Mrs. Gertrude Spillman Sledd

Recollections - Gertrude S. Sledd

BackHomeUpNextGertrude Spillman Sledd
...
Gertrude Spillman Sledd will celebrate her 101st birthday in July.Mrs. Sledd was born in Salvisa, the daughter of Burry and Jane Hall Smith Spillman, but she has spent most of her life in Danville.She began teaching at Bate School an 1915, and after spending a few years teaching in Paducah, she spent the rest of her career at Bate, retiring in 1961.Mrs. Sledd attended Wayman Institute, which was a normal school in Harrodsburg, and Wilberforce University in Xenia, Ohio.After she retired, Mrs. Sledd did some substitute teaching and spent two years as a dormitory director at Kentucky State University.
...
In 1915, Sledd got a job as a high school teacher at Bate School, where Professor John W. Bate was principal.
...
Mrs. Sledd returned to Bate in the fall of 1919.
...
Mrs. Sledd says segregation was accepted, both by her generation and by the student she taught.
...
Mrs. Sledd remembers rural communities where black people lived.