ST.

EMMA ALUMNI KEEP HISTORY ALIVE

Richmond Times - Dispatch - Richmond, Va.
Michael Paul Williams Richmond, Va.
September 10, 1995
B.1
AREA/STATE

Martin Holland sat in the bleachers of the steamy, corrugated

gymnasium where St. Emma Military Academy celebrated its
centennial yesterday.
Little remains of the school he finished 31 years ago. The dormitories,
classrooms and chapel have been razed. Only the Moorish-style
mansion remains.
"It's a hurting feeling," said Holland, who lives in Washington. "But the
thing that cannot be taken away is the memories and what you
learned here. And the friendships you formed with people from all over
the country."
Those shared bonds lured about 200 people to rural Powhatan County
yesterday from cities like Washington, Baltimore, Detroit and Chicago.
The celebration took place in a still-unfinished gymnasium built by a
fledgling school now on the site. Mass was celebrated from the center
of the basketball court by the Rev. Egbert J. Figaro, St. Emma's dean
of students and commandant of cadets from 1957 to 1971.
Figaro, who speaks with the sabre-like cadences of a military man,
challenged the alumni to make St. Emma more than a fond memory.
"What we received at St. Francis and St. Emma, and what we have
produced . . . we pledge to pass on to our children and the young
people we come in contact with as adults, as teachers, and as role
models," he said.
St. Emma and its sister school, St. Francis de Sales, were founded by
two philanthropists, Louise Drexel Morrell and her sister, Mother
Katharine Drexel. They were the daughters of a wealthy Philadelphia
banker and financier, Francis Anthony Drexel, and Emma Bouvier, a
great-grand aunt of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The schools
were named in their honor.
St. Emma originally was named St. Emma Industrial & Agricultural
Institute. Military training was later added. St. Emma was believed to
be the only predominantly black Roman Catholic military school in the
country.
St. Emma graduated its last class in 1971. St. Francis had closed a
year earlier. Among the reasons cited for the closings were declining
enrollment, rising costs, a lack of sufficient staff and desegregation.

The site on a hill above the James River remains rich in history and
tradition.
The Moorish-style "big house" -- Belmead -- was once the home of a
Confederate army officer. And the white crosses of a historic slave
cemetery remind visitors that this site was once a plantation.
Blessed Sacrament High School, which opened in 1987, now occupies
the site above the James River. But in a sense, the property will
always belong to St. Emma.
Dr. Lou Ross Hopewell, director of Blessed Sacrament, said hardly a
week goes by when she doesn't spot a car with New York, New Jersey
or Washington plates on the school's winding, private drive.
"Sometimes I find older St. Emma alumni in tears. Sometimes I find
younger St. Emma alumni in shock.. . . We take very seriously the
entrustment of what was yours.
"All around you are pieces of your history," she said. "You are the end
of that period . . . and it's up to you to keep it going."
Keeping that history alive are active alumni chapters in New York,
Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Washington and Richmond. Reunions are
frequent.
William G. Shearin Jr., Class of '67, is president of the National St.
Emma-St. Francis Alumni Association. The retired police detective said
his father sent him to St. Emma because he believed his son needed
the discipline that a military environment would provide.
"The discipline that (the schools) installed in both the girls and the
boys, and the sense of responsibility . . . we need that now more than
ever," Shearin said.
His belief was repeated frequently yesterday.
"It's sorely needed now," said alumnus Ronald Abrams of Baltimore.
"Because our kids have no discipline, no purpose or no goals, and no
need to `put any honor in.' "
Shirley Dabney Tarlton, whose father attended St. Emma, continues to
mourn the closing of the school, "because at this point, we need a
school like that. We need the discipline."

Tarlton, a St. Francis graduate, mourns the demise of the schools for
another reason.
"Just the history, it's gone," she said several days before the
celebration. "The first time we went back, the guys just cried. And I'm
sure Saturday, some people will be coming back for the first time, and
it's going to be really sad. It's going to be happy because we're there.
But it's going to be sad because it seems like all of our history, people
destroy."
Peggy Granderson-Young of Richmond, a St. Francis graduate,
organized the centennial celebration. It was obviously a labor of love.
"In 1992, when I was diagnosed with MS, the night I was in the
hospital the phone rang." It was a classmate. "And that continued
throughout the time of my hospital admittance until I went home," she
said. "It was such an outpouring of love and support. And this is the
type of network we have.
"They still gravitate back," to St. Emma and St. Francis, she said.
"Many have said they've never experienced that feeling again.