal of the Indians.
The life of Mary Christine De Bardeleben, whom we called Miss Dee extended over 89 years until she was laid to rest near her mother and father in 1970 in the cemetery in Tuskegee, only 12 miles from the place of her birth. My life overlapped with hers. Her final 28 years were my first 28. She was first a teacher, and then librarian, in a small, rural Macon County public school at Shorter, Alabama, that I attended for twelve years. It was small indeed: less than one hundred students in grades one through twelve. Everybody, knew everybody, and I knew who she was, by sight, from the time I started school in 1948. She taught in the High School, but by the time I reached High School, she was no longer teaching, but was the librarian.
Let me tell of an event that stands out in my memories about her. I was a 7th grader at the Shorter public school in Macon County, Alabama. She was the wrinkled old librarian. The event is unforgettable. I do not recall what led up to it. Perhaps she had substituted for one of our regular teachers, as sometimes happened. But Miss Dee singled me out. She put the palms of her hands on my cheeks, and with my face between her palms, her gentle, joyful gray blue eyes peered into my face and with one of her big, sort of crooked smiles she said, “You have the face of a college man.” Out of the blue! Just like that! I had no idea what could have prompted such a comment, but now I know that words of encouragement were part of her way of life.
To fully appreciate her comment, you will need a little more background. She was quite elderly: in her final year of educational work. I was an awkward, gangly 7th grader self-consciously feeling my way toward the challenging teenage years, and probably not everyone’s idea of a college prospect. No one in Daddy’s family had ever attended college. College was not the main thing that I was thinking about at the time.
I had awakened that morning in a country home on a dirt road, with no running water, and no vehicle in our yard. That’s where the school bus picked me up. Although my family was poor, we never noticed, because most of the people we knew were poor—some not quite as poor as we were, but some ever poorer. I caught the Milstead bus to the Shorter public school that morning, as I did every morning. Miss Dee probably knew a lot more about all of that background than I realized at the time. She would have known instinctively the distinction, between what Auburn University historian Wayne Flynt described in his eulogy for Nelle Harper Lee as “white trailer trash” (the Ewells) and “poor but proud” (the Cunninghams), although she would not have applied such labels to anyone. In Flynt’s eulogy, which was an analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird, Flynt does not discuss another important class of southern whites—the one to which Harper Lee herself belonged—but that is the class to which Miss Dee belonged. Universal sainthood is not necessarily an attribute of that class, with its strong consciousness of class differences, but nevertheless, Miss Dee reached out to me, very personally, with a strongly encouraging challenge. And in her case, sainthood seems to me a possibility!
The cultural chasm between Miss Dee and me was not about money. Acquisition of material wealth was not what her life had been about. So, it was not like she was wealthy, and me poor. At the time of that incident, during her “twilight years” in the Shorter public school, Miss Dee lived in a small concrete block house that Mr. Parrish, the science teacher had built for her. He built two houses, side by side, almost identical: one for himself and Mrs. Parrish, who taught English, and one for Miss Dee. Both were on land owned by Dr. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, a country doctor whose father before him had been a country doctor in the same rural community. Dr. Lightfoot was a member of the Macon County Board of Education. His public mindedness no doubt had a lot to do with a high school science teacher building the two houses on his place for people connected to the school. He was the husband of one of Miss Dee’s first cousins.
Mr. Parrish, who built the houses, seemed to be impressed with my abilities as a student in his 7th grade science class. His wife, Mrs. Parrish taught me English, and she also probably thought I was a good student. Maybe the two of them had talked to their neighbor, Miss Dee, about me. Who knows? As I said before, the school was extremely small. All the teachers knew each other and all the students very well. That probably contributed to the strong success of the school.
That was in 1954 or 1955. Miss Dee had been born in 1881, so she was at least 73 or 74 years old at that time! She had taught English and history in the Shorter School when she first returned to Shorter in 1945 or 46, but by 1954-55 her only job was librarian. But she had been part of the school for at least eight or ten years, and having now dug into her history, I am quite sure that her influence in the school was very significant. The 1950 Shorter School “year book,” called “The Cricket,” was “In dedication to our own beloved ‘Miss Dee.’” We called it a “annual” although it was usually published only every two years.
As a seventh grader in 1955, I only knew that Miss Dee was the librarian at the Shorter public school. I knew nothing of her life and career. In those carefree days in a small, segregated, country school in predominantly black Macon County, Alabama, we entertained ourselves with rumors that Miss Dee tried to train her little cocker spaniel, “Patsy,” to use a commode.
And there was talk about books that she would not allow in the library, like Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road.” And she did not approve books by Mickey Spillane. I don’t know why I remember those details over sixty years later, and I may be the only living human being who remembers them, so you will have to take my word for it! Naturally, in those days we assumed that she disapproved those books because of the language used in the books: there were some “ugly words.” But now I believe that there were deeper, more personal issues that concerned her. She had spent several years working at Paine College in Augusta Georgia, and established the Bethlehem House in Augusta. Tobacco Road is very close to Augusta. I will provide more about her work at Paine College and The Bethlehem house in other essays. With regard to The Grapes of Wrath, she spent many years teaching at the University of Oklahoma. She was there when the events in the background of The Grapes of Wrath were occurring. I don’t know if she just thought high school students should not read these books, or felt they were not fair portrayals of matters with which she was personally familiar, or if she disapproved them generally. But I suspect that it was because she thought the books disrespectful of people she had known and loved, and that the portrayals were not helpful in the social milieu.
Historical perspective can grow and improve with the passage of time. When I started to school in 1948, I just accepted the Shorter public school as a part of eternal reality, as if it had always been there, and would always be there. But when Miss Dee returned to Shorter in about 1945, that little brick country school building had only been in existence for 7 years. It was practically new, having replaced an old frame building. The school was the community center for the white population in that part of the predominantly Black county. Macon County schools were gradually progressing from small, one-room schools that provided all the education offered to the poor white country people (mostly “Cunningham’s”, perhaps a few “Ewells,” and a few from the “cut above.” Wayne Flynt tactfully omitted any reference to that “higher class” from his eulogy of Harper Lee, (she being a part of it), although I had heard him describe it in a talk to Judges about To Kill a Mockingbird at an earlier time. Miss Dee had seen a lot of progress in the public education in Macon County over her lifetime, and returned in her retirement to be a part of it. I describe the Shorter School in more detail in my personal story on this website. I am now convinced that the role that Miss Dee played in the excellence of the school was significant.
A little background may promote an understanding of the role that public education was playing in the lives of the poor whites in Shorter, Alabama, in those difficult times. Mrs. Steele Bibb, who would later become the school principal, was listed in the 1926 school year book as a senior. Her daddy was Dr. Lightfoot. She had been born in 1909, the same year that my Daddy, was born. But Daddy was listed as a 7th grader in the 1926 year book. The mergers that had set the stage for the Shorter school had occurred about 1920. In 1926, my Daddy may not have been in school at all since 1920, when the Bradford’s Chapel School merged into the Shorter School. My whole point is that tremendous educational progress had been made in this poor county between 1926, when my Daddy as a gangling, overgrown student attended the 7th grade at age 17, the when I started to school in 1948. But the schools that the State and County provided for blacks had not been upgraded as much as the white schools. Even in the 1950’s, although there had been some consolidations of the one room Black schools, I remember that the Black school at Bethel Grove, only a quarter mile from where the Bradford’s Chapel School had been, was still there and in operation, over thirty years after the Bradford’s Chapel School in the same community had been merged into the Shorter School.
But the quality of education in the little Shorter School was excellent. I believe that Miss Dee’s return to the little school in about 1945, even at age 64, had a significant beneficial impact on the quality of public education offered in the rural district that the little Shorter School served. So, let me return to her story. Somewhere during in the many years that have slipped by since Miss Dee suggested that I had the face of a college man, I learned that Miss Dee had been one of the first female graduates of the University of Alabama, in 1901. In my own meandering career, I acquired and read a copy of Kathryn Windham Tucker’s one actor play about the life of Julia Tutwiler, who was one of the most outstanding women in the history of Alabama.
One of Julia Tutwiler’s many accomplishments was that she convinced the president of University of Alabama that the University should admit women students and that the University should provide housing for women. Julia Tutwiler was president of Livingston State Normal School at the time, and that first class of female admittees with housing at the University, , all graduates of Livingston, was called “Miss Jule’s Girls.” Curiosity led me to the internet a few years ago, where I confirmed that Miss Dee was, indeed, one of Miss Jule’s girls who graduated from the University in 1901. And I had also heard that Miss Dee had worked in Oklahoma. Most of us thought that she had gone to Oklahoma to do missionary work with Native Americans. That might have happened. But that does not appear to be her main activity in Oklahoma: she taught religion at the University of Oklahoma at Norman.
So, over the years, my knowledge and understanding of who Miss Dee was had gradually expanded. But her story is actually much bigger, and more remarkable than these pieces of significant information caused me to realize. But let me explain what brought me to write these essays about Miss Dee.
My brother, Wade Segrest, married Becky Bibb, who was the daughter of Mrs. Steele Bibb. Mrs Bibb had served as our principal at the Shorter School. Mrs. Bibb’s father, Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, was the country Doctor in Shorter mentioned above. He delivered me into this world, and that is where I got my first name, “Philip,” although he was known by his middle name, “Malcolm,” and I am known by my middle name “Dale.” Mrs. Bibb’s grandfather, Dr. John Lightfoot, the father of Malcolm, was also a country Doctor in Shorter. Dr. Malcolm Lightfoot wife, Mamie Ross Pinkston, was a Miss Dee’s first cousin, and they were very close friends.
Wade and Becky still live in the old home that had been the home of those Doctors Lightfoot. Mrs. Bibb’s brother, Robert (Bunk) Lightfoot, was also a Doctor. And all three of Dr. Robert Lightfoot’s sons, Bill, John and Dick, pursued careers in medicine. Both Bill and Dick became medical doctors, and John an orthodontist. The three of them are Becky’s first cousins, and almost every year, all of the Lightfoot family returns to the old Lightfoot home place bringing spouses, children and grandchildren and all the connections, for a family reunion. The actual old building that served as a Doctor’s office for 3 generations is still standing! And most of the Lightfoot forebears rest in the nearby Calebee Cemetery.
I love to cook BBQ, and for many years I have cooked for the Lightfoot reunion: Boston Butts, pork ribs, briskets and camp stew. On October 27, 2018, I again cooked for the Lightfoot reunion. At the reunion, the family often examines family memorabilia. Becky gets out old documents and pictures for the occasion. On the non-Lightfoot side of her family, she is descended from Judge Benajah Smith Bibb, brother of the first two governors of the State of Alabama. The mother of Judge Bibb and the governors was a first cousin of Martha Washington. Believe me, there are lots of documents and pictures, as well as antiques in that house!
The Bibb family is quite interesting, but this story has to do with Becky’s maternal line of ancestors, the Lightfoot family. As mentioned above, the grandmother of the present Drs. Lightfoot and Becky, Mamie Ross Pinkston Lightfoot, was a first cousin of Miss Dee, and the two of them were very close friends. Miss Dee dedicated one of her books, Songs in the Night, “To M.P.L., Cousin-Sister-Friend, A “Martha” in Loving Thought and Ministry. Although Miss Dee moved about a quite a bit in her career, she apparently always considered Shorter (which now includes the La Place community where she was born) her “home.” It appears that she may have been living and teaching in Shorter in 1935-36, when the book that she dedicated to Mrs. Lightfoot was published, but I have not been able to confirm that yet. Family tradition has it that Dr. and Mrs. Philip Malcolm Lightfoot, Becky’s grandparents, maintained a room (in the house where the Lightfoot reunions now occur) especially for Miss Dee, and during her long and interesting career, she often spent summers with the Lightfoot family. And finally, in 1945 or 1946, at age 64 or 65, she returned to Shorter to teach at the Shorter Public School during her retirement years. She likely lived in the Lightfoot house, until Mr. Parish built a small house for her on Lightfoot property in the early 1950’s. Initially she taught English and history. But by the time she told me that I had the face of a college man, her only job was librarian. She never stopped encouraging students! Before Mr. Parish built a house for her in the 1950’s, she probably lived in the Lightfoot House.
Dr. Robert (Bunk) Lightfoot, who passed away in 1982, father of Bill, John and Dick Lightfoot, who have attended the reunions, had helped take care of Miss Dee during her final years. She had attended his graduation from medical school, along with his family, and by that time had retired to Shorter.
After Miss Dee died, Dr. Robert Lightfoot and his wife Alice (Bill’s parents) came into possession of some of Miss Dee’s documents. Daria, Dr. Bill Lightfoot’s wife, brought those documents about Miss Dee to the 2018 reunion. When Becky saw those documents about Miss Dee, she remembered that she had a plastic box there in the Lightfoot house in which some of Miss Dee’s memorabilia were stored, and she dug it out.
The box was not very large, but contained a treasure of Miss Dee’s “stuff”: pictures, letters, records of her education and other memorabilia that Miss Dee had collected over a lifetime! All in a state of complete disarray, 48 years after Miss Dee’s death, of course. I was totally fascinated by the material! Awestruck! My brother Wade had recently received University of Alabama Alumni magazine identifying and discussing the early female graduates of the University. It featured a picture of the first graduating class that included women, and there was Miss Dee, although she was not mentioned by name. My curiosity was thoroughly piqued! Glancing through the disorganized information in the box, I immediately realized that there was a story here that needed to be told. And because she had believed that I had the face of a college man, and now I had access to this information, I felt compelled undertake to tell the task of telling her story!
I suspect that almost everyone has a box or drawer where they keep their treasured personal “stuff.” I have one. Mine is a wornout Baby Ruth Candy Box from the 1950’s! You know what I mean: a box or drawer full of stuff that means little to anyone else, but everything to the owner! I immediately seized upon the idea of examining Miss Dee’s stuff, researching the leads, and writing her story. I had retired as a Circuit Judge 18 years earlier, and re-entered the practice of law. But just days before the 2018 Lightfoot reunion I had announced my (almost complete) retirement from law practice. In the material that I found in Miss Dee’s box, I saw the perfect opportunity to fulfill one of my retirement goals. I had always wanted to write about the Shorter School, and a way of life that it represented, but that is now poorly understood. And here was the opportunity to tell the story of a woman who started out in that community, always considered it “home,” watched it develop, and returned to it to teach in that school, and lived to see its short history conclude under the stresses of the Civil Rights Movement.
Her story is the fascinating story of a devoted Southern Christian Missionary/Teacher. Her life was deeply embedded in the work of the Methodist Church, most of it in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, before the merger. The Methodist Church has also been an important part of my life. I think Miss Dee would have been proud to know that the guy with the “face of a college man” graduated from Huntingdon College (affiliated with the United Methodist Church), served as Lay Leader of the Alabama West Florida Conference, attended a number of General and Jurisdictional Conferences of the United Methodist Church, and eventually chaired the board of trustees of Huntingdon College. I tell about all these things in my own memoirs on this website, but mention them her to explain my reasons for researching and writing about Miss Dee. Against this background, I found the prospect of writing about a Miss Dee and her Methodist work very exciting. The successes and new roles that women have achieved in recent year did not just happen. There were important pioneers like Miss Dee who blazed the trails. Here is an opportunity to look at the life of a true pioneer in the advancement of women!
Everyone liked the idea that I should examine Miss Dee’s box! So, I began the examination. The box was not organized. It was not an index of Miss Dee’s activities. It was a hodgepodge of miscellany. The clues to story were there, but had to be extracted! I suspect that during the many years since Miss Dee’s death in 1970, it had been thoroughly shuffled. No doubt, Miss Dee could have lovingly identified every picture and every document, but no one else ever can or ever will! But it contained personal memorabilia that would have been priceless to her. It contained scraps and hints of the life work of a truly exceptional woman! It included poetry and writings on which her mind and spirit had fed. Digging into it, I experienced the excitement that an archeologist might feel, examining a new archeological find. But going through the box was not like reading a book! Organization was necessary. Hours of meditation about significance were necessary. Additional research into many sources was necessary. But these scraps of paper reluctantly revealed clues to a magnificent story.
Wow! I had no idea what a career Miss Dee had led: she was a precursor of the currently developing role of women on the planet earth! My journey of exploration and examination of the story of an all but forgotten avant garde woman has been an unforgettable experience. The material in the box provided clues that led to other information, and ultimately to discovery of many details of the beautiful life of a woman ahead of her times. In the box—at two separate places—I found two cards approximately 3×5, one printed front and back, all with very small print: 1901 Commencement Week! Graduation with the first females to graduate from the University of Alabama was not the end of Miss Dee’s story. True to the real meaning of the word commencement, that was the commencement—the beginning—of a magnificent career of service.
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