NELL DENTON MASHBURN

MONROE’S “PIED PIPER OF EDUCATION”

Monroe Art Guild Presentation

Monroe, Georgia

May 13, 2011

It is an honor for me to be a part of this month’s event, “Historic Places & People of Monroe” for the Monroe Art Guild.  When Bryan asked if I would be interested in choosing a historic person to profile, I happily accepted the offer to discuss someone near and dear to my heart.

But as I pondered over the title, I was curious as to what credentials a person needed for being considered historic?  So I went straight to the guru of all things historic and cultural, asking Bryan to give an exact definition.  His reply was, “Someone over fifty years old who has or had importance or influence on Monroe or Walton County.”  Hearing his answer, I knew I was on secure ground!

Nell Mashburn lived in Monroe from 1948 to 1964 and was loved, admired and revered as one of the most special of teachers, one who illuminated our lives through her teachings in ways we never imagined.

Some of her students are in the audience tonight along with others who never had the pleasure of knowing her, only hearing about her and what she meant to Monroe.  The ones who didn’t know her most likely are curious as to who she was, why she came to Monroe and what made her career as a teacher so special.  I hope at the end of my presentation these questions will be answered for you.

Nell Denton Mashburn was a 60 year old widow from the small town of Rochelle, Georgia when she arrived in Monroe the summer of 1948. She was a native of Milledgeville and in her early years had been an elementary school teacher and principal.  When she married her husband, Henry, she gave up her teaching career to begin a life with Henry in Rochelle.  In her youth, Nell had been exposed to the finest education for the time and learned to love and enjoy all things cultural as well as educational, and as a new bride, she happily shared her knowledge among her friends and citizens of Rochelle.  When her husband died suddenly in 1944, the loss she felt was immeasurable; she felt adrift on a big sea with no direction, destination or a way to give use to her life.  As she searched for ways to make life meaningful again, her friends rallied around her, offering up their children for Nell to instruct.  They told Nell, “You want something to do to make your life purposeful?  Take our children and let them sit at your feet and soak up your wisdom like you did with us.”  Nell had taught many of them in Sunday school and helped coach them for particular school events.  So at the age of 56, she returned to a career she had loved as a young woman, albeit teaching these children in a very different manner.

 Monroe School Superintendent Horace Odom was a man with a mission; he wanted his school system to have the best, smartest and most respected teachers in the area, period!  In 1946 he began hearing about a lady way down in the tiny town of Rochelle, Ga., who was making news among educators in regards to her teaching methods.  The more he heard about her, the more impressed and intrigued he became.  He wanted very much to meet and talk to Mrs. Henry Mashburn.  Luck was with him the summer of 1948.  Mr. Odom and school Principal Earl Carson were in Athens for an educational conference at the Univ. of Georgia.  Nell Mashburn also happened to be attending summer classes there as well.  Mr. Odom and Mr. Carson both were introduced to Nell by mutual friends and Monroe history was in the making.

Both Superintendent Odom and Principal Carson were totally captivated by this elegant, cultured, white-haired lady with bright sparkling blue eyes and infectious laughter.  Their interest centered around the unique classes she was teaching the children of Rochelle; something out of the ordinary classroom curriculum which seemed to have a lasting impact on her students long after leaving her classes.  After what Mr. Odom and Mr. Carson heard, they were total agreement; Nell Mashburn  HAD to come to Monroe!

Mr. Odom offered her a teaching position in Monroe on the spot.  Nell graciously declined the offer, saying she was quite happy and content in Rochelle and had never entertained the idea of leaving her students or her city. As she laughingly recalled the meeting years later, Nell said she learned very quickly Horace Odom was NOT a man who took no for an answer.  During the weeks Nell was in summer school, Mr. Odom pursued her with the vengeance of a suitor, calling her where she was staying, returning back to campus, begging her to reconsider his offer to teach in Monroe.  Nell was enchanted by his fervent pleas so she accepted his invitation to drive to Monroe for a weekend to see what was in the offering.  After seeing the schools and being promised “whatever it will take for you to accept my offer and come to Monroe”, Nell agreed to come for what she thought would be a “trial basis”.

When the school bells rang that first week of classes in September 1948 in the old red brick junior high school building on Church Street, Nell was sitting in her new classroom, the room that once housed the school library.  Her classroom was now called “the studio” which resembled a large comfortable living room full of sofas, chairs, ottomans, oriental rugs, rocking chairs and bookcases that lined the walls spilling over with books along with other stacks of books on tables and the floor.  A large globe of the world sat on one table and a bust of Shakespeare looked down on the room from its lofty perch atop one of the bookcases.  It appeared that even Mr. Shakespeare was also interested to hear what this lady had to say to her students.

Nell was seated comfortably in an antique rocker, leafing through a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”, as the junior high children began finding their way to class.  As they peered into this newly converted classroom and looked around, the ambience of the room appealed to many and they asked to be signed up for her classes.  As I said, her classes were unique in that the children’s parents paid her for teaching their children.  This was a select course in that what Nell Mashburn was offering was outside the guidelines of the normal school curriculum.  As per agreement with Mr. Odom, Nell was only teaching the grammar school and junior high students as she had in Rochelle, offering up fables, stories, poems and tales geared for the young.  She organized “recitals” for them to participate in, to help make her students feel comfortable in large groups and sure of their speech when speaking before an audience. Pageants were also organized so the children could have their turn in portraying some of the legends they learned about through their classes.  It was due to these venues that she was dubbed as a “Speech Teacher” though the term came nowhere close to adequately describing her teaching techniques.

Loose leaf notebooks we called “Speech Notebooks” were handed out to each student to hold page after page of printed material Nell expected them to learn or recite in her classes.  Brightly colored stars were pasted on pages when an exceptional rendering of a poem, fable or story was delivered.  These notebooks grew bigger and fatter as the years passed as the students returned year after year.

The enthusiasm and success of Nell’s classes spread rapidly through town and it was not long before the parents of the high school students began pressuring Mr. Odom for Nell to take their children as well.   By 1950 Nell’s classes ranged from first grade all the way through high school.  The subject matter was enhanced to include older, more mature studies which delighted Nell equally.  She spent her summers attending classes in various cities taking a variety of subjects. The notes she took from these courses were gathered into her own notebooks from which she transcribed her notes to pass along to her upper level students.  Her notebooks grew fat and heavy similar to the ones her students had.

For the high school students with an artistic or dramatic flair, she organized and sponsored a local chapter of the National Thespian Society so their voice and talent could be further enhanced.

If a parent or curious friend had taken a quick peek inside her studio on any given day, they would have found her teachings ranging from children’s poems and fables to Shakespeare, Greek & Roman classics, poetry, Gibran, Goethe, biographies of famous authors along with current literature and prose of the day.  And, quietly nestled among all these subjects, she infused into her students the importance of the social graces; the art of the letter, how to pour and hold a cup of tea, the majestic beauty of the operas and how to properly interpret them, the correct way to speak on the telephone and the importance of friends and friendships.  She seemed to know everything and how she smiled as she imparted this material to her eager young students whose minds she carefully tended.  She was often referred to as “The Lamp of Knowledge” and her students were her candles, ready to be lit with the knowledge she passed on that forever changed their lives by what was learned from her.  One of her Rochelle students dubbed her “The Pied Piper of Education” and likened her as literally waltzing out of a red brick school building onto a wide road very much like the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz with her students merrily following behind her down the road into the sunset as she tossed page after page of lessons and notes to them, material vital to their educational and cultural well-being.

Over the years, Nell’s “studio” changed venues several times from school to school, finally ending up at her home on Broad Street, going full circle, so similar to where it all began at her home in Rochelle back in 1945.  Even as her studio changed venues over the years, one favorite aspect of the “studio” always remained constant.  As her students sometimes waited for their turn in the studio they always had the enjoyment of having a lemon drop that resided in an antique glass turkey sitting next to a small metal pirate’s chest on a table.  Whatever loose change we had would go into the chest to help “feed the turkey”, always keeping it fat and happy with lemon drops. That happy moment was a prelude to having our time with Nell.

In 1964 due to increasing pain and immobility from arthritis, Nell closed the door to her studio for the last time, moving to Valdosta to live with her sister in a warmer climate.  Her death in 1980 at age 93 was a heavy blow to the hundreds of students whose minds and lives were so enriched by her teachings.

Nell Mashburn was a unique individual whose personality and inspiration was contagious, her love and devotion for her students was without limits and her appreciation for any and all things cultural and educational knew no bounds. Had it not been for the insight and determination of Horace Odom all those years ago,  many of Monroe’s school children would never have had the “once in a lifetime opportunity” to experience the force that was Nell Mashburn.

She has been gone from Monroe for nearly fifty years, but the impact of her teachings both in Monroe and Rochelle is still remembered, recalled and treasured.  Those beloved “speech notebooks” still hold a high place of honor and are considered priceless. It had to have been one of her students who added a small epitaph to her grave marker which read, “She was one of life’s extras”.  Her legacy remains firmly intact through those she taught and that knowledge has been gratefully passed down to children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren.  What she gave us was immeasurable and we were so fortunate in having known and loved a person of such rare dignity and beauty.

On the tables behind me I invite you to look over the memorabilia I was fortunate in receiving from her family after her death.   Some of the notebooks and papers she compiled during her teaching years date back to the early twenties.  The books from her library give you a glimpse into how deep was her passion for reading and knowledge.  The photos show friends you may know who had the opportunity of her influence.  And please, do as we, her students did while waiting for our class to begin.  Open the antique glass turkey and help yourself to a lemon drop; Nell would be happy you did.

Thank you for allowing me to share with you tonight the story of Nell Mashburn whose vision, purpose and the special way she taught her beloved students gave her the credentials for being a “historic person” of Monroe.