A History of the Berry Schools on the Mountain Campus

By Jennifer W. Dickey

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Martha Berry had a vision that a residential school for young men and women with limited educational opportunities would help break the cycle of poverty that pervaded the rural South. She began an educational experiment in northwest Georgia that unfolded during her lifetime and continues into the twenty-first century. This book tells the story of a part of that school--the high school that existed on the Mountain Campus at Berry for more than six decades. For the students who were educated there, the school was transformative. As one alumnus explained, the school had about it an "intangible magic." Join author and Berry Academy alumna Jennifer Dickey as she captures the spirit of that school that today lives on in the "head, heart and hands" of its graduates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781625846716

Jennifer W. Dickey

Jennifer Dickey is a graduate of Berry Academy and Berry College, and the former director and curator of Oak Hill and The Martha Berry Museum. She is currently an assistant professor and coordinator of the Public History Program at Kennesaw State University.

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INTRODUCTION

During alumni weekend of May 2010, former students from the Mount Berry School for Boys (MBSB) gathered for a reunion in Hill Dining Hall. Grown men in their sixties became teary eyed as they reminisced about their days on the mountain campus at the MBSB. Many of them later posted their reflections online. William Kline recalled the time when we were young and strong with our entire lives ahead of us. And a time when I had the only ‘brothers’ that I ever had. Kline was overwhelmed by the intensity and nostalgia with which memories of his time at Berry came rushing back, he wrote, and was amazed at how powerfully it hit me when I was back on campus.¹

Kline was among the students who helped construct the track on the mountain campus, and he recalled his first trip back to the campus in the 1990s:

The track had nearly gone back to nature, but I could still make out the track through the grass, as well as the high jump and pole vault and long jump pits. So I started jogging around that track, all by myself. Then the memories of being strong and able to sprint all 440 yards around that track after taking the baton from my teammate on the mile relay came rushing in. Frankly, it was pretty overwhelming. Strong memories of lost youth and friendships, I guess. And I suppose that track all grown over with grass was a powerful symbol of all that has gone by. I didn’t know what Berry meant to me, except maybe finally on graduation day. I always had sort of a bad attitude toward Berry and was just wanting to get out of there, I thought, when it dawned on me that I was real close to a lot of my brothers, and there was a good chance I would never see any of them again. And for the most part, I didn’t. But I remember, for a decade or more after I left Berry, maybe once every year or two, during stressful times, I would dream I was back at Berry, in one of those dorm rooms I hated, but with my friends. I guess what I would feel in those dreams was safe and secure.²

Kline’s experience is echoed by his brothers, who are transported back to the Berry of their youth when they return to the campus. As Jack Pigott wrote, Every Berry reunion I go to takes me back to the decade of the ’60s for an entire weekend, to a time at Berry when things were safe, certain, and secure. Unfortunately, the trip returning to the 21st century is a downer.³

What was so special about this school at the base of Lavender Mountain that has inspired so many people and still brings a tear to the eyes of its alumni almost three decades after the school ceased to exist? Many people are nostalgic about their high school glory days, but alumni of the high school that operated on the mountain campus at Mount Berry, Georgia, seem to have an almost unnatural affinity for their school. This book explores the history of the school that operated on the mountain campus between 1916 and 1983—how it began, how it ended and what it has meant to those who went there.

As a 1977 graduate of the high school, I have a keen interest in both the history and the alumni of the school. I grew up on the Berry campus, the child of two professors at Berry College, Ouida and Garland Dickey. It is likely that I logged more years as a student on the Berry campus than just about anyone, having attended nursery school, middle school, high school and college at Berry. I think it is fair to say I was indoctrinated into the system. I can also honestly say that of all those years enrolled in various components of the Berry Schools, my years at Berry Academy meant the most to me. Perhaps that is to be expected—for many people, their high school years stand out as a particularly memorable time. But there was something exceptional about Berry Academy. It was a magical place. It was there that I had the good fortune to encounter educators such as Earlene Doster, who taught eighth-grade social studies, and Comer Yates, who taught history and American government. Both of them had an enormous impact on my life and taught me to love history. Perhaps the most influential person was Gary McKnight, who taught science and coached track and cross-country. I was never much of a scientist, but Coach McKnight instilled in me a love for running that still motivates me today. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of him and am grateful for the role he played in my life.

The magic began back in 1902, when Martha Berry first opened the doors of Berry Academy’s predecessor—the Boys Industrial School—on eighty-three acres on what is today the residential end of the main campus. She began that first semester with five boys. In 1916, she began operating the Mount Berry Farm School at the base of Lavender Mountain. The Mount Berry Farm School was a short-lived experiment that soon became the Foundation School. Between 1916 and 1925, the boys enrolled at the school on the mountain campus constructed numerous buildings. During the 1925–26 school year, Friendship Hall was built twice after it burned to the ground shortly before completion.

At the beginning of the 1926–27 school year, big changes were afoot as Berry added college-level courses to its curriculum. The launching of Berry College led to the migration of the freshman and sophomore high school boys, who had attended the Berry School on the lower campus, to the mountain campus. Berry College had a mere twenty students enrolled during its first year of operation. By its second year, the college boasted an enrollment of over one hundred. By 1930, when the college had evolved from a two-year to a four-year program, the entire boys’ high school operation had moved to the mountain campus, and the name of the school was changed to the Mount Berry School for Boys, or MBSB, as it was known around campus. Another dormitory (Pilgrim Hall) was built, and work soon began on what would become one of the most modern and picturesque dairy facilities in the Southeast: the Normandy Barns.

Over the next thirty-three years, the Mount Berry School for Boys offered an educational opportunity to boys who were willing to work their way through. During that time, the Possum Trot School opened and closed twice, the Foundation School ceased to exist and the Martha Berry School for Girls, the girls’ high school begun by Martha Berry in 1909, was phased out. The board of trustees agonized over the decision to close the Martha Berry School for Girls, fearing that alumni and friends might react badly, especially since it was the one school that bore Miss Berry’s name. Ultimately, the declining enrollment of high school girls and a pressing need for more space for college women led to a phased closure of the school that was completed by 1956. Above the archway at the Ford Building, carved in stone, is a reminder of this branch of the institution that is no longer with us: the Martha Berry School for Girls. Most people pass under the archway and never look up or notice this piece of