St John’s High School Class of ’57 gathers at Bonnoitt Ranch
By M B Spears
Special to the News & Press
This is a fact: If your school doesn’t exist anymore, you’re even more likely to cherish getting together with your graduating class. Somehow each gathering gets better than the last.
St John’s Class of 1957 held its first reunion at the Darlington Country Club in 1967. It was okay; it was nice. We had a band of some kind. Some husbands hid in the kitchen and drank too much; mine was one of those.
Our second reunion took place after another ten years. It was good too, and also at a public place. Some of the husbands from that 10th reunion had been shed. Mine, I’m pleased to say, was among them.
But then, our St John’s disappeared. I mean DISAPPEARED. The buildings were there, the amphitheatre for Class Day and May Day and graduation was there, but St John’s High School was not. It’s a shock to be abandoned by the Education Establishment. Like this: St John’s High School – the tough one that sent us out well prepared – moved away in 1977. Worse: For two decades and more, there’s been no St John’s High School in Darlington County at all because in 1995, even the name disappeared. (Is it now politically incorrect to honor a patron saint of the area’s first settlers?)
Quite a few of us went on for more study, but look: those class reunions don’t mean as much because you didn’t grow UP with those people. You came together as strangers and left to become mostly strangers again. As for graduate degrees, nobody needs to reunite with graduate class because you don’t get to know each other. The main point there is the Master’s or the Ph. D. or the M. D. or Whatever D., so you take it and you leave. If you go back, those schools ask you to contribute money.
On the other hand, specially in the Pee Dee, you’re in high school with people you’ve known all your life almost. You might not have loved them to begin with, or even at graduation, but have a few reunions and you love them, especially the ones who faithfully show up. You LOVE them. (Hear that, y’all? I LOVE you.) So we come back.
By now our Class of 1957 has gathered and re-gathered many times. We’re so used to being on our own, we don’t even gather at public places any more. Recently we’ve celebrated our Otherness privately:
• on the interesting acreage of Paul “Pim” Booth’s Corn Maze on the other Hartsville Highway,
• at the home of Katharine “Kathy” Graham Sumner and Laura Graham, a former plantation house out at Leavenworth, suburb of Dovesville. The house is so historical, out front it boasts a “rain porch.” Even more astonishing, its central chimney soars massively through the upper levels.
• and twice at the Bonnoitt Ranch on Lide Springs Road, which it’s possible to get lost before finding. I don’t know whether the Bonnoitts — John and Marsha, Jerry and Belinda (Howle) — call their acreage a ranch, but they could.
The last balloons mark the cookhouse beside the water. There I find 40-or-so reclining in the shade of spreading oak branches, undiscouraged by 90-degree heat, talking non-stop. (Well, except for pausing to yell at me for being late.)
Most in this News & Press photo have attended faithfully through the years. Most marriages have endured and will endure for life. Eltas Jean Weatherford Norris wants to be here, but this first long drive from Gallatin TN without Buddy was too daunting to face.
Almost half our original 73 graduates have passed away, a sad fact we silently observe. Then after an achingly beautiful prayer by Steve Huntley, we move toward the serving line. Good food is a favorite event.
Our preferred activities have shifted from partying to renewing our knowledge of each others’ lives and personalities. We don’t even ask now who came from farthest away, though I’d guess today it’s Edwin Williamson from DC. We know if Nancy Rogerson Schmeing weren’t helping out a daughter in California, she’d be here again from Canada. Vivian Booth Harris is less than a month beyond back surgery, but she’s here, sparkling. (Not everybody is totally faithful: one guy is snorkeling in the Bahamas, asking us to mail him the program. Which we might remember to do. Or not.)
Our printed program owes thanks as usual to Kathy. This year it includes our names and most addresses, and offers “Music of the ‘50s” — a quiz I made up (no technology needed):
Somebody (anybody) sings some lines, and when you recognize the song you shout out the title and maybe sing some more of it. Here’s one: “Since my baby left me / I’ve found a new place to dwell/ Down at the end of lonely street / It’s __________________“
Sooner or later, though, people begin drifting away. Basil and Peggy Grainger Jordan stay, helping to put the place to rights again. There are only a few slices left of the famous pecan pies made by John and Jerry themselves, and the scant remains of our homecooked barbecue-and-bog dinner (Yankees call it lunch). Kathy Sumner’s cake is gone, along with the sweet offerings of others. Most of us sent only money, a poor enough thing to do for such a special gathering.
Till next time, please, God.