Old South Strong at Saint Mary's School, Oct. 15, 1922

Old South Strong at Saint Mary’s. . . Unique Organization Is Granddaughters’ Club, Among Students

A unique organization, whose members are restricted to daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters of girls who once attended the institution, exists at Saint Mary’s School in this city.

One of the oldest institutions for girls in the South and the largest Episcopal Church School in the United States, Saint Mary’s is renowned for its proud traditions and atmosphere of the “Old South.”

One of the traditions at Saint Mary’s is that every girl who comes under its influence one day sends her daughter to the old school which so endeared itself to her.

So out of the succeeding generations of the same families who attend Saint Mary’s has grown the “Granddaughters Club,” whose list of members reads like a roster of the oldest and most prominent families of the South.

The granddaughters love to “dress up” in the prim ruffled flocks of their great-grandmothers or the calico dresses of their grandmothers and be photographed with “Miss Kate,” a dear little old lady who has spent 55 years at St. Mary’s, first as a pupil, then as a teacher, and finally as special supervisor.

The “great granddaughters” at St. Mary’s are descendants of the “original 13” girls who—clad in quaint little bonnets and queer little shawls—made the journey to Saint Mary’s by stage coach to enter the school in 1842 when it was opened by the Rev. Aldert Smedes.

Many of the old families of the South have had several representatives in the Saint Mary’s granddaughters’ club. Several of the recent granddaughters have been descendants of Governor Manly, of North Carolina, who sent his five daughters, Cora, Helen, Sophie, Ida and Julia to Saint Mary’s. Their daughters and granddaughters have followed them to the famous old school The family of Bishop Gregg, of Texas, has sent two generations to Saint Mary’s and that of Chief Justice Ruffin, of North Carolina, has had two granddaughters in the club, one of them, Mary Bagley Ross, being a student this year.

The de Rosset family of Fayetteville, N.C., has sent several generations of girls to Saint Mary’s, the last representative being Jane MacMillan, of Wilmington, who is a great granddaughter of Jane Cowan, one of the first students at the school. Adelaide Boylston, of Raleigh, also is a great granddaughter of one of the “original 13”—Mrs. William Boylan, of Raleigh.

Especially distinguished in the club are girls who are great granddaughters “on both sides.” Two of these are Isabel Jones, of Raleigh, and Edna Jones Nixon, of Hertford, both their maternal and paternal great grandmothers having been Saint Mary’s girls.

Other great granddaughters who are members of the club are Lucy Kimball, of Henderson, and Mary Gail, of Jacksonville, Mississippi.

From page 4 of the Raleigh News & Observer, Sunday, Oct. 15, 1922