Clinton teacher’s 99-year rocking chair goes home
Mossie King taught first and second grade for Clinton City Schools from 1926 to 1968.
King began teaching at Clinton Grammar School in 1926 and retired in 1968, teaching second grade for seven or eight years and then teaching first grade for the majority of her career, a news release stated.
“If Miss King started using the rocking chair during her first year of teaching, as her family seemed to think she did, that means the old chair has been used by Clinton teachers in the school for 99 years,” it stated.
The school system tore down the old Clinton Grammar School building and replaced it with the current Clinton Elementary School building in 1962.
The new building contained the first library for Clinton City Schools.
The Clinton Board of Education named that library the “Mossie King Library” in her honor.
When the school built a new library in 2000 in the new west wing of Clinton Elementary, the chair moved with it.
The nameplate for the old library can still be seen over the door, which now leads to the teacher workroom.
At the dedication of the new building and library in 1962, Dr. James S. Hall, a 20-year member of the Board of Education, said, “We don’t have to worry about our children as long as we have people like Miss Mossie looking after them.”
