Skimming Ridge School or Boxes Creek School

(On front row third from left is Fred McCaleb)
by Fred McCaleb

From the best info I could obtain from the old timers in the area of this old one teacher school, it was built about 1910-12. It was located on the road between Berea Church of Christ and New River Baptist Church in Northeast Fayette County, Al. It was not built as a church building. Some singings and church events may have been held there in the last years of its duration. Berea probably had a country one teacher school, so did New River Baptist (Killingsworth) church, Clover Hill, Gravel Hill, Philadelphia Church, Glen Allen and other communities around the Hubbartville area. Fayette County had many one teacher schools up to around 1930. The schools in the Hubbartville area were consolidatted into Hubbardville Junior High School which later became Hubbartville High School. Skimming Ridge School operated from about 1912-1927. Travis Hollingsworth came in possession of the school house at end and dismantled it by hand,piece by piece.
I wondered how this building came to have the name of Skimming Ridge. Skimmings were a byproduct of sorghum molasses making. They could be stored in a barrel, let ferment into alcohol, and then boiled off in a still to obtain whiskey. One of the local enterpreneurs saved some barrels of skimmings, dug holes in the ground for the barrels and camouflaged the location. Some local resident came along and fell into one of the barrels. Thereafter the area was known as Skimming Ridge. Boxes Creek School was named Skimming Ridge after the above event.
Some of the earlier students at this school were the Sherrill and Fanny Barnard Killingsworth children : Cecil, Grady, Barnard, Arla and Mae. The younger ones Barbera and Gladys didn't go there.
John and Catherine Hollingsworth Nichols' children Ruby and Jack attended.
Dan and Leona(Mayfield) Swindle's children Mae, Reuben and Talmadge attended.
Wallace and Susan Angeline Tucker Roby's Children Attended. They were Ras, Emma, Louie, Arthur, Mae and Ruth and Willidine. Louie married Verla McCaleb(sister of my dad H.) Ruth Married Arvil Moore. Willidine married a Webster & Mae an Eads.
Judge and Maud Killingsworth Hollingsworth's children Sherman and Shelby attended. I(Fred McCaleb) can recollect when Shelby got burned to death under a T Model Ford truck that had turned over on him one night. He struck a match to see how to get out and gas caught on fire.
Houston and Kate McCaleb Haney's children Avis, Pauline, Lucille and Wilma attended. Their younger children Jimmie Lou and Borden didn't go there. Huse was a famous Church of Christ Preacher.
Billy and Alabama Hocutt's kids Cecil and Sleetia attended.
Billy and Alabama Whitehead were students?
Floyd ,Minnie Tucker, Jerry and Evie attended. Parents were Dee & Mandy Tucker.
Pollard Wakefield's daughters Carrie and Essie were students, and Essie was later a teacher there.
Charlie and Mollie Malone Killingsworthh's children Claudie, Wilburn and Sam attended.
Bud and Sara Hollingsworth's children Maud, Artie, Travis, Pate, Ceburn, and Cleburn attended.
Dude and Georgia Hollingsworth's children Lillie and Luther and Georgia attended.
John R.Hollingsworth's Dodson grand daughter Mabelle and her brother Lawrence went there.
Jim and Velma McCollum's kids were Ila, Wiley, Frankie & J.C.
Frank and Jinnie Box's kids were Ola, Lola, and Zola.
Tom and Bessie McCollum's kids were Ida and Ada.
Sem and Silla Tucker's kids were Sherman, Boss, Pearl and Eurna. John Roby's kids Roy, Early and Cordie Bell attended.
Jim and Mandy Kelly Hollingsworth's children were Ned, Luke, Flonnie, Tom, Alfred, Andy, Bess and Dot.
Curley and Bessie Sprinkle's kids were Basil, Polly, Kate, Mildred and Lois.
Tim and Sleetie Beauchamp McCaleb's attendees were Roy, Houston, and Alton.
Andrew and Julie Dunnovant's child that attended was Marvin.?
Rass and Carrie Sprinkle's kids were Tine, Lou Eva, Bethie, and Fletcher.
The ones I recollect the best were the older children of Ecter and Ethel Hallmark Killingsworth. They were Ola, Eunice, Mildred and I believe also Vivian. We walked to school together, and had to pass over Boxes Creek on a one bannister footlog. Ola got dizzy and fell off the footlog one day. She barely missed falling into the water and drowning. Her face was injured and bleeding. We got help and she pulled through. The above were cousins.
The H and Eza Hallmark McCaleb's son Fred attended this school as his first introduction to the educational world. The teacher Alma Sherrer Kizzire made an example of me and her son Albert. Alma was one of my mother's best girl friends.
One of the pupils that went to this school made a lawyer. He was Jim McCollum. His son Hardy McCollum is mayor of Tuscaloosa, Al.now(1996.) You can never tell what a school or individual will produce or become.Jim's dad was Capt.Newman McCollum. Jim's brother Clay also attended.
Virgie and Minnine Hollingsworth and Felix (their brother and husband of Arla Killingsworth) were early students. Could that have been where Arla met Felix? Their oldest son Howard may have attended there a while. Parents were John T. and Orpha Perry Hollingsworth.
Some of the Joe Kellly children attended this school. They were Jess, Fannie, and Bill.
The teachers I could find out about were Jim and Pollard Wakefield, Pollard and Bet Wakefield's daughter Essie, Thomas Herren, Myrtle Ervin Herren(wife of Columbus), Alma Sherrer Kizzire (later Cannon,), Murry Duncan,Florence Ezell,Fred Johnson, Fannie Little, Kelly Little and Maybell Baker.
The board of education(a paddle or good switch from the woods) resided on the teacher's desk at that time. Obeying easy.
Some contributors for this write up were Ada McCollum Box, Ruth Roby Moore, Arla Killingsworth Hollingsworth and her family, Fred McCaleb and my cousin Eunice Killingsworth.
The classes of old Skimming Ridge School are thinning out now. Only a few of the most hardy that have survived the hardships and temptations of the years are around today. Arla Hollingsworth is about 95. The youngest would be around 70. The house is gone and its pupils are about gone. The bell that called the classes from playing town ball and "Antny Over" still survives on a post at a neighbors' of my Aunt Verla McCaleb Roby Sandlin. I have a VCR recording of the bell. Soon it will be only something to read about. Then the story will not be believed. I felt like I wanted to say something for posterity about my first school. I guess I learned something about reading, writing and arithmetic here and some respect for authority.
The Roby children walked through Sie McCollum's pasture to get to school. Sie's bull would try to run them out of his territory. Sie was a black boy from slave days. He had Bill Ervin make him a coffin many years before he died and kept it under his bed. He said his black (he called them Nigger) kids were too sorry to bury him. All the whites loved Sie. Sie showed my dad and I how he fit in his coffin one day in the 1930's when we stopped by to talk. Andrew McCaleb just about gave Sie the first track of land he acquired and told Sie never to let the white folks beat him out of it. I am not sure, but don't think his estate has been settled yet. There is a nice McCollum Cemetery there where many of his descendants are buried. So many of his descendants must have been better than he thought they would be.
None of Sie's kids had the privilege of attending Skimming Ridge.
Ada McCollum had to walk to school with Alton McCaleb. Alton was a big tease and aggrevated her very much.
I don't recall getting into any fights while attending Skimming Ridge. I was 6-years of age at the time. My cousin Ola Killingsworth was sort of a "mother hen" that looked after her younger sisters and me. I did have fights in other schools later, especially at Shannon, Ms.
School lunches were not packed in a paper bag at that time. One brought his or her lunch in a half gallon lard can. You might have a biscuit with some ham meat or country eggs in it. One might have some butter and syrup or jelly to put on the biscuit.
The pickings were not too good. They just depended on what home grown canned or dried food your mother had at home. Fried apple tarts with plenty of grease in the ingredients were a favorite. The apples were sliced, dried and bagged in the summertime. Later sandwiches from bought loafbread became popular, and the lunch was packed in a paper bag. Then that succombed to the school lunch program under the present socialism. Still the kids liked junk food instead of the good prepared food, and spent their allowance for junk food and dope. There was no allowance at Skimming Ridge, and face was lost if you got a whipping at school you got another one by your parents at home if they found out. Self esteem was earned by performance instead of teaching it.