NEWS

 

In honor of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d write about two of Davidson’s influential women teachers. The first is Maude Vinson, the daughter of Davidson professor William D. Vinson and his wife, Lillie Helper Vinson. Maude was born on January 21, 1887, and was a lifelong resident of Davidson. Her father died when she was ten years old, and except for attending Converse College, Maude lived with her mother for the remainder of her mother’s life. After William Vinson’s death, Lillie, who was 38 at the time of his death, ran one of several boarding houses in town that catered to college students.

Maude attended Converse College, from which she graduated in 1908. According to the Charlotte News, that same year she traveled to Europe with a Converse professor and a group of other students. On their itinerary were Naples, Pompeii, Gibraltar, Algiers, and Spain. According to the News, “The party [was] in good health and having the time of their lives.” In 1910 she was back in Davidson and living with her mother.

According to the Davidson College Magazine, in the fall of 1913 Maude opened a girls’ seminary in Davidson, intended to further educate young women after they graduated from high school. The new seminary’s student body included “Some of the girls … of the high school class that from the rostrum of Shearer Hall proved to us their talents, in the spring—a good nucleus, we believe, for a good school… We congratulate Miss Vinson on the share she has already inspired in her “own country,” and hope that it is but the earnest of better things—a spreading of the seminary’s fame to gather girls from other towns and neighborhoods.”  According to the Davidsonian, the school opened again in 1914, with only five students. By 1915, Miss Vinson was teaching seventh and eighth grades at the public school in Davidson.

Despite her relatively young age, Maude was already active in local affairs. The women in Davidson had established a women’s club called the Civic League, and Raleigh’s Farmer and Mechanic reported on September 28, 1915 that she had made a presentation at the club in favor of it taking over the “moonlight school” that had been established to provide a supplemental education for Davidson’s African-American population.

She continued to teach at the public school, but in November of 1919, the Davidsonian reported that she had been forced to resign for a time in 1919 to care for her seriously ill mother. She returned to work in 1920 and continued to live with her mother until her mother’s death in 1926. According to the Davidsonian, by 1928 she was teaching French at the high school and planned to attend the Alliance Francaise in Paris to improve her skills. The Daily Tarheel described this program as part of a Paris Residential Tour sponsored by UNC. The program included side trips in addition to study.

“Miss Maude” continued to teach French, math, and Latin at the high school, and Mary Beaty, William D. Vinson’s granddaughter, had this to say about her students: “No one of them is likely to forget her as she looked in class —- rather more than plump, her hair long since escaped from whatever contrivance of hair pins had held it together at the start of the day, her dress, always either maroon or green, whitening with chalk dust as the day went on. Still less could they forget the essence of the woman. Energetic and good humored and outspoken, she fairly bristled with the excitement of learning, and set academic and moral standards whose lasting value to the community cannot be measured.”

Throughout her life, Miss Maude remained active in the Presbyterian Church, and she was frequently an officer in the Presbyterial (the presbytery’s association for the Women of the Church). She was also involved in the state federation of women’s clubs. In 1958, Davidson College awarded her the Algernon Sidney Sullivan award, given annually to “a citizen of Davidson who [has]given of themselves selflessly for the betterment of the community.” Maude Vinson died on October 18, 1971, and was buried in the Davidson College Cemetery. She requested that men who had been her students serve as honorary pallbearers.