Tag: HBCU

Posted on

Wells, William Tecumseh “Billie” (B.S., Agricultural Education, 1925)

Headshot of William Tecumseh Wells

William Tecumseh “Billie” Wells was born 9 September 1891 in Solgohachia, Arkansas, to Isaac Lee Wells and Jane Gorman Wells. After graduating from Solgohachia High School, William became a self-employed farmer, according to this World War I Draft Registration Card. Enlistment in the Army for service in World War I on 27 October 1917 meant two more years away from post-secondary education. Wells was discharged on 2 May 1919. Later that year, on 24 December, he married Aubra McKindra and returned to the farm.

Wells attended Prairie View Normal & Industrial College (now Prairie View A & M University) in 1921-22, where he was in the junior Division of Vocational Agriculture. Following that, from 1923 to 1925, he attended Iowa State College, where he was a member of the Agriculture Club (Iowa State University, 1925) as well as the Alpha-Nu Chapter of Alph Phi Alpha by 1924 (Tutt, 1924). During his time in Ames, Wells lived at 200½ Main Street. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Agricultural Education from Iowa State College in 1925. At the end of January that year, Wells filed for divorce from his first wife on the grounds of desertion during his time at ISC, an undoubtedly difficult situation for him as he completed his studies. When the divorce was granted, Wells married Doris Aline Hutchison on 23 March 1925.

By the 1930 census, William and Doris had moved to Taft, Oklahoma, where he took a job as a teacher and Superintendent for the Farms of the State Hospital, Deaf, Blind, Orphans, and Girls Reformatory. Known as the DB&O, the orphanage housed more than 300 African American children in the mid-1930s (“Preserving a Bit of Oklahoma’s History,” 2007). In 1935, Wells attended the banquet held for Iowa State Alumni at the inauguration of Frederick D. Patterson as President of Tuskegee. By 1946, Wells is listed in the Muskogee, Oklahoma, City Directory as a “rehabilitation officer,” and by 1957, he was a teacher at the Manual [High] School in Muskogee, where he taught until at least 1959.

William T. Wells died on 6 January 1977 in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and was buried in Booker T. Washington Cemetery, Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Sources

Photo credit: Iowa State University. (1925). 1925 Bomb, v. 32 Special Edition, p. 85. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/islandora/object/isu%3ATheBomb_41631#page/100/mode/2up

“Preserving a bit of Oklahoma’s history.” (2007, Feb. 20). News on 6. retrieved from https://www.newson6.com/story/5e36891a2f69d76f6209f7b5/preserving-a-bit-of-oklahomas-history

Tutt, Harold L. (1924, June). Alpha-Nu chapter, Des Moines, Iowa. The Sphinx, 10(3), p. 17. ISSUU. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/192401003

Posted on

Munday, Reuben Abraham (M.S., 1935)

Headshot of Reuben Abraham Munday

Reuben Abraham Munday (Mundy) was born in Berea, Kentucky on  10 February 1900, to Reuben H. and Sallie Ann Simms Munday. He married Gustine Elizabeth “Bettye” Alexander.

Munday earned a Bachelor of Science from Hampton Institute in 1927, a Master of Science from ISC in 1935, and a Ph.D. in Poultry Genetics from Massachusetts University in 1947. Between 1928 and 1937, he was listed as an instructor of Poultry Husbandry at the Tuskegee Institute.  In 1935, when attending the banquet held by the Iowa State Alumni Association for Frederick D. Patterson’s inauguration as President of Tuskegee,  he was listed as the head of the Poultry Husbandry Division at the same university. 

Shortly after, he became the Director of Agriculture for Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College from 1937-40. While at the school, he also served as the Head Football Coach in the 1937 and 1938 seasons. He was later drawn back to Tuskegee to serve as the Head of the Division of Animal Science and full Professor in the 1940s. He died in Tuskegee, Alabama on 18 July 1972.

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The effect of selection on egg production in single comb white leghorn fowl, 1935

Iowa State University Catalog Record: https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990008351010102756 

Posted on

Floyd, Rhetta Stone Ragland Hurd  (M.S., Child Development, 1942)

Headshot of Rhetta S. Ragland

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.

css.php