The Black ISC Student Experience to 1950
A Tracing Race at ISU Project
Iowa State College Thesis Title: Influence of breakfast on muscular coordination, muscle strength and memory in certain Iowa State College women, 1942
Iowa State University Library Digital Repository Link: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17670
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.
Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Availability of vocational education in agriculture for negroes in Mississippi, 1942
Iowa State University Catalog Record: https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21196705970002756
Robert Leander Martin was born the sixth of six children in Dubuque, IA, 9 February 1919, to chiropodist (podiatrist) Dr. Henry Ambrose Martin and his wife, Mattie A. Martin.
Robert Martin flew 64 missions with the Tuskegee Airmen in WWII, was shot down in enemy territory, and received multiple awards for valor, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, seven awards of the Air Medal, and as a surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007 that acknowledged the unit for their “unique military record that inspired revolutionary reform in the Armed Forces.” ( https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/congressional-gold-medal-tuskegee-airmen/nasm_I20071282001 ).
Martin married Odette C. Ewell 21 August 1950, and they had four children, Gabrielle, Noelle, Dominique, and Robert Martin Jr. After finding it difficult to get employment in electrical engineering because of his race and moving from one low-wage, service job to another, Martin finally secured a job as a draftsman with the Chicago Park District (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/robert-leander-martin-1919-2018/) Robert Martin died in Olympia Fields, Cook County, Illinois, 26 July 2018, of pneumonia. In 2019, an Act of Congress renamed the US Post Office in Olympia Fields as the Capt. Robert Martin Post Office, and in Jul 2020, the Dubuque Regional Airport Commission voted to support renaming the airport terminal after Martin. Fundraising is now underway to complete that project.
James Everett Bowman was born to Floyd and Adelaide Bowman in Des Moines, Iowa, on 25 October 1922 and graduated from North High School in 1940. While at Iowa State he lived at various locations in Ames: 218 Lincoln Way (1940-1941), 2512 ½ Lincoln Way (1941-1942), and 117 Welch Avenue (Fall 1942).
Like other men of his day, he registered for the draft, but according to his story, he was told that since there were so few Negroes in college, as long as he kept his grades up, they wouldn’t send him to war. However, Bowman said he still felt the need to serve: “‘I’d go to church and see my friends’ parents and they’d say, “Jimmy what are you still doing here? My son is over there getting shot at.” Well, I got to thinking about that and decided I wanted to carry my load. I was thinking, “well, I do want to fly an airplane”‘” (“James Everett Bowman,” 2019).
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which he heard about while in the ISC library, Bowman continued to think about enlisting or at least doing his part in the war effort. He left his study of Biology at Iowa State and worked at the Des Moines Ordnance Plant for a time as a janitor, then as a chemist at the Ford plant. He finally entered the Army Air Corps in 1943 at Camp Dodge, Iowa, and was sent to Biloxi, Mississippi, for his training. He survived a plane crash in South Carolina before going on to complete his Class 44-K-SE Tuskegee Airmen training on February 1, 1945, becoming a flight officer. Bowman didn’t see battle because the war ended just a few months later, but his success helped prove that Blacks were capable of piloting aircraft.
Upon returning to Des Moines, Bowman obtained a B.S. from Drake University. Turned away by Des Moines schools in 1947, he taught education and psychology at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, while obtaining a master’s degree there in 1949. Later, he returned to Des Moines and taught science at Weeks Middle School and completed his doctorate at Drake in 1975. He took on administrative roles in the district and eventually become the first Black Assistant Superintendent of Instruction for Des Moines Public Schools. Active in a number of community organizations, Bowman also lectured nationally on multicultural education, black history, and the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen.
With his wife, Gloria, the two raised two daughters, Linda and Gale. Linda (Bowman) Lane was also a former Des Moines schools administrator. Bowman died on 13 January 2014, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Sources
Photo Credit: https://cafriseabove.org/james-everett-bowman/
James Everett Bowman. (2019, June 6). CAF Rise Above. https://cafriseabove.org/james-everett-bowman/
