Florence Buford

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Florence Buford at her desk at Clark School

Florence deLauney Buford (1893-1974) was the first principal at Clark Elementary School in Charlottesville, from 1931 until her retirement in 1964.

Prior to that, she was a teacher at Lane High, starting there in 1927. In 1966, the Buford Junior High, now Buford Middle School, was named in honor of her service to City of Charlottesville Public Schools.

Biography

Florence deLauney Buford was born on November 5, 1893, in Lawrenceville, Brunswick County, Virginia to Frances Susan “Susie” Palmer and Robert Pegram Buford. When Florance was 6-years old, her father died at age 30. Less than a year later, her grandmother, Martha "Pattie" Hicks Buford died. Florance graduated from the State Female Normal School in Farmville (now Longwood College) in 1913. She then attended Columbia University and the University of Virginia, where she earned a Master's degree in Political Science.

Longwood was founded in 1839 as the Farmville Female Seminary Association. The institution became one of the most well-respected teacher preparatory colleges in the state. State Female Normal School (1884), State Normal School for Women (1914) and State Teachers College (1924).

Florence was an advocate to the Virginia General Assembly to establish a school for students with developmental disabilities in Charlottesville. It can only be assumed that Florence's grandmother significantly influenced her passion for teaching and public service.

She participated in numerous community service organizations, including president of the State Department of Elementary Principals, vice chair of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Library Board (which would later merge with the JMRL), a member of the city welfare department advisory board, a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, and the Lynchnos Society, vice president of the Community Chest, president of the Mental Hygiene Society of Charlottesville, a member of the Salvation Army advisory board, and on the board of the Civic League of Charlottesville and Albemarle. She was also a member of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in downtown Charlottesville.

In 1963, Buford won the Exchange Club's "Book of Golden Deeds" award for her service to the community. [1]

From Charlottesville NOW's "herstory (a brief history of the women of Albemarle County)"[2]:

Born on November 5, 1893, in Lawrenceville, Virginia, Florence Buford began her education in a one-room schoolhouse in Brunswick County, Virginia. This beginning in the field of education was culminated in her 33-year principalship of Clark Elementary School in Charlottesville and naming of Buford Junior High in her honor on September 2, 1966. Florence Buford’s concern about the quality of life in Charlottesville was reflected in her wide participation in various civic organizations and her particularly notable achievement of requesting and receiving funds from the Virginia State Legislature to establish a school for the mentally retarded in Charlottesville. Florence Buford was also instrumental in forming the Council for Retarded Children and in obtaining public school facilities for special classes of these children. In a tribute to Florence Buford, which appeared in the Charlottesville Daily Progress on March 31, 1974, it was said that, 'Women’s liberation as we know it is not a new force. Miss Buford faced many staunch male educators over many different issues – she won their respect. [3]

1948 Description of City Schools

Buford addressed the University League on March 24, 1948 and told them that schools were not as overcrowded as many had been lead to believe. She said McGuffey Elementary School had an average of 35 students a class and Venable Elementary School had an average of 32 students a class. She said all elementary schools needed auditorium space but also said that Jefferson School -- set aside for black students -- was much more overcrowded than the white-only schools. [4]

Family

  • Mother: Frances Susan “Susie” Palmer Buford (1872–1961)
(m. 1892)
  • Father: Robert Pegram Buford (1870–1900, aged 30)
  • Grandmother: Martha "Pattie" Hicks Buford (1836–1901), educator
Born near Lawrenceville in Brunswick County, the daughter of Edward Brodnax Hicks (1846–1913), a well-to-do lawyer and landowner, and Elizabeth Stone Hicks, daughter of a former governor of North Carolina. From her girlhood she had conducted a Sunday school for the slave children on her father's plantation. Brunswick County experienced dire poverty after 1865, as former slaveholders and newly freed slaves struggled to survive in a weak agricultural economy. One striking evidence of the changed situation for Pattie Buford was the shift of the freedpeople into their own churches. After the war many local freedpeople joined the Zion Union Apostolic Church. [5]
In the spring of 1875 Pattie Buford asked two female members of the church if she might conduct a Sunday school. They agreed, and she discovered an unquenchable thirst for education among the freedpeople and their children, regardless of religious doctrine. In autumn 1881 she appealed to her northern supporters for funds to establish a hospital for blacks. They responded generously, and in 1882 the General Assembly incorporated the Church Home for Infirm and Disabled Colored People, which opened in October 1883. The continuing expenses of that institution, soon filled with a steady stream of patients, and of her overcrowded school, which offered instruction in sewing and the rudiments of nursing for the women students, required Buford to devote much of her time to raising funds.[5]
Despite holding racial views common to southern whites of her day, for twenty-five years this courageous and unsung white woman dedicated her life to caring for the black people of Brunswick County. [5]
(m. 1858) On 24 November 1858, just three days before her father died, Hicks married Francis Emmet Buford, a lawyer, at the home of her sister. A strong-willed woman, she may have married on that date in order to escape the clause in her father's will that would have required approval from her uncle and brother for her to marry.[5]
  • Grandfather: Francis Emmet Buford (1836–1909)
In 1862 F. E. Buford entered the Confederate army and became captain of Company G, 3d Regiment Virginia Light Artillery, a local-defense unit called up to help protect the city of Richmond. After the war he served Brunswick County as commonwealth's attorney, judge of the circuit court, and member of the General Assembly.
  • Great-Grandfather: Edward Brodnax Hicks (1800-1858)
A sheriff and plantation owner of Lawrenceville, Brunswick County, Virginia. He was also superintendent of schools for a time. His son and successor to the estate and law practice, David Hicks, was a judge, sheriff, land agent, lawyer, and planter in the same locality. [6]

Illness and death

Florence never married.

Namesake

In 1966, the Buford Junior High, now Buford Middle School, was named in honor of her service to City of Charlottesville Public Schools.

Legacy

References

  1. Web. Florence Buford to Get Golden Deed Award, Patti Donich, Daily Progress Digitized Microfilm, Lindsay family, October 8, 1963, retrieved October 8, 2022. Print. October 8, 1963 page 13.
  2. Web. Charlottesville NOW herstory: a history, retrieved Sept 21, 2019.
  3. Web. Belmont - A History of a Neighborhood, James H. Buck Jr., Paper for James Kinard's Local History course, May 1980, retrieved June 30, 2014.
  4. Web. Miss Florence Buford Tells League About City Schools, Staff Reports, Daily Progress Digitized Microfilm, Lindsay family, March 25, 1948, retrieved December 23, 2016 from University of Virginia Library. Print. March 25, 1948 page 5.
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Web. Gay W. Neale,"Martha "Pattie" Hicks Buford (1836–1901)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2001
  6. Edward Brodnax Hicks papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.|https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/hicksedwardbrodnax

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