Other than a brief period of appearances in school board minutes and local newspapers, Nannie Jones remains a mystery. The challenge with “Jones” as a commonly occurring last name isn’t a surprise, of course. But I hadn’t realized how frequently “Nannie” was used as name or nickname 100-125 years ago. For our Nannie Jones, “Nana” may have been her real name if not a typographical error, judging from a Fairfax Herald reference to her in 1917. School board documents reveal that her middle initial was “B.” This is helpful in determining that a Nannie V. Jones who taught elsewhere in Virginia in 1900 is probably not our Nannie Jones. In terms of who our Nannie Jones may be, a Nannie B. Jones had ties to the Richmond area both before and after our Nannie was teaching in Fairfax County. In 1909, the Richmond Times reported a Nannie B. Jones at a social event. In 1920, almost certainly this same Nannie B. Jones was living in Richmond with her aunt, Virginia Jones. This Nannie B. was a Virginia native born circa 1884, single, and not listed with any occupation. She had completed four years of high school, according to a later census. She also appears with her aunt in Richmond in the 1930 census. In 1935 and 1940, the pair are living in Fort Lauderdale. The trail then goes cold. In none of the records is the Richmond and Florida Nannie connected to a teaching occupation or Northern Virginia, leaving me uncertain if she was the Clarke School’s Nannie B. Jones.
We do know that our Nannie B. Jones worked at multiple Fairfax County schools in the teens of the 20thcentury. In 1914, she was teaching at the Vienna school, according to the Fairfax Herald. For the 1916-1917 school year, she taught at the Clarke School, according to a Fairfax Herald article that characterized her as the mistress of the school. In mid-1916, before the school year started, Nannie protested to the Providence School Board to no avail about a cut to her $45 monthly salary, according to the board’s minutes. In June 1917, she declined an appointment to the Franklin Sherman High School in McLean but the following month she apparently changed her mind, judging from school board minutes.
As another teacher of the era had done, Nannie may have lodged with Rose Graham, who lived near the intersection of Clarks Crossing and Beulah Roads, not far from the Clarke School. In April 1917, Nannie traveled with Mrs. Graham to McLean, where Nannie attended a teacher’s meeting, according to the Fairfax Herald. Nannie appears to have been friends with Virginia Sinclair and Pauline Smith, the young women who went on to marry the Elgin brothers, themselves former Clarke School students, judging from an item in the Fairfax Herald. She also had a social connection to the Gunnell sisters, Martha and Mary, who lived in the area and at least one of whom had been a Clarke School student, judging fromFairfax Herald articles and property records. Beyond this short period of work and social details, it’s unclear who Nannie B. Jones was, before and after.
In the 1916-1917 school year, soon after this map was published, Nannie Jones worked at the Clarke School and may have boarded nearby on Clarks Crossing Road.