San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Peacocks chose to sound taps at military school
Second of two columns
Last Sunday’s column began an answer to John Moore Jr.’s questions about Peacock Military Academy or PMA, a nowdefunct private school with a lengthy and idiosyncratic history. His father, then-Capt. John Moore Sr., taught Spanish and was one of the military instructors at the school, founded in 1894 in what’s now the Woodlawn area. Always a boys school, it followed a postSpanish American War trend and went military in 1900, which meant training that for some went above and beyond marching.
Originally a proprietary school, owned and operated by founder Wesley Peacock Sr. and family, the small school (capped at an eventual 200 students) stayed proudly … different, long after the elder Peacock stepped back in 1926 in favor of his sons, Wesley Jr. and Don, and a shift to nonprofit status in 1933.
Reader Moore, a young child when his father worked there in the early to mid-1950s, remembered elite units of especially accomplished students — the Monkey Drill Team, an acrobatic equestrian group inspired by similar Army cavalry teams, known for riding from a standing position; and the close-order, fast-cadence Zouaves, derived from an Elks Club tradition by way of the French and other armies, who wowed audiences by scrambling over a 12-foot wall in under a minute. Both, as well as rank-and-file PMA cadets, were reliable and popular participants in Fiesta San Antonio parades and other events.
As well as school history — early decades were covered here last week — Moore asked for background on the Peacock family.
For several years during the 1930s, the academy’s print advertisements featured profile photos of three Peacocks — founder and “president emeritus” Wesley Sr., superintendent (principal) Wesley Jr. and commandant (head of the military program) Don, captioned “The Peacock Triumvirate,” recalling the Roman political institution of three men closely linked in power. (A fourth Peacock, not a man and not pictured, also was an integral member of staff.) What follows on each of these figures derives from newspaper stories, public records, “Parade Rest” volumes 1 and 2 and correspondence with the books’ author, Don’s daughter Donna Peacock, who answered some questions after consultation with her sisters
but asked not to be directly quoted.
As covered here last week, Wesley Sr. (1865-1941), a graduate of the University of Georgia, had some previous teaching experience in Texas ( Jasper and Uvalde) before moving in 1893 with his first wife, Seline, and toddler Wesley Jr. to San Antonio where, at 29, he founded the Peacock School for Boys. At first, the school taught all ages and subjects. Wesley managed to acquire land and start building in the streetcar-served West End (now Woodlawn) neighborhood; the school’s address of record would be 1800 Cincinnati Ave.
Seline, a Texan from Jackson County, died Nov. 28, 1898. Her obituary the next day in the
San Antonio Light says she died at home and left “two little children” — little Wesley and another who must not have survived.
About five years later, “Professor Peacock,” as Wesley Sr. was known, remarried; with the former Edith Wing, he had three more children — Donaldson “Don” Wing, Dorothy Wing and Margaret Edith. All but Margaret, who married a career Army officer, went into administration at the school, often identified as “familyoperated.”
Edith Wing Peacock, an active clubwoman, also was an accomplished horsewoman and instrumental in developing the school’s equestrian program.With a stable of 40-50 horses, “every boy has an opportunity to ride,” as the ads said.
Wesley Sr. was a committed
Methodist who held some important lay offices in the denomination; he also was an avid outdoorsman who cofounded the Texas Game and Fish Protective Association, a sportsman’s organization.
Wesley Jr. (1896-1991) attended the family’s school, followed by Southwestern University, World War I service as an artillery officer and coursework, and the University of Texas at Austin and Trinity University to finish up his degree, helping out as a drill instructor at PMA when he could. With his brother, Don, he took over administration of the school when their father semi-retired; during World War II, Wesley Jr. serve as Army liaison officer on the special staff of the Texas State Guard and received honors for his achievements in military education from the Army, the state of Texas and the city of San Antonio. He served for 47 years as superintendent of PMA.
Half-brother Don (1906-2001) also went to PMA, then Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. The visionary of the elite PMA drill teams had a lot of military experience of his own to draw on. According to his ExpressNews obituary, Nov. 24, 2002, “during World War II, he served on the staff of the adjutant general of Texas (and) was promoted to colonel in 1948. He served as chief of staff of the State Guard from 1948 until he retired in 1963. He was awarded the Texas Medal of Merit and the Texas National Guard’s Minute Man Award for Meritorious Service (and) was inducted into the National Guard of Honor in 1981.”
The other long-serving family administrator was Dorothy Wing Peacock (1910-1991), whose job variously was described over the the years as “secretary,” “bookkeeper” and finally “finance officer.” School catalogs from the early 1960s use the last of these titles. A brief bio says she attended Westmoorland College (a Methodist school formerly known as San Antonio Female College, discussed here Oct. 10, 2013) and the University of Texas. As a college student, she coached basketball at Ursuline Academy. After years as the school’s finance professional, she also earned a degree in library science from Our Lady of the Lake University and sometimes served as the school librarian. During World War II, she was a ranking officer in the local unit of the Red Cross Women’s Motor Corps, for which she supervised civil defense exercises; later she was active in the local Zonta International club for executive women. She died a month before Wesley Jr.; neither I nor Donna Peacock could find an obituary for her.
The second-generation Peacocks had long lives, maybe because they knew when to stop working. For them, that meant more than putting in retirement papers. From 1966 to 1978, including years of domestic strife over the Vietnam War, 73 military schools “closed or transitioned to a nonmilitary format,” said John A. Coulter, author of “Cadets on Campus: History of Military Schools in the United States,” citing changes in culture, including a trend toward co-education.
Wesley Peacock Jr. announced the school’s intent to close in a letter to parents sent in March 1973.
The last graduation ceremonies were on May 26, 1973, also the school’s last day. The letter and subsequent newspaper interviews stressed the “advanced age … and conditions of health” of the superintendent, his brother and sister, and the news stories also mentioned the “lack of male heirs.” Wesley Jr. and his wife had no surviving children, according to his Express-News obituary; Don was the father of three daughters (a son, Donaldson Jr., died at birth in 1938); and Dorothy never married.
Since it was already a nonprofit, why didn’t the Peacock siblings hire their replacements before retiring? Family members offer that enrollment already was declining, and that Wesley Jr., Don and Dorothy would not have been comfortable with someone else in charge, although they looked into some options for keeping PMA open.
The school’s band played at graduation, including a closing “Auld Lang Syne” and a haunting last taps. The campus was conveyed to the local Salvation Army, which still refers to the former campus as its Peacock Center.
Despite its seemingly abrupt end, the “game little school” — as described by Mamie Eisenhower, wife of its 1915 football coach — had a packed history, including several other Peacock family members who worked there in the early decades and a couple of satellite campuses, including one in Dallas and a Peacock Naval Academy in Corpus Christi.
Reader Moore also mentioned “several alumni becoming prominent.”
“Thousands of young men from the United States, Mexico, Central and South America and even Europe graduated during the nearly 75 years the academy was in existence,” says Don’s Express-News obituary, Nov.
24, 2001. “Alumni include Father Virgil Elizondo, former rector of San Fernando Cathedral; the late movie director King Vidor, the Galveston native whose credits include ‘Stella Dallas’ and ‘The Fountainhead’; Paul Calvo, ex-governor of Guam; character actor Richard Bradford; and the late Albert Alkek, the Houston oilman and philanthropist who donated $30 million to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1993.”
The Peacock Military Academy Alumni Association, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1983 to preserve the school’s history and to carry its traditions forward. The group holds reunions, maintains a mini-museum (covered here Sept. 24, 2006) in the Peacock House on the old campus and awards Peacock Memorial Scholarships, for which it accepts tax-deductible contributions in the name of deceased individuals for its scholarship Honor Roll. Members also present an annual Peacock Medal to the rising junior cadets who will become commanders of the JROTC Corps of Cadets at Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, San Antonio Academy, San Marcos Academy and Texas Military Institute.
Current CEO of the association is Arturo Wolf, PMA ’73. He was the last graduate to cross the stage at the school’s last graduation ceremony. “When he shook hands with Col. Wesley Peacock Jr., neither really wanted to let go,” said Mike Vlieger ’62. “It was a very long and warm handshake.”
To contact the PMA Alumni Association for tours or other requests, write to awolf@pmaalumni.org.