THOMASVILLE- The Georgia Trust announced its 2024 list of 10 Places in Peril on Wednesday morning, which included Thomasville’s Church of the Good Shepherd.
Places in Peril is designed to raise awareness about Georgia’s significant historic, archaeological and cultural resources, including buildings, structures, districts, archaeological sites and cultural landscapes that are threatened by demolition, neglect, lack of maintenance, inappropriate development or insensitive public policy.
Through Places in Peril, the Georgia Trust will encourage owners and individuals, organizations and communities to employ proven preservation tools, financial resources and partnerships in order to reuse, reinvest and revitalize properties that are in peril.
While the Georgia Trust itself cannot provide financial resources, sharing the information behind the Church of the Good Shepherd allows the church to apply for grants and additional tax incentives.
To help get the word out about the church’s status, a Places in Peril celebration was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd on Wednesday afternoon, where those in attendance could hear the church’s history and visit the historic classrooms of the first school in Thomasville for African-American children.
According to a brief history provided at the ceremony, the Church of the Good Shepherd was organized in Thomasville in 1893 under the leadership of The Rev. C.I. LaRoche, Rector of Thomasville’s St. Thomas Episcopal Church. In the late 1880s, St. Thomas was comprised of both black and white congregants, a custom not usually observed by Southern-based denominations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early 1890s, a contingent of 27 parishioners approached LaRoche, requesting a church designed to serve the African-American community be constructed. Funds were raised, with significant contributions made by servers of Thomasville’s winter visitors, who during the “winter season,” considered St. Thomas Episcopal Church their home parish.
Upon construction, LaRoche served as the Good Shepherd’s priest until leaving Thomasville in 1897.
While the church served as a home to the African-American community, it also became a school for numerous black children, many of whom were educated by Deaconess Alexander.
George Banks, Junior Warden of the Church of the Good Shepherd, told the crowd that through his studies, Disciples of Jesus Church was the previous African-American church that helped educate young, black children. However, St. Thomas Episcopal came to their rescue in 1893, possibly due to a fire.
The children who previously attended Disciples of Jesus Church began attending the newly-formed Church of the Good Shepherd, converting to Episcopalian.
“In 1894, this building (Church of the Good Shepherd) was erected,” Banks said. “The chapel served as a schoolhouse. In the first year of its opening, the schoolhouse served 155 kids.”
The number of students continued to vary as the years went on until 1901 when Thomasville began providing education for African-American children.
“Teachers ranged from 1-5 teachers a year with a lot of aid from St. Thomas,” Banks explained. The school classroom and adjacent library closed permanently in the early 1920s and have since remained largely untouched, creating an amazing time capsule of the late 19th-century educational design and practice.
“We’re very proud of our schools,” said Loretta Hadley, wife of Jack Hadley, who operates the Jack Hadley Black History Museum. “We had many influential people such as Charlie Ward Sr. attend school here, along with future educators who returned to work at Thomasville City Schools.”
The Reverend Frank Logue, Bishop of Georgia elaborated on the school and educators Hadley spoke of, specifically Deaconess Alexander.
Born Anna Alexander in St. Simons Island, Ga., Alexander was a teacher at a public school with her two sisters but did not find joy in the job, as she was unable to share the gospel.
“She wanted to use the Bible and the book of common prayer to teach,” Logue explained. “She came to meetings here and believed it was important to show these kids how important they were to God, in a community that was often telling them they were less than.”
Her love for a life of service led her to ask to become a Deaconess. However, at that time there was no path for Deaconesses. Yet, on May 7, 1907, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Alexander became the only woman in the Episcopal Church to achieve the status of Deaconess, at the request of the Bishop.
Alexander would go on to teach in Brunswick, but Logue assured the crowd that no one would ever know the true amount of lives touched by Alexander during her time at the Church of the Good Shepherd.
Touched by the history and the story, Mayor Jay Flowers presented the church with a Proclamation that celebrated the many accomplishments of the sacred institution, before the crowd was invited to tour the schoolrooms and gather in fellowship.