SPIRITUAL SANCTUARY IN MARBLE HILL

Vera Bollinger, left, superintendent of El Nathan Home, and Minna-Jean Bollinger, former superintendent, read some history relating to the home and Will Mayfield College. Above them is a picture of Sister Abigail, who helped found the original El Nathan Home in Buffalo, N.Y.

Rosemont Hall, the girls' dormitory at Will Mayfield College, burned in 1926. This photo was taken the day after the fire. It belongs to Ruth L. Walker of Kansas City, a graduate of the college.

This story is the second in a series of two articles examining the history of Marble Hill's Will Mayfield College.

High on a bluff in Marble Hill stands the administration center and science building of Will Mayfield College, a Baptist school that graduated learned students from 1885 until 1934.

Also there is the El Nathan Home, a Christian residential care facility, which began in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1901 and moved to the former college campus in 1954. El Nathan is Hebrew for "God's Gift."

Will Mayfield College

Will Mayfield College, known as an educational enterprise of the St. Francois Baptist Association, began as the Mayfield-Smith Academy at Smithville in northern Bollinger County.

A young Baptist, Dr. William Henderson Mayfield, while associated with Dr. H.J. Smith in the study of medicine at Smithville, thought a religious college was needed in the area.

Smith, a Presbyterian, procured $1,100 in 1878 for the establishment of the Baptist school, and the name Mayfield-Smith Academy was selected to honor the two men.

The first classes were taught in a hall owned by Smith; there were 22 students. In 1880 the school was moved to Marble Hill, 10 acres were obtained for the campus and by 1884 the first two-story building was completed.

Eighty-three students were enrolled by January 1885. Rosemont Hall, a dormitory for female students, was built in 1896. It included a basement for recreation, a waiting room for male students, a dining hall and gas lights.

The Baptist Association changed the name of the Mayfield-Smith Academy to Will Mayfield College in 1903, in memory of Dr. Mayfield's son, who had died in 1902.

The students at the college were strictly supervised, but the courses offered -- Latin, music, Greek and Roman history -- and the devout Christian atmosphere drew hundreds of students.

In 1925 enrollment at the college reached its peak with 200 students, and the college was said to be one of the best run and carefully operated institutions in the state.

The religious training offered there coupled with a vigorous athletics program melded well with studies of the classics to afford students a well-rounded education.

A gymnasium was built in the early 1920s and a science building soon sprouted on the campus. A home in town was purchased for use as a boys' dormitory. It was called Franklin Hall.

In December 1926 Rosemont Hall, the girls' dormitory, burned almost to the ground. The girls were moved to Franklin Hall and the boys moved into private homes in town.

Minna-Gene Bollinger, former superintendent at El Nathan Home, which uses some of the old Mayfield College buildings, said the fire started due to carelessness.

"The story goes that a girl had a coal oil lamp in a closet on the third floor, and some way the lamp fell over.

"The girls there would heat the curling irons for their hair over those lamps. Of course, there was no fire department back then."

The burning of Rosemont Hall caused the college a loss of $40,000, at a time when finances were becoming a problem. The college's Articles of Association, drawn when the school was chartered in 1903 and revised in 1912, made it clear the college was not enter into a debt which it could not easily pay.

The Great Depression was a dark cloud on the country's horizon, and in January 1930 the school was closed until May of that year.

Attempts to keep the school solvent and operating were not successful and after commencement on May 24, 1934, with but seven graduates, the Christian-oriented college, which had prospered so long because of answered prayers, closed its doors for good.

Charles Bollinger, director of the El Nathan Home, said the founder of the college, Dr. Mayfield, "was a thoroughgoing Christian man who believed you could operate by faith," and what you needed the Lord would provide.

"He founded the college on that basis and ran it that way," said Bollinger. "But when he died the business element kind of took it over and they didn't operate it on that basis, so when the Depression came along they got caught and it broke them."

El Nathan Home

Charles and Minna-Gene Bollinger are brother and sister. Their father attended Will Mayfield College. The family hails from Zalma.

In 1941 the Will Mayfield College property passed into the hands of Lottie James Bollinger, mother of Charles and Minna-Gene. Lottie Bollinger was a student at Will Mayfield in her youth.

"Mother was always burdened about that property," said Minna-Gene Bollinger. "It was sitting there unused and it was so beautiful, and the buildings were supposed to be some of the best in Southeast Missouri. She wanted those buildings used again for Christian work."

Lottie Bollinger began upkeep of the buildings, and in 1951 her daughter, Minna-Gene, went to Buffalo, N.Y., and worked at the El Nathan Home there, caring for the aged.

New fire codes in Buffalo soon caused the beautiful old mansion, which was home to El Nathan since 1921, to be condemned. After a visit to Marble Hill in 1954, the board of directors of the home decided to continue its Christian work in Marble Hill.

Residents soon occupied the old administration building that also had classrooms. In 1970 the east wing of the home was completed, offering a modern ground-floor facility. Eleven private rooms were available.

The wing cost $87,000 and was paid off in three years.

A west wing was built in 1989, and provides nine private rooms and an office. The wing cost $200,000 and was paid off in 1 1/2 years.

El Nathan Home, like Will Mayfield College before it, is a non-profit Christian faith work. Public appeals for money are never made and governmental grants or funds are never requested, and if offered, are not accepted.