Old Clipping of Anna B. Lacey School
Old clipping of Ernie Harris Sr.
Bill Overend, left, and Ernie Harris Jr., both veterans, in front of old Anna B. Lacey School
photo by John Shearer
Bill Overend, left, and Ernie Harris Jr. in old Anna B. Lacey cafeteria
photo by John Shearer
Bill Overend, Ernie Harris Jr. and Karen McBrayer, from left, in current East Ridge Church of Christ
photo by John Shearer
Former Anna B. Lacey School/current East Ridge Church of Christ
photo by John Shearer
Former Anna B. Lacey School/current East Ridge Church of Christ
photo by John Shearer
Former Anna B. Lacey School/current East Ridge Church of Christ
photo by John Shearer
The building at 951 McBrien Road has been the home of East Ridge Church of Christ since 1990. But if it still looks a little like a school from the outside, that is because it once was Anna B. Lacey Elementary from 1930-85.
While this school catering in large part to working-class families had numerous teachers who are still remembered, including sixth-grade teacher Ms. Shuptrine from the local artists’ family, perhaps the person who did the most teaching about life was custodian Ernie Harris Sr.
“Ernie may have been the smartest guy in the school,” remembered former student Bill Overend.
“He would teach you about how to deal with people and make friends.”
Mr. Harris died in 1987 when he was 75 and left the school in the 1970s after nearly three decades of service, but his name recently resurfaced thanks to modern technology and social media. A Facebook page devoted to memories of the old Anna B. Lacey School has been filled in recent weeks with memories of the school from different eras, with praises for Mr. Harris by far the common connector.
Through all the technological changes the former students have seen, praiseworthy memories of his good manner of long ago have remained the same. And the fact that he was the lone black man in a school that was mostly white through much of his career does not even seem to be what stands out about him the most. He even made character apparently usurp color for attention even during those Jim Crow era days, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once dreamed about.
“I never thought about him as being a black person,” recalled Mr. Overend. “I don’t think people thought of him that way, not as a first impression.”
Mr. Overend, who went on to a successful career with the Coca-Cola company and now lives in Atlanta but is also involved in such Chattanooga efforts as the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park, met me at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in East Ridge recently to reminisce. He also invited one of the late Mr. Harris’ sons, Ernie Harris Jr., to join us. Afterward, the three of us were given a nice tour of the old school building by church member Karen McBrayer, where the reminiscing continued.
I had initially been contacted about doing a story on Mr. Harris by fellow Anna B. Lacey alum Bob Mulkey, who noticed all the Facebook praises for Mr. Harris and thought it was worth a story.
Mr. Mulkey also has good memories of him after arriving at the school in 1966, a year after Mr. Overend had graduated from Brainerd High. Mr. Mulkey recalled that East Ridge in the 1960s was a very white and segregated community, and he thinks Mr. Harris was probably the first black person he met and conversed with.
“I would guess that this experience was similar for the majority of the children at ABL,” he said via some email correspondence. “Ernie was the custodian; we called it janitor then. But he was more than that there at ABL. He was a friend to all of us white kids.
“At recess he would come out and pitch to us in baseball and kickball. If a kid complained about a pitch, Ernie would remark, ‘Whatcha want, a can of corn?’ " While that is a well-known baseball term in the past, it is where I first learned it.”
Mr. Mulkey added that Mr. Harris spoke to the youngsters as an employee of the school, a father figure, and a friend. If Ernie told you to do something, you did it, he said. And all that left a lasting impact.
“I credit him with breaking down racial barriers in East Ridge,” Mr. Mulkey continued. “We didn't think of Ernie by his race, but by his character. He changed a lot of children in a positive way by just being himself. I find it amazing to this day that he is the first thing that so many alumni of ABL remember.”
According to a detailed and well-articulated 1976 Chattanooga Times article by Emily McDonald at the time Mr. Harris had just been transferred to McBrien Elementary as a regular custodian after an operation shortly before his retirement, he had come to Anna B. Lacey 27 years earlier.
The Anderson, S.C., native and accomplished baseball player and brother of a Negro League baseball player, Clemon Harris, told Ms. McDonald that he had formerly worked at Central High for a period. But he came to Anna B. Lacey when Jim Milburn was transferred there from Central as principal.
The William Crutchfield-designed school, which had a cafeteria wing with sixth-grade classes added in the mid-century, had initially been named for the county school board chairman at the time, Ms. Lacey, who had been active in getting several modern county schools built. Her husband was Newton Chevrolet salesman Harry Lacey, and they lived during those early years of the school on East Brow Road on Lookout Mountain.
Mr. Harris recalled during the newspaper interview that Anna B. Lacey School when he first arrived needed a little cleaning up, but he took care of that and would for decades. He also uniquely took an extra step in polishing the attitudes, outlooks, and character of all the students in a caring manner, even though that was not on his list of job responsibilities.
The article pointed out that his long list of official duties would include trying to help the teachers with any immediate needs, water the plants and feed the fish and hamsters during the summers, mow the expansive grassy field, and keep the heating system operating. The latter resulted in him having to walk several miles from his Airport Road home in well-below-freezing weather over one weekend to keep the pipes from freezing.
But it was the warming of the students’ hearts through his work that was not even part of his official duties for which he was most likely remembered. Mr. Overend could not stop talking about the various ways the custodian had been a positive mentor to him at this school where Mr. Overend’s aunt, Dottie Jones Seiner, also taught.
Mr. Overend, who lived on Sunbeam Avenue a short distance away and became an accomplished organist while attending Brainerd United Methodist Church, said that Mr. Harris had all kinds of positive traits. He would not only get out and play some of the sports with the students as a de facto physical education teacher, but he would also show an interest in the students simply in conversation. And he would even correct the students in a positive way, such as when Mr. Overend and some others immaturely picked on an overweight student.
But it was the positive interactions in a respectful one-on-one manner that Mr. Overend remembers the most.
“He would talk to you,” he said. “He would talk to you about family. Things the parents wouldn’t talk to you about, he would.
“He would talk to you about how to deal with people and make friends.”
And that was at a time when the Jim Crow era resulted in limited opportunities for black people in Chattanooga like Mr. Harris. In his own way of uniquely showing leadership at Anna B. Lacey Elementary in an unlikely position, though, he was likely breaking down racial barriers, the former students believe.
His son, Ernie Harris Jr., recalled that his father had only a third-grade education but could read the newspaper, and that helped him. He added that when the family was at home, his father was more the friendly one to the children, while their mother, Rubeye, who lived until 2011 and worked for a while at the Anna B. Lacey cafeteria, was more the strict disciplinarian.
Mr. Harris Jr. was aware of the deep respect Mr. Harris had at the school through comments he would hear and continues to hear. And he knew of all the work his father did by sometimes accompanying him during off hours, even though he went to another school.
In fact, as we toured the old school and current church with Ms. McBrayer, the two men each had different memories of the cafeteria. Mr. Overend remembered his time as a student, while Mr. Harris remembered going in there on weekends with his father.
“He was always visible,” Mr. Harris Jr. said of his father’s overall experience at the school. “And he was funny as all get out. He would talk to the kids and get on the playground with them.”
Despite his ability to enrich others’ lives, he would never get very rich himself, due to his limited pay, only being officially paid nine months a year, and a lack of even a future pension during that era.
Although some families and others would give him gifts of money and other items, he would occasionally still be hurting for funds with several children, his son remembers. Mr. Harris Jr. especially remembers the family one time having no food to eat, and Mr. Harris Sr. had to go around town and finally found an acquaintance who had a store, and he was able to get some food.
Despite all these financial struggles that were accentuated due to the segregated times and that contrasted with the job that apparently enhanced him emotionally, Mr. Harris Sr. and Rubeye were able to help raise a number of children who went on to live respectful and productive lives. In other words, they bucked the odds due to Mr. Harris Sr.’s efforts.
Ernie Harris Jr. – who graduated in 1966 from Riverside High in the same class as noted actor Samuel L. Jackson – worked in management both at the local unemployment office and at Federal Express for several decades each.
Among the other children, Mr. Harris Jr. said that William drove a tanker and became a janitor supervisor in Knoxville, Linda became an administrative assistant at Emory University in Atlanta, Ernestine is a retired nurse, Kathy became a secretary, Debbie became a licensed barber, and Leroy owns a groundskeeping company.
Both his own family and the extended Anna B. Lacey family were apparently enhanced by his efforts.
As Mr. Harris Jr. remembers people telling him, “People would say that your father is different, that he didn’t talk to us like kids. He would talk to us like we were human beings.”
Mr. Overend, who became emotional at one point when remembering Mr. Harris Sr., added, “There are not many people who come through life who have that impact. He's a person I have never forgotten. I also knew that he went above and beyond in his job.”
He no doubt positively affected a lot of people. And it came in a job that would not normally be conducive to such an opportunity, especially in his era.
Needless to say, he bloomed where he was planted.
As Mr. Mulkey concluded in saluting him, “Ernie, rest in peace old friend.”
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o hear Bill Overend mention some brief memories of Ernie Harris Sr.