Life of a Proctor: Emory in the 1950s
by Bim Meyer
Carlos and I married in 1949. We were employed by the Newton County Board of Education for two years. Then “’Fessor Brown” recruited Carlos to come to Oxford as head of the physical education and recreation department.
He was hired to teach; however, added to his teaching responsibilities was proctoring, which included living in an apartment on the first floor of Pierce Dormitory. It was a three room dark hole. Let me describe what I mean. There was one window in each room. We had electricity, but it came in from one fixture on the ceiling. A string hung from the fixture to turn it on. If you wanted to have a lamp, you had to screw a “thing” into the fixture and run a long cord across the ceiling and down the wall to connect with the lamp.
Heat in the Pierce Dorm was from radiators. It was sent to the dorm rooms early each morning while the boys were getting ready for the school day. It blasted up from a heating plant somewhere behind Haygood Hall and it was so hot, we had to open all the windows. They cut off the heat at noon, so every winter afternoon we froze to death. We had to buy a little heater (kerosene, I believe), which we bought from Piper Hardware. We had to use the heater until they sent us another blast at about four in the afternoon, when the boys were supposed to be coming back from classes to study. Pierce was either sweltering or freezing. No air conditioning, of course.
Our job was to check to see if all the boys were in their rooms by 10 p.m. What we didn’t know was, at the opposite end of the dorm there was a room that had a swing-out screen. Many boys took advantage of this clandestine exit. We didn’t know about it until one of our former students told us about it years later.
The Woodrow Lights lived on the second floor, and the Jack Carlsons lived on the third floor above us. We all ate in the dining room, which was in old Haygood Dormitory, and sat at a faculty table. It was fun most of the time -- when the food was fit to eat and the children behaved themselves.
One of the students’ favorite things to do was to throw firecrackers down the stairwell, which was in the middle of the building. We stood it for 2 years -- then built our house on Asbury Street.
Our house, which we built in 1953, was a modular home. We ordered it from a company that built all the parts and shipped them to us in a kit. The walls and hardwood floors were then assembled and the house was furnished with a furnace, appliances, even a washer – but not a dryer. Clothes were hung out to dry on a clothes line. We bought a three-and-one-half-acre property for $1,000 from the Nails Family. They had a small white house on Asbury and they wanted to sell off some of their land. The Moss family had a store out on the corner of Emory and Soule Streets.
I remember Rust Chapel, but I don’t remember the Baptist Church on Richardson Street. The cemetery was the end of the town. There were no more houses past the cemetery, just dirt roads that went to farms, although some lucky farmers did have a two-lane paved road. Old Palmer-Stone Elementary School was on the corner diagonally across from Moss’s store. We sold the pecan grove much, much later to the Craigs. The Rosenbergs live there now.
There were many fine teachers at Oxford College when we were there, but it seems that most of them have left the planet. Jack Carlson has come to visit us several times. He lives in Texas now. As far as we know, he is the only other proctor who is still living.
He was hired to teach; however, added to his teaching responsibilities was proctoring, which included living in an apartment on the first floor of Pierce Dormitory. It was a three room dark hole. Let me describe what I mean. There was one window in each room. We had electricity, but it came in from one fixture on the ceiling. A string hung from the fixture to turn it on. If you wanted to have a lamp, you had to screw a “thing” into the fixture and run a long cord across the ceiling and down the wall to connect with the lamp.
Heat in the Pierce Dorm was from radiators. It was sent to the dorm rooms early each morning while the boys were getting ready for the school day. It blasted up from a heating plant somewhere behind Haygood Hall and it was so hot, we had to open all the windows. They cut off the heat at noon, so every winter afternoon we froze to death. We had to buy a little heater (kerosene, I believe), which we bought from Piper Hardware. We had to use the heater until they sent us another blast at about four in the afternoon, when the boys were supposed to be coming back from classes to study. Pierce was either sweltering or freezing. No air conditioning, of course.
Our job was to check to see if all the boys were in their rooms by 10 p.m. What we didn’t know was, at the opposite end of the dorm there was a room that had a swing-out screen. Many boys took advantage of this clandestine exit. We didn’t know about it until one of our former students told us about it years later.
The Woodrow Lights lived on the second floor, and the Jack Carlsons lived on the third floor above us. We all ate in the dining room, which was in old Haygood Dormitory, and sat at a faculty table. It was fun most of the time -- when the food was fit to eat and the children behaved themselves.
One of the students’ favorite things to do was to throw firecrackers down the stairwell, which was in the middle of the building. We stood it for 2 years -- then built our house on Asbury Street.
Our house, which we built in 1953, was a modular home. We ordered it from a company that built all the parts and shipped them to us in a kit. The walls and hardwood floors were then assembled and the house was furnished with a furnace, appliances, even a washer – but not a dryer. Clothes were hung out to dry on a clothes line. We bought a three-and-one-half-acre property for $1,000 from the Nails Family. They had a small white house on Asbury and they wanted to sell off some of their land. The Moss family had a store out on the corner of Emory and Soule Streets.
I remember Rust Chapel, but I don’t remember the Baptist Church on Richardson Street. The cemetery was the end of the town. There were no more houses past the cemetery, just dirt roads that went to farms, although some lucky farmers did have a two-lane paved road. Old Palmer-Stone Elementary School was on the corner diagonally across from Moss’s store. We sold the pecan grove much, much later to the Craigs. The Rosenbergs live there now.
There were many fine teachers at Oxford College when we were there, but it seems that most of them have left the planet. Jack Carlson has come to visit us several times. He lives in Texas now. As far as we know, he is the only other proctor who is still living.