In the fall of 1924, fresh out of training, Gazelle Clark arrived in Mathews County to teach elementary grades at New Point High School. Gazelle, a native of Lancaster County, completed Syringa High School in Middlesex, then took the two-year course at State Teachers College at Fredericksburg (now the University of Mary Washington).
Gazelle taught at least one year at New Point, which happened to be an eventful year in that community. Even as classes were underway, local contractor J. Eddie Callis was building a large addition which included a new auditorium and classrooms; conversion of the original auditorium into classrooms; an electric lighting system and central heating. The work also added a second tower to the formerly one-tower frame building.
May Day in 1925 was the occasion to lay the cornerstone and dedicate the addition, and the young teacher snapped what must have been one of the first photos of the enlarged facility.
A few details about the project appear in Mathews Journals of the 1924-25 school term, and in minutes of the Mathews County School Board, which date from 1922 and are posted on the school system’s website. The project appears to have been funded mostly by the New Point Civic League and New Point Dramatic Club, which raised money through suppers, ice cream sales, and theatrical presentations.
While teaching at New Point, Gazelle boarded with the Snow family of New Point. That was all she put in the way of identification on a snapshot. We sent the image to Linda Snow Horsley of Gloucester, who took one look and immediately identified the family as her grandparents James and Ida Doggett Snow, and their children Nancy and Maurice (Linda’s father).
After one or two years in Mathews, Gazelle returned to teach in the Northern Neck, married, had a family, and disappeared from the local education scene. Her daughter Lillian Shelton renewed the family’s presence here. She came to the new Gloucester High School as a home economics teacher in 1953, married John Cox, and still resides in Gloucester. She recently obtained her mother’s photo albums and brought the Gazette-Journal this story and the priceless photo of New Point High School taken a century ago.
And 100 years after Gazelle taught in Mathews, the story has come full circle. Linda Snow Horsley and Lillian Cox, both retired teachers, got together in the spring to compare notes. They talked about relatives in the Northern Neck, discovered that both had grandmothers who were Doggetts before their marriage, and decided that after all these generations of hidden history, they are cousins! Which may explain, one century later, why Gazelle Clark came to teach in Mathews and boarded with the Snow family, her cousins.
We thank Lillian Cox and Linda Horsley for their contributions.
