Jane Quarterman (1905-2005)
Jane Quarterman at South Georgia Teachers College (now Georgia Southern University) 1938. Quarterman served as Art Editor on the college yearbook staff. The Quarterman farm was in Lowndes County, south of Ray City, GA
Jane Sinclair Quarterman was born October 29, 1905. Her parents were David Sinclair Quarterman Sr. and Alla Irene Peek. She was the older sister of noted ecologist, Elsie Quarterman. Jane Quarterman spent her childhood with her family in Valdosta, GA. When she was about thirteen or fourteen, the family moved to a farm in north Lowndes County. The postal address of the Quarterman farm was Ray City, GA although the farm was actually south of the town and south of the Berrien County line.
Jane attended Valdosta High School, then Valdosta State College. In 1938, she attended South Georgia Teachers College (now Georgia Southern University) where she earned a BS in Education Supervision Elementary Schools.
According to Electric Scotland, Jane Sinclair Quarterman taught in Lowndes County, and “an especially memorable year at St. George school, Charlton County, Ga., in the Okefenokee Swamp, where she tried to bring not just book learning but also art and a Christmas tree, which she said was the first they’d seen.” She later taught in Moultrie, GA
In the fall of 1938, Jane Quarterman was named to the faculty of the experimental laboratory school as Georgia Southwestern College (now Georgia Southwestern State University).
Jane Quarterman of Ray City, GA
Butler Herald
September 8, 1938Faculty is Named For G.S.C. School
Americus, Sept. 1. – The faculty for Georgia Southwestern College’s experimental Laboratory School at the Anthony school on the College campus was announced today by W. F. McGehee, director of the educational department under the college’s newly organized education program.
Four graduates of the South Georgia Teachers College at Statesboro will be on the faculty.
It includes: Misses Miriam Burgess, Ashburn, B. S. degree, fifth and sixth grades; Ruby Hubbard, Carnesville, B. S., degree, fourth grade; Onida Gilson, Cobbtown, B. S. degree, second grade and Jane Quarterman, Ray City, B. S. degree, first grade.
Southwestern’s laboratory school is part of a new experimental program attempting to better fit its normal diploma graduates to meet the stiff competition of the teaching profession, Mr. McGehee has explained.
“For many years we have taught our normal students how to teach from a book,’ he said, “but we have failed in what I consider one of the fundamental principles; we have failed to give them practical training in our laboratory school, under the supervision of Georgia Southwestern education instructors and our unusually well qualified staff at the school, normal students will get training equal to a year’s training as a practical teacher before they get their diplomas.”
He explained that it will be easier for graduates of the new program to get teaching jobs under the strict state requirements.
Other experiments are being planned he said.
Jane Quarterman of Ray City, GA
The George-Anne
October 17, 1938S.G.T.C. Roses Making Good At Americus
“Four Roses” have made good at Georgia Southwestern College, according to a feature storyin the Macon Telegraph. They are Miss Jane Quarterman, Valdosta, chief rose; Miss Ruby Lois Hubbard, of Carnesville; Miss Ouida Glisson, of Metter, and Miss Miriam Burgess, of Ashburn.
These “Roses” were among the first to complete the course given by a Rosenwald scholarship for supervision here at S. G. T. C. They proved themselves to be excellent students and were placed at Georgia Southwestern in an attempt to jack education out of a rut of mediocrity. They have inaugurated a new type of grammar grade education that makes education desirable to children instead of being dreaded. The “Four Roses” are four of five teachers in the school – the only four Rosenwald students banded together for practical purposes in the United States. The course they follow in teaching is somewhat revolutionary. The student works at something interesting rather than rushing through a text book. There is no special periods, everything is correlated.
The Rosenwald scholarships were funded by Julius Rosenwald. The Georgia Southern University website provides the following:
Born in Springfield, Illinois, Rosenwald was part owner of what was America’s leading mail-order business—Sears, Roebuck and Company. Under Rosenwald’s leadership, Sears evolved into a popular bricks-and-mortar merchandise store and one of the largest retail chains in America. He served as its vice president and treasurer from 1895 to 1910, as president from 1910 to 1924, and as chairman of the board of directors from 1924, until his death in 1932.
The business luminary is equally known for his extraordinary philanthropy efforts, which far outpaced the work of his contemporaries. Established in 1917, the Julius Rosenwald Fund raised millions of dollars for rural and minority schools and colleges throughout the United States. Thanks to Rosenwald’s generosity and dedication to education initiatives, more than 5,000 “Rosenwald Schools” were built in the rural South to help educate African-American youths. In addition, roughly 4,000 libraries were added to existing schools.
Because of [its] role as a leader in rural education, Georgia Teachers College was able to secure grants from the Rosenwald Fund in order to raise the educational level of teachers in rural public schools as well as establish scholarships for future teachers who wished to work in rural schools.
Jane Quarterman later earned a Master of Science in Education Elementary Principal from the University of Georgia; she also studied at Duke University and Columbia University.
Jane Quarterman married Walter Graves Comer of Americus, Ga. He died May 7, 1942.
Jane Quarterman Comer on the death of her husband.
The Electric Scotland website has published a more extensive sketch of Jane Quarterman Comer at http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/magazine/augsep2005/story22.htm
Related Posts:
Elsie Quarterman, Noted Ecologist, Once Resident of Ray City
Ray City History Blog 