Randolph County AlArchives History - Schools .....Wesley's Chapel School 
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Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 August 30, 2022, 2:07 am

Wesley's Chapel School
Township 19, Range 10, Section 8.
Randolph County Alabama 

It is not known when the Wesley's Chapel school was organized. It dates back to 
at least 1894. 

Lessie Maddox was born in 1900 she attended Wesley's Chapel school as a child. 
She spoke of running through the woods taking a short-cut because she was late 
for school, with her blue book speller, a book on arithmetic and slate in one 
hand, her lunch pail with a buttered biscuit in the other hand. By the time she 
got to the school she was soaking wet from the morning dew. The teacher 
told her to stand by the fire until her shoes and skirt had dried. Wesley's 
Chapel church was a one-room log building with a fireplace which doubled as a 
schoolhouse until 1913.

Mrs. Lula Rice-McDonald also attended Wesley's Chapel school. She talked about 
how the old log building was so cold in the winter. She said "The children sit 
on church benches with a plank in front of them to write on. The fireplace was 
in one end of the building, and the black broad in the other end". 

G.W. Rice was a trustee at Wesley's Chapel from around 1907 to around 1929. 
Mr. T.M. Price was a teacher in 1909. 

The new Wesley Chapel school building opened on November 10, 1913, with Gilbert 
Landers as a teacher.
There were 41 pupils enrolled. There were very many boxed suppers, singing, and 
cake sales to proceed 
to school fund over the years. 

Wesley's Chapel Girls basketball team vs Corinth's Girls 1918.
Corinth line up: Cora Lee Morrison, Mammie Furgurson, Mattie Lee Cockrell, Lova 
Lipham and Lorena Braden.
Wesley's Chapel line up: Pearl Brooks, Lula Brooks, Mae Boggs, Genevie Brooks 
and Zadie Foster
Referee: Oliver Brooks
Timekeeper: Idus Landers
Scores: Vera Landers. 

Teachers in 1924
Miss. Etheleen Holland
Miss. Holland made such an impression of some of the ladies in the Wesley's 
Chapel Community there were several female children born around that time named 
"Etheleen".

In the 1930's there was no running water. The children had to carry water from a 
local springhouse. There was only an outhouse for a bathroom. 

Surnames of some of the children attending Wesley's Chapel school were:

Baker
Bean 
Boggs
Brooks
Cofield
Duke
Foster
Fuller
Gray
Maddox
McDonald
Motes
Neal
New
Morrison
Rice 
Smith

In 1941 the school caught fire while Mr. Winfred Lovvorn an Miss. Inez Stephens 
were teaching there. S.G. Maddox had turned a flat-bed truck into a school bus, 
he was the school bus driver for Wesley's Chapel. He tried to put the fire out, 
but in those days, there was not much anyone could do in a case like that. The 
remainder of the year school was taught in the Wesley's Chapel Church building. 

In 1942 Mr. Roosevelt Hill bought the school building at auction, he moved it to 
his home. Mr. George Motes bought the land. The pupils were consolidated with 
New Home school in Randolph County and Barfield school in Clay County. Many went 
on to Lineville High School in Clay County in later years. 


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