John Shearer: Chattanooga Law School Photo And Yearbook From 1931 Found

These days Chattanooga attorneys might receive their law degrees from the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, the University of Memphis or an out-of-state school.

But once upon a time, many local lawyers received their law degrees from the Chattanooga College of Law. Yes, right here in Chattanooga, one could get a law degree at a school that was considered very respectable in the legal community for decades.

Evidence to that is found in the fact that a 1931 photo of the Chattanooga College of Law graduating class and yearbook shared with Chattanoogan.com recently chronicles plenty of future local movers and shakers among students and faculty.

That included a future congressman and future heads of large local law firms.

And the images and writeups also hint of a progressive-minded school. That is because several women and an international student are among the graduates and students likely before that became mainstream at some colleges.

This look at Chattanooga’s legal past began after longtime Red Bank historian Tom Williams forwarded an email of the copy of the photo of the 1931 law school graduating class to Chattanogan.com. As he recalled of how he attained it, “My best recollection is that it was among the material left to my be the late local historian, David Henry Gray.”

Since Pat St. Charles Sr. was listed as one of the graduates, Chattanoogan.com publisher John Wilson contacted Mr. St. Charles’ grandson, Tony St. Charles. Mr. St. Charles had earlier passed along some family work-related photos of Cameron Hill taken around the late 1950s before it was leveled, and numerous historic homes were razed. The photos became part of a series in Chattanoogan.com several months ago.

As it turns out, Tony St. Charles has the entire 1931 yearbook that had belonged to his grandfather, and he let me briefly borrow it to peruse it.

He said his grandfather attended law school in sort of a roundabout way. But it fit this well-rounded person perfectly.

Tony said that Pat St. Charles’ parents had immigrated to the United States from Sicily, and as a teenager Pat went to live with a sister in Nashville. He met his future wife in Nashville and moved to Chattanooga in the late 1920s. Here he operated a Central Discount Co. business that made small loans and was part of a national network chain.

Seeing that a law degree would help him, he put himself through law school and was the senior class president. And while this annual would tell much of his story, he actually never owned it for much of his life because he had passed it along to his Nashville sister., Katy Hahn, with an inscription.

“He sent it to her because she cared for him when his parents no longer could,” Tony St. Charles said, adding that both the elder Mr. St. Charles’ parents died in the 1920s. “She helped raised him.”

After his sister died in the late 1970s, her family sent it back to Mr. St. Charles, who probably enjoyed looking at it and reminiscing before his death in 1982.

By then, Mr. St. Charles had become a familiar name in Chattanooga, one of many to find success in Chattanooga in the 20^th century as children of immigrant parents.

“My grandfather wore a lot of hats,” said Tony St. Charles. “He got a law degree and he used it as he needed to. And he ended up in the 1930s and ‘40s managing the James Building. The Central Discount Co. was in there and he got to know building owner John Paalzow. He (Mr. Paalzow) owned the building but didn’t know much about managing.

“My grandfather, due to his experience of also being in the lending business, also knew how to appraise real estate.”

But that was apparently not all. Just as he could get an understanding for the realty landscape around Chattanooga, he was also known for being able to look a crowd over and get a feel for it as an entertainer.

“He was also a host and emcee, and he was also a singer and played the trumpet and violin,” Tony St. Charles recalled. “He would get a whole crowd going in a room.”

Several St. Charles descendants over multiple generations have also continued in the real estate, appraisal, and/or legal field, including his only son, Pat St. Charles Jr., who died in 2015. Mr. St. Charles Jr.’s wife, Jean, was also an accomplished local golfer, and several of their children were decorated wresters at both Notre Dame and McCallie before entering their professional fields.

Tony, who also wrestled at Notre Dame and has researched a lot of history of Signal Mountain where he lives, had also worked in real estate as an appraiser and broker before his retirement, he said.

The entire graduating class of the Chattanooga College of Law besides Mr. St. Charles included Lyda Gore Rice (vice president), Maddox Hale, Lenora Ogilvie Burns, Raphael “Ralph” Shumacker, Caroline Grimm Clark, John F. Green, Nelle Evans Carson, Shade Payne Hale, Charles Fisk Rolston, Burrell B. Barker, Alvie McCullen Edwards, Herbert Lonsdale Lockwood, Harold M. Humphreys, Nathaniel R. Patterson, Ben B. Wilson, Eustaquio A. Gonzales, Truman O. Cox, James Fletcher Morgan, J. Hamilton Cunningham, John Parks, Walter Andrew Witt and Shally Wise.

The instructors included future U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver, future District Attorney Corry Smith, Pope Shepherd and Gus Wood, among others.

A freshman or first-year student was another woman, Martha Jo Dietzen, likely related to the Dietzen family of lawyers and even a judge.

Tony St. Charles said the Hale brothers were involved with Milligan-Reynolds title company.

I know when I worked at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club around the pro shop for Billy Buchanan in the early-to-mid 1980s, I crossed paths with some of these people. I remember that Corry Smith was one of the oldest members by then. He also still played a little golf, as did his friendly wife.

I also remember John Parks and his familiar rounded face that looks just like the person in the 1931 annual.

Out of curiosity, I decided to look up some information on some of the women graduates using the old Chattanooga Times via the Tennessee Electronic Library. As a result, I found bits and pieces of information.

Lenora Ogilvie Burns (sometimes also written as Lenore) had married William Horace Dunaway at the still-standing Second Presbyterian Church on Jan. 8, 1932, not long after her graduation. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Wendell Burns of the Ferger Apartments, she was said to be the youngest woman attorney in the United States at the time. She had also graduated from Chattanooga “City” High.

The couple was to live at 1007 E. 5^th St. Mr. Dunaway had been a graduate of the University of Georgia and worked at Finance Acceptance Corp.

What later happened to her would take some further digging. But this was obviously the height of the Great Depression and jobs were scarce.

Fellow 1931-woman graduate Lyda Gore Rice had been a longtime faculty member at Central High on Dodds Avenue and apparently continued teaching there in the commerce department for years after graduating from law school. This woman who had one of the highest academic averages in the class was apparently also active in a sorority for women lawyers and in 1935 had hosted 18 women attorneys for a tea at the Robert E. Lee Apartments.

Nelle Evans Carson was said to be the first woman attorney involved in trying a case in Hamilton County as part of a legal team. But she apparently soon moved to Washington, D.C., where she resided at least into the 1930s and ‘40s as a single woman.

Less could be found on Caroline Grimm Clark. A tea being given for her in 1932 before she moved to New York to reside was all that could be found in old newspaper articles at a quick search.

The international student was Eustaquio Gonzales of the Philippines, and little could be found on what happened to him. The yearbook writeup on him says, “As you go back to your home in the Philippines, we wish you the best success at the Bar.”

All the writeups in the yearbook, which are part of the entertainment of glancing at the book, are as casual and friendly as they would be in an undergraduate or high school annual.

Another 1931 graduate with an interesting and easily accessible story was Raphael “Ralph” Shumacker. The top academic graduate at both Chattanooga High in 1925 and his law school class, he would go on to be one of the prosecutors regarding the Malmedy Massacre incident by Nazis of Allied prisoners captured during the Battle of the Bulge.

He received a Bronze Star for his actions and learned about the honor in 1947 while he was later an assistant city attorney in Chattanooga.

His name would ironically come up in 1949 in a hearing led by the combative Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin about the Malmedy Massacre prosecution and how it was handled. Sen. McCarthy also asked Sen. Kefauver if they knew each other, and Sen. Kefauver said Mr. Shumacker had once worked at his firm. The fact that he had also been his instructor at the school apparently did not come up.

Mr. Shumacker would later be a founding partner in the Shumacker and Thompson firm and live until the age of 93 before his death in 2001.

His average as the top law school graduate was 97.52. Behind him among the top graduates were Maddox Jerome Hale with a 96.05 average, Lyda Gore Rice with a 94.75 average and Lenora Ogilvie Burns with a 94.68.

At their graduation, Congressman Sam McReynolds spoke. Mr. McReynolds made what constituted freedom of speech and the violation of it sound as subjective as discussions about it have been in 2025. He told the graduates that the freedom of speech in the Constitution was not intended to apply to “radicals like the Bosheviks,” referring to the Russian Communists.

At the time of the graduation, the law school was holding class at the current Hamilton County Courthouse. It had started in 1898 as part of what became the University of Chattanooga at a time when law degrees were sometimes used as supplements to a person’s work, but UC separated itself from the school in 1910 after it abolished its professional programs.

A new charter continued the school as a separate institution, with classes being held in Chattanooga’s City Hall until moving to the courthouse.

Early deans, in order, included the Honorable Robert Pritchard, Judge Lewis Shepherd, and veteran soldier Charles Rountree Evans, who died in 1920 while serving as dean. He was replaced by Judge W.B. Swaney, who was still serving in 1931.

A 2014 article by attorney Jerry Summers in the Times Free Press said that Judge Swaney served until the law school had to close in 1946 after declining numbers due to potential students having to serve in World War II.

It was then taken over by Roy McKenzie and became part of the McKenzie College until closing in 1960s, with classes being held in the former Mizpah Congregation temple at Oak and Lindsay streets.

Mr. Summers, also a regular contributor to Chattanoogan.com, wrote that the law school had a number of other distinguished graduates over the years, including former Baylor headmaster, UC President and Sewanee vice chancellor Alex Guerry Sr., E.B. Baker, and John Stophel.

It was also known as a large law school in enrollment for a period.

Although now somewhat forgotten, it had quite a history, including that brought out in the 1931 yearbook, which was called The Jurist.

And regarding Mr. St. Charles Sr., his grandson thinks he would be flattered he is being remembered through the pages of the old book.

“He would be surprised and delighted that something he did almost 100 years ago has come to light,” he said.

* * *

Anyone who knows information about any of the other students or faculty is welcome to send an email to the address below.

* * *

Jcshearer2@comcast.net