The following is an excerpt from the Smith County History Book. The book was published in 1986 by the Smith County Homecoming ’86 Heritage Committee. To purchase a digital copy of the Smith County History Book, contact the Smith County Chamber of Commerce or the Smith County Heritage Museum.
By Kate Carpenter Bridgewater
This account of the little school on Dyer’s Branch is taken from a letter written in 1975 by Kate Carpenter Bridgewater, now deceased, who taught at the school in 1913.
Dyer’s Branch School, located on the old John Barrett farm on Dyer’s Branch, was a subscription school. The little one-room building sat on a little rise, and at the foot of the hill under a big tree was a good spring. In good weather teacher and pupils gathered together with lunches and drinking cups and ate and played games. About twenty-five or thirty students were usually enrolled in the school. This was my first school and I was rather young and was happy with the children.
Automobiles were scarce at this time, especially in this section of Smith County where the roads were not too good for traveling. It was a great treat to see a car pass. One day while things were very quiet in the school room, a little six year old boy, Mitchell Manning, heard the motor of a car. He ran to my desk crying, “You may whip me, if you will only let me outside to see that car pass.” All the children were excused and no whipping!
As best that I remember the little school building was done away with and the children sent to other places.
Dyer’s Branch School, 1913. 1st Row, L to R: Earl Williams, Elmer Baker, Cordell Wilkerson, Mitchell Manning, Walter Ballinger, Marvin Hickey, Charlie McClanahan. 2nd Row: L to R: Alberta Wilkerson, Laura Bell Stallings, Campbell Baker, Charlie Ballinger, Joe Baker. 3rd Row, L to R: L.B. Cheek, Edgar Manning, Frances Barrett, Fannie Bell McCalnahan, Rosa Lee Wallace, Mattie Lou House, behind her is her brother J.B. House, Etta Bradford, Carter Wallace, Sam Bradford. 4th Row, L to R: Rosa Williams, May Belle Baker (almost hidden), Myrtle Manning. The last three boys are Adron Hickey, Homer Stevens, Lulon Stevens. Teacher, Miss Kate Carpenter.
