Please join us at our general meeting, 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 30th, in Room B9 at Burke United Methodist Church. Phyllis Walker Ford of the Franconia Museum will speak about the Laurel Grove School.
The Laurel Grove School was built and endowed in the early 1880s by freedmen and freedwomen in order to provide an education for their children. Through their efforts, the school opened a gateway to the literary and basic skills necessary for the first generation born to freedom.
Phyllis Walker Ford is a direct descendent of the family that donated land for the Laurel Grove Colored School. She was instrumental in working with Fried Companies of Springfield to restore the school to its original likeness, and in establishing the Laurel Grove School Association to create a museum that would tell the school’s story. She contributed to the written narrative, “The Laurel Grove School: Educating the First Generation Born into Freedom,” and has located and interviewed six former students of Laurel Grove.
