ALICE ELIZABETH FREEMAN YOUNG

by Dolores Fleming

EDUCATOR 46 YEARS IN ST. MARY'S COUNTY, MARYLAND

1928 proved to be a momentous year for Alice Freeman. She was all of twenty years of age, just graduated from Minors Teachers College in the District of Columbia and had received her certification to teach in the state of Maryland. The certificate indicated qualification to instruct grades 1-7 plus act as a teacher-principal in a school not to exceed three teachers as faculty.

Teaching positions were not readily available in the District Public School System. Her mother encouraged her to seek employment in the rural Southern Maryland areas as fully certificated teachers were in short supply there at that time. Mrs. Freeman, a native of Benedict, Maryland, was cognizant of this acute need. Alice was encouraged by her priest at St. Augustines to try St. Mary's County. He was sure she could find a position there. Only her father, a carpenter by trade, who had left Caroline County in Virginia to seek his fortune in Washington, DC, questioned the wisdom and possibilities of Alice's happiness and success.

Miss Freeman was hired by Miss Lettie M. Dent to teach upper level grades at Medley's Neck Elementary just outside of Leonardtown, Maryland. This area is located near marshland and woods. Having spent most of her life on Corcoran Street in the heart of the city, she was emotionally ill prepared for the vigors of survival in a teaching facility that had an outdoor privy, a well, a blackboard, two erasers, six small boxes of chalk, not enough books for students of which all were second-hand, written-in, pages torn out with covers hanging.

Officially, the school year extended from September to June, however, in actuality most students attended regularly from October to May to accommodate the tobacco season. Eventually, the State Board of Education mandated that the school year be enforced from September to June, but the older students that could work were seldom there.

Alice was told she would receive a load of wood to be stacked and stored in a side shed. It was to last the school year. As the months grew cooler, she would prepare a noon meal on the wood stove for herself and the students. Usually this would be beans or a soup. Something that could be prepared in a pot on the wood stove. Alice did not know how to make a fire. She did not like to go to the privy because she was afraid of snakes. She also had second thoughts about the other creatures that seemed to abound in this locale.

During the first year, students set on benches rather than regular desks. Ms. Dent promised her this would change and it did. Her second year there, students were seated on used "Soper" seats and desks. She and her students kept the building clean and took care of the fire. The two years she spent at Medley's Neck were physically difficult, but provided important learning experiences. Her bright sports were:

1. She was prepared academically to do her job;
2. The children wanted to learn;
3. The parents were supportive and augmented supplies of wood. They taught her how to make a fire;
4. The noon meal gave her the opportunity to get to know her students well. She learned about their families and rural living. This is a habit she would continue throughout her next two teach assignments.
5. The Neals, her boarder family, helped her with the kind of information which enabled her to develop survival techniques.

In 1930, Alice Freeman was transferred to Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School in Hollywood on Sotterley Road. The building was shred with Miss Parris, who taught grades 1-3. Alice had grades 4-7. There was no high school facility for African American students at that time. Those who could afford it went to Pomonkey High School in Charles County or to Dunbar, Banneker, or Armstrong Tech in Washington, D.C.

Alice realized that for the majority of her students, she represented the end of the line in their academic lives. She approached her job with seriousness and pushed for good speech, accuracy in mathematics, excellent in written expression and spelling. The texts provided for social studies and science were abominable in content and physical condition. She spent long hours in preparation, trying as best she could to bridge the gaps she perceived in what was not provided by the county system. Social studies texts were biased and science was poorly presented and edited. How many times did she say, "Thank God for Minors Teacher's College and the District of Columbia Public School System".

Meanwhile, secondary education for African American students crept at a snail's pace. Parents in 1896 had begun organizing for St. Mary's Colored High School. By 1923, the United Parent Trustee Association had tried to establish the Colored Central Industrial School. By now, they knew if education opportunities for their children would ever improve, it would be the result of their own initiative. They purchased land, donated materials and labor to produce Banneker School. Still, the Board of Education refused to accept the land and the building. In 1929, the property was finally deeded to the Board.

Meanwhile, Miss Freeman was transferred to Maryland Springs School, located near the Banneker site on Route 5. The building was the oldest elementary school in St. Mary's County, having been built in 1848 for white students. It had two advantages, dust did not readily come in cracks in the walls and windows and in the winter, Bernard Somerville made sure that fires were made before the students arrived so the building would be warm. The water, which had frozen from the night before, would be melted in buckets. Thus, they would have water. When the children arrived, education could begin immediately. Mr. Somerville saw to it that fire was "banked" at night and water was drawn for the next day. He made sure there was enough wood to last the winter. (Miss Freeman said that at Maryland Springs the wood did not run out before spring.)

When Banneker School was finally opened as a public school, Alice was transferred there to teach upper elementary grades. It was almost heaven. In 1941, she married Joseph Elmer Young. By now, she had become firmly committed to the children of St. Mary's County.

Alice was never a complainer. She continued to find ways to educate children to do their best. She deplored the book situation, but used her training and intellect to make up the deficiencies. She expressed the desire that once in her life she would be able to choose the texts the children would use. Her goal continued to be to train young people as if she would be their last teacher. She fully realized the impact of economics on these students' education. She planned trips out of the county to Washington, Baltimore, and New York to help students expand their horizons. She talked to parents about continuing their children's education. Because of her innate abilities, training and experience, frequently, she was given students who were having difficulties within the school structure. She believed that every student could learn. It was up to the teacher to find the best method of instruction.

She served as a mentor for new teachers, showing them techniques that were never taught in any education class. Wise principals usually instructed new teachers to observe her classes for techniques in instruction and positive discipline. She was an example for everything from lesson planning to opening and closing school. When schools were finally desegregated, she was assigned to Carver Middle School, then Leonardtown, and finally Hollywood Elementary.

After 46 years as an educator, Alice retired in 1974. She had taught in a system that had gone from a perfunctory rudimentary operation with minimal commitment on the part of the county to an organism that began to function in a more normal responsive manner.

Alice Freeman Young had succeeded in taking whatever was given to her and making it work for the good of the children in St. Mary's County.

Signed by: Dolores Fleming
Dated: November 16, 2002