So much in common
The Deaf Priors and I have so much in common. The Prior Family and my family share the same hometown, Cedartown. Our homes are both on present-day Ga. 100 in the Prior Station area.
The Polk County Historical Society has a 1910 map that shows an area named for the Priors called Prior Station. Both the Priors and my beloved 80-year-old mother share Highway 100, my mother close to Prior Station Road.
Asa left each Prior child some land through his deed upon his death in 1854. Lucius’s lands were then passed to William Prior. He lived at the corner of Ellawood Avenue and Fairview Avenue. William sold off parts of the land. Members of my family lived on that property! A few months after I was born, my parents bought 314 Fairview Ave., which was on Lucius’s lands. We also have family members who lived across the street and nearby, all on Lucius’s lands.
From when I was 5 years old until I was 17, I commuted to school at Georgia School for the Deaf on Old Cave Spring Road in Cedartown and Old Cedartown Road in Cave Spring — the same road, with different names in different towns. I know that road like the back of my hand. My first classroom at GSD was in a building called the Primary Building, uphill from Fannin Hall on Fannin Campus. The building still stands today, owned by a 95-year-old man who purchased the building from the state in the 1990s.
Little did I know that years later I would be reading about other Deaf people who shared parts of the same route. Although we don’t know the exact location of the Cedar Valley Academy, where the five Deaf Priors and other Deaf students went to school during its run from 1842 to 1845, we know it was on the same road.
Angeline and Lucius both went to GSD, in different buildings. Angeline’s classroom was in the original log cabin behind the Hearn Manual Labor School, and Lucius’s was in Fannin Hall, now the home of the Cave Spring City Hall.
The Deaf Priors and I were naturally born Deaf, not from syndromes or accidents. I have never heard a sound in my entire life. I do not know any different, and it is no big deal.
Being a part of the Deaf community, having access to American Sign
Language, English text, Deaf culture, and Deaf people are a must. The Deaf Priors and I were fortunate to have parents who could speak with us in our native signed language and written language. They supported our bilingualism, ASL and English text, later in our lives.
Ephraim and Middleton, the oldest two Deaf Prior children, and I have shared experiences living in dorms. It was hard for me when I went to Gallaudet University — the only liberal arts college for Deaf people in the world — in Washington, DC. I know American School for the Deaf must have been a difficult adjustment for them as well, as Hartford, Connecticut, is a big, busy city compared to our native Cedartown.
Records from ASD show that Lucius wanted to become a teacher. I was a teacher at Alabama School for the Deaf and at a public school in northern Virginia. I also taught at Lamar University in Texas and at Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College in Maryland.
Abigail seems to have been quiet and reserved. She may have been close to her family and wanted to stay in her hometown all her life. Just like Abigail, I am at home in Cedartown and Cave Spring. It was hard for me to leave my family go to college, so I attended Floyd College, presently Georgia Highlands College, for one and a half years. I finally forced myself to go to Gallaudet. I cried almost every day for two weeks during the orientation and then flew home to Georgia every weekend during my first semester.
Angeline and I once lived in Texas. She and her family lived in the Dallas area while I lived in the Beaumont area, near Houston and Galveston. Eventually Angeline moved back to the same area in Georgia, like me.
Lucius dreamt of becoming a teacher. Asa dreamt of having a county named after him, and he had that at one point. My dream is to purchase the Primary Building and establish a National Deaf School Museum.
Adonia K. Smith is a Cedartown native who resides in Cave Spring. She owns ASL Rose, a company that serves the heart of Deaf education, and is active in the Georgia School for the Deaf Alumni Association. Email her at adonia@ ASLrose.com.