Rhetta Cabrere Stone was born 7 January 1915 in Temple, TX, one of five children born to French Franklin Stone and Clotilde Cabrere Stone. She graduated from Prairie View Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie view A & M University). Following graduation, Rhetta moved to California, where she married John Garfield Ragland on 18 August 1937, in Los Angeles County. Not long after their marriage, Rhetta was teaching in Phoenix, AZ, while John stayed in Los Angeles (Chappel, 1938). By 1940, according to the U.S. Census, the couple were living even further apart, and Rhetta had found work as a Home Supervisor for the County of Hopkins, TX.
Rhetta Stone Ragland came to Iowa State College to earn her Master’s in Child Development, which she achieved in 1942. While in Ames, in fall 1941, she lived at 704 Crawford Avenue, the home of Earnest and Carrie Dannatt.
Following graduation, Rhetta began teaching at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (later Prairie View A & M University) in 1942 and was listed as “MS, Iowa” in the October 1942 “Newsletter” (Prairie View, 1942). Since her fellow ISC alumna, Anna K. Morrison began teaching at Prairie View the same year and is also listed as having an M.S. from “Iowa,” it’s likely that the university was simply not aware that Iowa State College needed to be distinguished from the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa).
By 1943, Rhetta and John Ragland had divorced (“Signal Clock,” 1943), and in 1946 she married Lt. William Peyton Hurd in Los Angeles, CA, on 20 September 1946 (California Eagle). Later in life, Rhetta married for a third time, to Walter Floyd, becoming Rhetta Floyd. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was mentioned in Jet magazine several times because of her society connections and the celebrations that she hosted or attended (“Society World,” 1986, 1989, 1990).
Rhetta Stone Floyd passed away on 30 June 2003 in Camarillo, CA.
Iowa State College Thesis Title: Differences between White and Negro children in two W.P.A. nursery schools as revealed by selected indexes of psychological development, 1942
Iowa State University Library Digital Repository Link:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17673
Sources
Photo credit: Photo credit: Prairie View A&M University. (1943). Rhetta Ragland [Photograph]. 1943 The panther, p. 46. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=yearbooks
California, county marriages, 1850-1952 [database with images]. (2021). FamilySearch. John Garfield Ragland and Rhetta Cabrere Stone, 16 Aug 1937; citing Los Angeles, California, United States, county courthouses, California; FHL microfilm 2,114,026.
California eagle. (1946, 10 Oct.). California eagle, p. 5.
Chappel, Helen F. (1938, Jun. 9). Chatter and…some news. California eagle, p. 8-A.
Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College. (1942, Oct.). Newsletter – October 1942., Vol. 12(2). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/newsletter/123
Signal clock at Prairie View installed. (1943, Nov.-Dec.). The Prairie View Standard, p. 7.
Society world. (1986, Oct. 20). Jet, vol. 71(5), p. 32.
Society world. (1989, May 1). Jet, vol. 76(4), p. 32.
Society world. (1990, Sept. 10). Jet, vol. 78(22), p. 32.
