The School Room
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Cousin Robert and I never did let schooling interfere with our education. - Frank Vance - |
| The School Room takes you back to school life in the early part of the 20th century. A classroom is set up with old desks complete with a teacher at the front of the class holding a hickory switch. Records of different schools and teachers tell the story of the education of the local children. Also featured is the personal library of Aunt Zona, a well known educator in Avery County. |
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Avery Folks |
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Arizona Houston Hughes, "Aunt Zona", was born September 24, 1876 in a one-room log cabin by Henson Creek and was named by her half-brother who was serving in the Army in the Arizona territory. Aunt Zona taught school 57 years and all of those years within ten miles of the log cabin where she was born. She was voted North Carolina Teacher of the Year in 1953. Aunt Zona had her heart set on teaching and at the age of 18 she began teaching. She attended summer school at Appalachian and held a life teacher's certificate for North Carolina. She taught in homes, churches and one-roomed school houses with pupils ranging from age 6 to 21 all for a salary of $15 to $20 a month. Persuaded by a friend to pursue a new career, Aunt Zonie hopped on the Tweetsie train in Cranberry and rode to Johnson City and then on to Macon, Georgia to learn a new career in stenography. Along with her stenography certificate she caught influenza. The doctor advised her to go home where the climate agreed with her and |
| that she did. She began teaching at Roaring Creek School where she met her husband Pierce Hughes. In 1935 she moved to the new school at Spear called Riverside where she taught for over twenty years. When she retired, she spent a lot of time working on her book "Aunt Zona's Web" which is sold at the Avery County Historical Museum today. She wrote numerous stories about the history of the region and was interviewed by many journalists throughout the years. Aunt Zona died on her birthday, September 24, 1969 |  |
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From the Book "Sweet Rivers" by Maggie Palmer Lauterer on sale at the Avery County Historical Museum
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