Lavina “Vina” Curry
1830s
Thomas Gossett
1850s - 1863
Thomas Gossett who is employed at Friends Boarding School New Garden No. Carolina, and who has purchased his own and his wife’s freedom has recently had his oldest son taken from him and sold for six hundred and fifty dollars is making efforts to redeem him which must be done soon if at all.
Correspondence Files, North Carolina Yearly Meeting Meeting for Sufferings, Quaker Archives
From Boarding School to College
1865 - 1900
James Reynolds (1870s)
Dicey Cunningham (1870s)
Henry Watkins (1880s)
Ann Brown
(1855-1911)
Staff member during 1880s transition from boarding school to college.
Ann Brown
(1855-1911)
Head Cook
c. 1880 - c.1910
Hattie
Pitts
(1860-1939)
Maid & Nurse
1880s
John Pitts
1880s - 1922
Hired in 1880s during the construction of Archdale Hall, he was the college’s hack driver and later a janitor. Husband to Hattie Pitts.
Ruth Watkins (1853-1926) �Domestic Staff in late 1800s and early 1900s
Ann Brown (left), Ruth Watkins (right)
“Uncle”�Munn
Early 1900s
1928 Guilford College images of staff at work. The center image showcases the college laundry and press room that was promoted, along with the central heating plant staffed by Wesley Raleigh, as modern campus institutional amenities.
Twentieth Century
1900 - 1962
Marion Jones (1900s)
Alice G. Jones (1910s)
Janie Raleigh (1920s)
Laura Kellam (1930s)
Pearline Hedrick (1940s)
Wesley Raleigh
Employed at Guilford 27 years to maintain the heating system, he also worked as a local firefighter.
It was Wes who arrived in the wee small hours and fired the boiler so that others could arise in comparatively warm rooms.
David Caldwell�(1886-1963)
Cook
1913-1918, 1934 - 1950s
Henry Hill
Ellis Penn
Marion Sapp
mid-1900s
Nelson Fitzgerald
(1908-1981)
Laundry Worker
Marion Sapp
Hamp Alston
Facilities Staff
mid-1900s
Mary Ellen Cathey
Hobbs Hall Cook
1951 - early 1970s
Lavina “Vina” Curry
1830s
Acknowledging Their Legacies and Descendants
Special thanks to Ruby Sapp Leach for sharing additional photographs and all the many friends and family of those named in this presentation.
Gratitude to those who shared and continue to share their stories to connect past to present. Appreciation to Gertrude Judd Upperman ‘69 for fulfilling her grandfather’s dream when Guilford finally opened the door.
While this ends with 1962, some of these early staff were still at Guilford as the first Black students arrived to provide crucial connections and family members of earlier staff continued to work at the college into the 2000s.
In memory of Logie Meachum, Mary Minor, and the many members of the Woodyside and Collins Grove communities no longer physically with us.
Queries for Consideration
What other names and stories have been lost to our collective institutional memory? What stories and narratives do we tell ourselves and others about our past? Are we aware of the privileges that exist for some and not others?
How do we negotiate Quaker heritage as both a space with deep and long aspirational values associated with social justice, and as an institution entangled in a culture of white supremacy?
Does our narrative of valuing equality function to silence instances when our institutional and cultural practices have discouraged rather than cultivated equity and inclusion??