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Class of 1859 - the first graduate
The connection between
Dr. Megan Seibert Cherry ’04
and her great-great-grandfather,
John V. Glass ’59
(1859, that is!), spans three centuries. Glass received the first diploma from Southern University in Greensboro,
Ala., the precursor institution to BSC, from President William M. Wightman. He was one of only two graduates that
year (the other was Ben Huey), and since the diplomas were awarded alphabetically, Glass came first. A typed letter
composed by Glass’s late grandson,
Rev. Robert H. Glass ’49
, and kept by Cherry’s mother all these years, tells the
vivid story of his family and life after that historic commencement. Here’s an excerpt:
“Upon graduation, John Vincent Glass taught school in Forkland, Ala., and married Anne Adelle Taylor, daughter
of Dr. C.M. Taylor, but then the Civil War was declared and grandfather served with the Confederate Army. Being
in the Advocate General’s section, he served in several separate enlistments, including the Battle of Stones River
(also called the Second Battle of Murfreesboro) in Tennessee, where he was wounded. His father, Rev. Hiram
M. Glass, was a Methodist preacher and missionary to the Cherokee Indians near Gordo, Ala. He served as the
Confederate chaplain with Hood’s Raiders [a Confederate cavalry unit]. Methodist Bishop Asbury recorded in his
journal a visit with Vincent Glass at Appomatox, Va. [sic.] It read: ‘The bed was hard and the food was spare. The
Baptists and Presbyterians had messed Glass up, but I think I have straightened him out.’ From the union of John
Glass and his wife, Anne, two sons and their offspring had and have close ties today with Birmingham-Southern
College.”
One of John’s sons,
Norman Glass Sr.
, attended Southern University in the late 1800s. Norman’s grandson,
Norman Glass III
,
attended BSC in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
Norman Sr.’s granddaughter (and Norman III’s
cousin),
Dr. Katherine Glass Kirkpatrick ’64 (Don Kirkpatrick ’57)
, became an associate professor of education at
BSC. Cherry, a Birmingham dermatologist, is Katherine’s first cousin once removed and the fifth generation in a line of
BSC grads dating back to the mid-1800s. A
summa cum laude
graduate of BSC in interdisciplinary biology/psychology,
she received her medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. She and her husband,
Brad
Cherry ’01
, have 2-year old twin daughters—who may land among the next generation of BSC alums.