Fall 2025 Issue

From Alabama to Iowa and Back

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Story By: Jeanette Budding

November 13, 2025

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Central College Class of 1949 graduate Mary Marshall Tucker’s voice carries the weight of nearly a century of experiences, but it brightens when she speaks of her time at Central. From her home in Monroeville, Alabama — the setting of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” — Tucker reflects on a journey that began in 1945 when she arrived in Pella.

Her path to Central wasn’t typical for a young Black woman from Alabama in the 1940s. She followed her sister Lucille Marshall Harvey ’48, who had received a full-tuition scholarship the year before and was among the first Black women to attend Central. When Tucker graduated from Southern Normal High School, a school supported by the Reformed Church in America, she too received a life-changing scholarship.

The Marshall sisters from Brewton, Alabama — Lucille, Mary and Evelyn — were all valedictorians and went on to Central. Her younger sister Evelyn Marshall ’50 attended Central for one year before illness forced her to return home.

“The cold weather was difficult,” Tucker admits with a laugh.

“She arrived with cotton long johns that her aunt packed that were wholly inappropriate for the weather,” her daughter Karen adds. “They were terrified of the cold, so they over-prepared in the worst possible way.”

Tucker adapted, as she had learned to do throughout her life. She found warmth in friendships, particularly with Phyllis Te Selle Clemens ’49, whom she still has contact.

The friendship included welcoming Tucker to the Te Selle’s family home in Nebraska during holidays. Though Clemens’ uncle initially refused to sit at the table with Tucker, he softened his stance over time.

Tucker admits her memories are fading after seven decades but still fondly remembers Joy McCain Crelin ’48 and Manford “Manny” Byrd ’49.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

Tucker’s Central experience included challenges. As a work-study student, she noticed disparities in job assignments. While other students worked at the library or dormitory desk, she was assigned kitchen duty, rising at 5 a.m. to pour orange juice and serve meals.

“I noticed there was a difference … I was assigned the most menial work,” she says. “My senior year, I protested. I would not take that job anymore.”

Yet Tucker’s resolve never wavered.

“I was there for an education, so I didn’t let that stop me.”

Tucker immersed herself in campus life, joining clubs where she served as secretary of United World Federalists. She was also a member of Sigma Tau Delta, a national honorary literary society, the Association of Women Students Council and the writing staff for the Central Ray campus newspaper. She participated in plays, even won an “Oscar” for best supporting female in “Deep Are the Roots.”

SOMEONE WATCHING OVER HER

Laura Nanes Griffith, professor of history and her advisor, left a lasting impression.

“She was a great teacher,” Tucker says. “She worked with students from different backgrounds.”

Nanes was featured in the January 17, 1949, issue of Central Ray, as the Ottumwa newspaper’s Woman of the Week. The article ended with, “to those who have studied under her, history is not merely the record of man’s facts and ideals but is a living, breathing subject filled with the warmth of life. The explanations of the causes, of the events, aspirations, of humanity and their significance to modernity, became an absorbing interest as taught by Central’s Dr. Nanes, ‘Woman of the Week.’”

Thanks to professors like Nanes, the foundational education from Central opened her mind and prepared Tucker for graduate school at Atlanta University and a distinguished 50-year teaching career.

A LEGACY OF HER OWN

After graduating in 1949, Tucker returned to Alabama, where she married in 1954 and raised four accomplished children — including a Pulitzer-prize writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution and a doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She taught English and history at Southern Normal, then Monroeville High School and eventually at the community college level, touching thousands of lives over five decades.

Tucker’s story reflects both the challenges and triumphs of her era. She lived through discrimination, witnessed the Civil Rights Movement as a supportive NAACP member and experienced isolation as one of the few Black students on Central’s campus. Yet she also formed lifelong friendships that transcended racial boundaries and geographic distances.

After more than 75 years, Tucker remains glad she came to Central.

“I made many good friends,” Tucker shares. “We stayed in touch with many of them through the years.”

Tucker’s legacy lives on through the students she taught and the barriers she helped break. She serves as a reminder that education isn’t just about classroom learning — it’s about the courage to persist, the wisdom to adapt and the grace to find common ground across differences — and a testament to the enduring impact of quality education and the indomitable spirit of those who refuse to let obstacles define their destiny.

OPENING DOORS AND LEADING

Harvey passed away in 2006, but her Central education and impact on the world endures. Her son, Stephen Harvey of Atlanta, Georgia, proudly shares memories of his mother and her profound connection to Central.

“The people of Pella took my mother into their homes and showed her so much hospitality,” Harvey says. “They were so accommodating, and it made her four years at Central, far from home, much easier.”

“We heard so much about Central over the years and what a blessing it was for my mother and her sisters to attend,” Harvey says.

After graduating, the Marshall sisters initially taught at their high school alma mater, Southern Normal. Lucille’s career there spanned 51 years as a beloved teacher and guidance counselor. During that time, she also earned a master’s degree in education from Tuskegee University.

“To this day, former students tell me, ‘If it weren’t for your mother…’” Harvey shares. “She had a passion for identifying promising students, especially those from difficult circumstances, and convincing them they were college material. One young woman who lived next door, for example, went on to earn a full-tuition scholarship to Stanford University under my mother’s mentorship.”

Lucille’s obituary states she devoted her professional life to the education and enrichment of students at Southern Normal. Her belief in the power of education as a means of rising above poverty and ignorance was unwavering. Besides her faith in God and her love for her family, Lucille’s greatest fulfillment came from helping her students discover the joys of learning and the wonders and opportunities of the world beyond their rural Alabama town.

“She was a force of nature, driven by a will to accomplish things and push others to do better,” Harvey recalls. “Beyond her work in education, she was a businesswoman, managing rental properties well into her 70s and starting a daycare center. She wrote grants to create the first Upward Bound program at Southern Normal and to help her community. She was a true leader, just as Evelyn and Mary were in their own hometowns.”

Harvey had the opportunity to visit Central’s campus with his aunt, Mary, for her 70th class reunion. It was a visit that brought the story full circle.

“It was amazing to look through the ‘Pelican’ yearbooks and see so many students from Southern Normal,” Harvey says. “I saw some of my high school classmates and so many others from Brewton. It was then I fully realized that Central, along with Hope College, was a pipeline for these students. It was a way for them to get out of segregated southern Alabama and get a fair shot at an education.”