(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
The Indefatigable John A. Zachary
Written By: Jane Gibson Nardy - Cashiers Historical Society | Issue: 2019/01 - Winter
I
n 1889, the Cullowhee Academy was founded in Jackson County with Robert Lee Madison as the school’s head. By 1891 the school’s name had changed to Cullowhee High School, with a “Normal Department” whose graduates would receive a three-year, first-class teaching certificate qualifying them to teach anywhere in the state.
My grandfather, John Alexander Zachary, named for his great-grandfather, Col. John Alexander Zachary, graduated in this program at age 18, and the following is the written recommendation Robert L. Madison wrote for my grandfather.
“Cullowhee High School, Painter, N.C., July 15, 1899
To Whom It May Concern: Mr. John A. Zachary, who graduated from our Normal Department last May, has made in our institution an enviable record in scholarship and deportment.
Being one of our brightest and most industrious students, ambitious, conscientious, thorough, and indefatigable, he gives abundant promise of succeeding in whatever he makes up his mind to undertake.
Should he enter the school-room to assume the responsibilities of teacher, I confidently predict for his students satisfactory mental and moral development.
I should not omit to add that Mr. Zachary is a Christian and conducts himself with discretion and propriety. Respectfully, Robt. L. Madison, Principal.”
By 1900, my grandfather was teaching grades one through 12 at a one-room schoolhouse, near Monroe, Georgia. Evidently the State of Georgia honored his teaching diploma from North Carolina. He kept a daily journal with information about his pupil’s progress and also wrote about meeting a young lady in his community named Viola Crossley who stole his heart away. She became my grandmother. That journal has survived and is in my possession. It is so helpful to have ancestors who didn’t throw anything away.
After a few years of teaching school, John and Viola Zachary moved to Atlanta where John worked for the U. S. Mail Service, delivering mail on the railroads. He kept that job until he died at age 38 from the dreaded, painful tuberculosis. He left behind in Atlanta his wife and two young daughters and in Cashiers a grieving father and dozens of Zachary relatives.
