John Shearer: Tracing Life Of City High Graduate After Perusing Her Very Old Scrapbook

Nowadays, high school students put their latest exploits and experiences immediately on social media and the internet.

But more than a century ago, Candis Atkins Hixon documented hers in an old scrapbook.

And in contrast to today’s online sites that sometimes quickly erase posts, her documentation has remained for decades virtually unscathed.

While these old-fashioned posts that include written comments from others, news clippings and other mementoes were apparently collected by Ms. Hixon strictly to help her personally remember a time in her young life, they are now available for all to see. That is, even though nothing in them appears to be of an overly personal nature, although it does uncover more clearly in a collective sense what life at Chattanooga High and the surrounding community during the World War I era was like.

The person who helped save the scrapbook is Dana Sturgis. Although not related to her, the TVA Sequoyah plant employee and military veteran had emailed me saying he had come into possession of it due to his friendship with former World War II submarine pilot and Baptist preacher Al Smith, who lived on Strawberry Lane and died in 2018. Mr. Smith’s wife, Edna, who died in 1996, was the great-great-niece of Ms. Hixon.

With no other family members saying they needed to hold on to the scrapbook, Mr. Sturgis was looking for a place that might preserve it. He passed it along to me after I suggested that the local history and genealogy section of the Chattanooga Public Library might be a good repository.

I passed the scrapbook along to the library for permanent safe keeping late last week. But with his wishes, I also perused it beforehand to learn and share some of the hidden historical treasures and mementoes.

While it reveals a lot about a Chattanooga High in an era even before the eye-catching and still-standing structure on East Third Street now used by Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences was built, it does not say what happened to Ms. Hixon.

The last entry was from about the early 1920s with a hint of her upcoming wedding. But with a little help from a more modern historical research aide – the computer – and from Jessica Sedgwick at the library, her full life story was explained.

And her life story went on for decades, long enough in time and adventures to fill up a few more scrapbooks.

The scrapbook is titled “The Girl Graduate’s Memory Book” and was printed evidently on a mass scale in 1917. She was 15 years old then, having been born on Aug. 29, 1902. Based on the title on the front of the scrapbook, she might have been a senior then, although further research would be required to verify.

In the front is a postcard photograph of the Chattanooga High she attended. At that time the school was located on the northern side of the 400 block of East Eighth Street, where a parking lot is now diagonally behind UTC’s 540 McCallie Building, which was formerly the State Office Building and Interstate Life structure.

Although this is not in the scrapbook, that building, apparently designed by noted Chattanooga architect R.H. Hunt, had opened before the 1905 school year to house a growing Chattanooga High student population. After even more expansive facilities were needed and a new City High opened on East Third Street on the former Gardenhire farmland in 1921, the former building was used as Dickinson Junior High until 1959, having been named for a former school board head.

When Chattanooga High had opened in the Eighth Street structure that almost looked like a small-town courthouse, it had science labs in the basements, two study halls on different floors, and separate girls’ and boys’ gyms.

But perhaps the most unique feature was a meteorology classroom on the top floor that had a stairway leading up to the roof area, where an observation deck was available to view the sky. Apparently, meteorology in those days was not just about weather, but astronomy as well.

Other Chattanooga High mementoes in the scrapbook include a card saying that a rose was the official school flower of Chattanooga High, making me wonder if the old maroon school color came from that. There are also clippings of old football games between such rivals at the time as McCallie and Central, with one of the games played on Thanksgiving Day.

There are also written comments from fellow students and teachers, much like one would find in a yearbook. Betty Little, for example, wrote, “I can’t think of any poetry to write in your book, But I shall never forget the good times we’ve had together.”

Addie Mae Garmany was perhaps a little more foresighted and poetic when she wrote, “When you find this book in your old chest, think of the old days in dear old CHS. Dorris Taylor, meanwhile, wrote that Candis was simply “a splendid little girl.”

A Mr. Spencer, who was apparently a teacher, had also sent a preserved letter to her at the school written in Spanish, perhaps indicating that was a subject he taught. What was a more interesting part, though, to me, was the English section, as the stationary came from the Fort Oglethorpe military base, perhaps hinting that maybe he was serving there as part of the war effort.

Another person who served at Fort Oglethorpe during World War I was future President Dwight Eisenhower, although no reference is made to him.

Although it became an issue near the end of the war, there is also no reference in the scrapbook to the influenza pandemic that swept the world and has since been compared to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

Another item in the scrapbook is a small piece of material from her evening dress, which she said made her knees shake when she walked in it. She did not refer to whether that was due to the fitting of the dress or any special occasion when she wore it. The scrapbook’s other tangible items include tickets from the Chattanooga Traction Co. (streetcar line), and the Rialto and Strand theatres. The Rialto was evidently having a vaudeville show when she went.

Other items include colorful Christmas package tags not much different from those found today, some black cutouts of an owl and bat, and a business card of Dr. J. McChesney, who was assisted by Dr. Stewart Lawwill. Their office was in the Hardwick-Hogshead Building by Fountain Square.

She also had some news clippings about several other events around town, including a club she was involved in, as well as one about a reception for new Whiteside Street Methodist Episcopal pastor R.K. Triplett. Another article highlights the CHS senior class preparing a Christmas tree for the Vine Street Orphanage.

A small pencil is also in the scrapbook, as is a photo wearing pin of the 1914 Chattanooga High football team, and some other small and mostly unidentified photos in the back.

Ms. Hixon also had some personal entries, including about eating a stomach-filling chicken dinner with the Wallace family and going hunting for chestnuts, and visiting a fortune teller, who apparently told her some not-so-great news.

However, her life turned out apparently OK, based on some other information found. A scrapbook entry does talk about her upcoming marriage to James Raymond Hixon on Jan. 29, 1922.

Further information found in old newspapers available online says the marriage was held at Highland Park Methodist Church. Also, a pre-wedding party for her had been held at the McCallie Avenue home of Mary Alice Stegall.

While she was only 19 when she married, her husband, who went by Raymond, was then 27. He was even a veteran of World War I, serving in the 1^st Tank Corps in France. He had also operated one of the first Chattanooga service stations in the historic building at Main and Central avenues. It is believed to be the one that stood until recent years before being torn down to make way for housing, much to the disappointment of historic preservations.

The United Methodist member later went into the hotel business in Chickamauga and then the area around St. Petersburg with Candis. An old ad found from 1953 encourages Chattanoogans to stay in one of their rental units while visiting the area.

He died on Jan. 16, 1970, in a Gainesville, Fl., veterans facility at the age of 73 and was buried in Chattanooga’s National Cemetery.

One of his brothers was Curtis Hixon, who was an East Ridge commissioner. On a personal sidenote, I had written a regular column at the old Chattanooga News-Free Press looking back at events a decade or two earlier, and in about the mid-1980s as a young reporter, I had recounted a heated meeting of the sometimes volatile East Ridge Commission from that 1960s era.

I believe it was Curtis Hixon who called me not overly happy with my recounting of the events. I think we ran a correction better clarifying the meeting, even though I think he wanted a fuller second story, and I called his house back to tell him. He was apparently not near the phone, but I had a delightful conversation with his calmer wife, and all seemed to end well.

Regarding scrapbook owner Ms. Hixon, she was apparently actively involved in the hotel operation with her husband in Florida, perhaps a unique future career for someone from Chattanooga High.

What is a little bit of a mystery, though, is that she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Moore of Highland Park. Whether her mother had been an Atkins or was previously married to an Atkins, or if some other story was involved, would require further research.

Possessing the middle name of Ruby, which was evidently not referenced in the scrapbook, she had evidently been a little bit of a go-getter as her scrapbook entries seem to indicate. Besides helping her husband in motel work, she also worked for Volunteer Life insurance company for 30 years. It must have been before they moved to Florida.

In her later years, she lived at 206 Nowlin Lane in East Ridge and had become a member of Trinity Baptist Church.

She died on June 21, 1982, at the age of 79, and was buried alongside her husband in the National Cemetery. Sadly, to me at least, her somewhat detailed obituary makes no reference to her having attended Chattanooga High.

She and her husband did not have any children. But she did leave behind some of her life and character traits in the old scrapbook now in the possession of the Chattanooga Public Library.

It is a book that arrived there with the help of a preservation-minded Dana Sturgis.

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Jcshearer2@comcast.,net