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Sidney Lanier Day at Sylva Elementary
When I was in the fifth grade at Sylva Elementary School around 1946, I remember a windy day in February when we were all herded into the auditorium – a huge, echoing cavern that creaked and groaned like a ship at sea.
I sat with my best friend, Charles Kilpatrick, who had an overly active imagination; he assured me that the building would collapse any minute. When our principal, Vernon Cope walked on the stage, Mrs. Dan Tompkins, who taught the first grade, played a bit of “Dixie,” and then Mr. Cope told us it was Sidney Lanier Day. In honor of the occasion, we had a guest speaker. First, however, Mrs. Tompkins would sing a musical version of a Sidney Lanier poem, “The Song of the Chattahoochee.”
“Out of the hills of Habersham,/Down through the valleys of Hall,/I hurry amain/To reach the plain,/Run the rapid and leap the fall,/Split at the rocks and together again.”
I remember that Mrs. Tompkins was a large woman who sang in a high, quavering tenor and gave a spirited imitation of a river rushing down a mountainside.
While Mrs. Tompkins was still speeding gaily onward, there was a commotion as a group of people found their way down the aisle and stopped at the foot of the stage. There were two nurses in white uniforms, several important-looking men in suits and an ancient, little man with a huge walrus mustache who stood between the two nurses. We were told that he was Robert Lee Madison, the founder of Western Carolina Teachers College (now Western Carolina University) at Cullowhee. He smiled, nodded and waved at us.
Eventually, the group found its way to the stage and sat down. The little man came forward to the edge of the stage, which alarmed the two nurses, and peered down at us, still smiling and nodding. As the wind buffeted the old building, he began talking about his childhood in Virginia, where his father had been the personal physician of Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Confederate Army. He said that he was named for Gen. Lee and often sat in his lap listening to his namesake’s wonderful stories. Then, tottering above us, he smiled and said, “Now, children, I am going to tell you something that I want you to remember. Do you promise?”
Looking up at Robert Lee Madison, we all nodded, our mouths agape like baby birds. Then, he told us how two of his playmates, Freddie and James, woke him one night.
“Get up, Bobbie,” they whispered, urging him to be quiet. He followed them. It was close to midnight when they crept out of the house, along a great hedge, into a huge ditch. When he asked what was happening, his playmates told him to hush and listen.
“Then, I heard it!” said the little man. “A muffled drum beating in the night. ‘Ta-rumm! Ta-rumm! Ta-rumm!’ followed by the click of the drumsticks, click-click. It was a funeral march.”
As they all hunkered there in the moonlight, the drummers appeared followed by a great wagon draped with Confederate flags. “Ta-rumm! Ta-rumm! Ta-rumm, click, click,” the little man said, acting as though he were beating the drums. “I turned to my friends,” he said, whispering, “What is it? What’s in the wagon?”
“It’s Traveler,” said Freddie. “Traveler’s dead.”
“Then, as we watched, Robert E. Lee appeared, walking behind the wagon. He was in full uniform and carried his hat in his hand. He walked in cadence with the drums.”
Bobbie Madison and his playmates watched the wagon pass and vanish into the darkness of General Lee’s pasture.
“I was only a little boy, much like you,” (The little man looks right at Charlie Kilpatrick and me.) “but I knew I had witnessed something important. I am an old man now, and I have seen many things. I have a few honors and I have seen memorable events, but the memory that I treasure most is the night they buried Traveler.”
The nurses came forward then, and attempted to take Robert Lee Madison’s arms to lead him off the stage. He politely brushed their hands away and continued, “Boys and girls, you promised to remember. Now, when you are as old as I am, I want you to tell this story to someone.”
And so I have.
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