THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
Choestoe man
was outstanding educator
The
Career of Norman Vester Dyer
Telling his father that he did
not want to
farm, but rather to teach, and that the mule he was given by his father
would
be sold and used for education proved to be a good move for the
enterprising
Norman Vester Dyer (March 10, 1885 - December 28, 1968).
This seventh of fifteen children
born to
Bluford Elisha Dyer (1855-1926) and Sarah Evaline Souther Dyer
(1857-1959)
found ways, besides the sale of his mule for $150.00, to earn his
education.
After he graduated from
Hiawassee Academy,
he took the state teacher's licensing test and earned a first grade
certificate. He got a position for a year teaching in the Green School
eight
miles from Gray, Georgia. Following that year of an eight-month school
year,
with his earnings $50 per month, he went to Mercer University in Macon
to
continue his own education. He, with his father's signature, borrowed
$250 from
Mr. Pat Haralson, lawyer, in Blairsville to go to Mercer his first
year.
Alternately teaching and going to school, he earned his bachelor's
degree from
Mercer and repaid all the money he had borrowed for college. Later,
mainly by
attending summer sessions (seven summers in all, he states in his
memoirs), he
earned the Master of Education degree from the University of Georgia.
It was
from Mt. Vernon University in Virginia that he received the doctorate
degree.
Mercer University, his alma mater, awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Back in the days when an
educator was both
a classroom teacher and a principal, Vester Dyer found himself serving
in several
Georgia towns. Among these towns were Lily (near Vienna), Milner,
Luthersville,
Fairburn, Blairsville, Eastanollee, Dawsonville and Summerville. He was
principal of Cornelia High School and county school superintendent in
Habersham
County at Cornelia for eleven years. His retirement came after eleven
years as
principal of Villa Rica High School. Altogether, he served forty six
years as a
teacher, principal or superintendent of schools.
Other than teaching in country
schools in
Union County, his stint as an administrator in Blairsville was as
president of
the Blairsville Collegiate Institute. A school begun by the Notla River
Baptist
Association and supported in part also by the Georgia Baptist
Convention and
the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, the school was the only high
school
then in Union County. N. V. Dyer's term as president was in the 1920's,
prior
to the schools being taken over as a public high school by the Union
County
Board of Education. In his memoirs, Mr. Dyer says of his work as
president of
Blairsville Collegiate Institute: "Since it was a church school, I was
expected to visit the churches of the county, make religious talks, and
fill
the place of a missionary as well as carry on the work of the school. I
found
the students exceptionally interested in the school work, and had very
few
disciplinary problems." (p. 47, "Fugitive
from a Georgia Schoolhouse.").
Following his term at the
Blairsville
Collegiate Institute, Mr. Dyer moved on to Cornelia as superintendent
(or
principal) of the public school there.
On June 17, 1915, Norman Vester
Dyer
married Ruthie Jane Self. She was a teacher at Young Harris, in the
elementary
and/or academy division of the college. It was there that Dr. J. A.
Sharp,
president of the college, performed the marriage ceremony for the
couple in the
college parlor. She was a daughter of Cicero Self and Sarah Lance Self.
Three daughters would be born to
this
couple, Sarah Ruth on March 14, 1919 in Luthersville, Georgia, and
identical
twin daughters, Betty Jean and Mary Helen in Cornelia, Georgia on May
26, 1926.
Dr. Mauney Douglas Collins (1885
- 1957)
was born the same year as Dr. Norman Vester Dyer. Both Choestoe lads,
their
careers in education would parallel. Dr. Collins served as state
superintendent
of Georgia schools from 1933-1957, a total of twenty-five years, during
times
of great change. These two were friends and associates from their
boyhood
together at Choestoe throughout their long careers as educators. Dr.
Collins
wrote the foreword to Dyer's book of memoirs, "Fugitive from a Georgia
Schoolhouse": "He (Dyer) has touched for good the lives of hundreds
of young Georgians, and encouraged them to get the education that would
make
them more valuable citizens of their native state."
Is that not the aim of
education— touching
lives, producing valuable citizens?
2008 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published October 23, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator, freelance
writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
Back To Union County, Georgia GenWeb Site