Letters from Mrs. Ila E. Lewis Malone

submitted by Kim Morris

Here is a letter my grandmother had written......it mentions 2 schools she had taught sometime in the late 1920's & 1930's in Bibb Co.

This is a letter written by my grandmother while she was in a nursing home at Heritage Hills, Tuscaloosa Co., Alabama.

June 16, 1982
Heritage Center Care
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401

President of Livingston College
Livingston, Alabama

Dear Mr. Green:

If I am not mistaken in your name, as the President there I have written you before. I am interested in my welfare, what iI mean, is I'd like for you to help me in securing my High School grades there at school.

Here I've been at this place for over seven years now and I'd like to get away from here to stay and to find me something else to do.

Could you imagine me having a job there as washing dishes? Please look up for my records there, and if you could recommend me as a helper in the dinning room, as when I went to school there several years ago, I always worked there waiting on the tables.

I have a picture of the table of girls where I ate. I ask them if they would let me make a picture of them?
As I happen to have a "Brownie" Kodak. So after lunch that day we all went out on the campus and we made some pictures of ourselves.

I wish I had not quit going to school there at that time.

But I thought I'd like to start teaching school, so iI stayed there at Livingston 9 months and then I was appointed a teacher's school at New Lexingston, out from Berry, Alabama. So, it happen to be a three teacher's school - so, the name of the teachers was; (myself the primary teacher), Ola Graham taught the 4th & 5th grades, and Ruth Fullerton taught the 6th and 7th grades, there.

If you want to get a better understanding of my teaching there write to the department of education here in Tuscaloosa.

I taught one year in this county and I really enjoyed it.

So, I went back to Livingston that next summer and renewed my certificate for teaching again.

So, the next year I taught, I was sent to Bibb County over at the Friendship School out from Brent Alabama. So, it was a one teacher school and I enjoyed it.

After school was out, I then went back to summer school. I waited on tables to help pay for my board then.

After teaching at Friendship School, I was sent to John Town School, a place out from Blocton, in Bibb County.

But I did not try to teach any more then.

Please let me hear from you Mr. Green. If you can help me please write to me at once. address my mail here at the nursing home Tuscaloosa Alabama 35401

Mrs. Ila E. Lewis Malone

Thanks

P.S.

Mr. Green:
The reason why I am interested in coming back to Livingston, as it seems kinder like that is my old home place.

See! My mother had 9 children, and she had a nervous brake down, and my people carried her to Bryce Hospital for treatments. So, she stayed at Bryce so long it seemed as if she did not want to come back home to stay, I was a little girl at that time.

She always wanted to go back to Bryce to live. So all of us children were scattered about with our aunts & uncles and grandma Lewis kept my baby sister Mabel. And raised her from a baby on up til she and my sister and brother all three of them went to Martha Berry Schools in Berry Alabama somewhere.

My sister Mabel Cox in Reform Alabama is living now.

I have one brother living in Maxwell California. He is in a rolling chair and staying home. His wife Dallas Lewis waits & cares form him like a baby. She sure is faithful to keep him alive. He use to live here in Tuscaloosa and he finished College at the University Alabama. They only have two children, the girl teaches school, and her brother has finished law school.

I have 4 brothers dead and 3 sisters dead. and us three are yet living. I stayed with my Uncle Albert Lewis in Gadsden, Alabama and went to school at Striplen Elementary school. Then I started in at Disque High School in Gadsden, Alabama.

My daddy wanted me to go to Livingston School so I might learn to be a school teacher. So that is why I started going to school there.

I enjoyed school at Livingston and I won't forget the Artesin Well of water there.

P.S.

Dr. G. W. Brock was the President while I was in school there at Livingston.

I can play the piano and sing in the choir and I really enjoy it.

My dad had all of us children going to a singing school while we were small and I liked singing too. Bless his heart, he was a good Daddy too, and of course I had a good mother too.

I've had five children 4 living one dead (a little girl BETTY JANE)

I don't want to go to live at my children home. That is the reason why I am very much interested in coming back to Livingston.

I went to the Baptist Church there at school sometimes, I went to the prespiterian church and I enjoyed going to church.

Please don't feel bad about me writing this to you , but it seems like I needed some one to talk or write to in Livingston College. I use to trade at the Coleman Merchandise store there and Mr. Coleman had either 2 or 3 children, one boy name Hampton Coleman and one girl was Sara Hart Coleman, I think?.

Wishing you many happy moments and may God Bless you and Livingston School.

Thanks
Ila Malone

MALONE, ILA
Birth: 20 Mar 1904
Death: 1 Feb 1991