Stepping stones to become part of Fairview-E.S. Brown restoration
A little artistic sparkle will be added to the Fairview- E. S. Brown School property, thanks to an intergenerational collaboration between alumni and Cave Spring Elementary School students.
This week, Fairview-E.S. Brown alums and six fourth-graders at Cave Spring have been working together to create stepping stones. Splitting into teams, they have designed the stones — placing handprints, glass beads and pieces of glass and tile onto the pavers.
Linda Munoz and Jane Nuckles, both of Mentone, Alabama, have been showing the students and alums how to create the stones and preserve them properly.
They also taught the group about Gee’s Bend Quilters, a group of African- American women who create boldly patterned quilts based on traditional American and African-American quilts. The quiltmakers have passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations in Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
The quilts are being used as inspiration for the stepping stones, which will be placed somewhere on the site of the Fairview-E.S. Brown campus — one of the first schools in the Cave Spring area for African-Americans. The campus is being restored to be used as an educational facility and historical site.
The group also combined forces to create a wall hanging made of 288 glass triangles — all cut by the students and assembled using quilting patterns — for Cave Spring Elementary.
“We hope to come back in April and help the entire fourth grade decorate benches and more stepping stones using these methods,” Munoz said.
Eddie Hood, who attended Fairview from 1948 to 1954, said the stepping stone class has been “a joy.”
“I’ve loved getting to see the old building and to hear about the history,” said Hood, smiling as he carefully picked up and glued pieces of glass on the stone he was designing with Cave Spring student Augusta Waits.
“Here I am, 76 years old, makes me feel so good to be coming back to my roots and helping a little to restore the place that laid the foundation for my education,” Hood shared.
Augusta said the whole project has been fun, but she has especially enjoyed one part.
“My favorite part is probably getting to work with Eddie,” she said, grinning.
Bernice Jackson, an E.S. Brown alumna, has found a new passion, she said.
“I’ve never worked with glass before,” she said. “It can be addictive, really. It’s so pretty.”
Peggy Allgood, education chair for Fairview-- E.S. Brown, and member of Alton Holman Heritage Arts, a nonprofit arts organization in Cave Spring, has been helping oversee the stepping stones project.
“The alumni said what they had as the vision of the Fairview restoration is the image of children laughing on a hill,” she said. “This project brings together several generations to create a memorial on the campus.”
Allgood has watched the alumni and the Cave Spring students laugh and learn together this week.
“To think that these kids will grow up and come back here with their children one day,” Allgood said. “They will show them their school and they will take them up to Fairview and show them the stones and tell them how they helped make the stones. It gives me chill bumps just to think about it.”