SCATTERSVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The story of a Sumner County community and a former school building that sits in the middle of it has deep roots with one woman's family. Now, she hopes to share that story with more people.
The memory of someone very special still makes Lashonda Padgett smile.
"Mama Helen!" she laughed. "She loved to fish. She was my great grandmother. She could cook. She used to make a little biscuit in the morning, little homemade biscuit. My whole family still talks about those biscuits."
Helen Key, known as Mama Helen, loved her home of Scattersville in Sumner County.
"Everybody's kin, really," Lashonda explained. "Y'know. Everybody loves everybody."
Scattersville came about in the post-Civil War era. Lashonda's family was there.
"When they came off Buntin Plantation, we basically were deeded land," Lashonda said. "Ex-slaves were deeded land by Mr. Buntin, and they built Scattersville."
The name came because the houses were scattered apart. During her life, Mama Helen took particular care of the 1928 Scattersville Public School. This is where the children of Black families went during the racially segregated era of Jim Crow laws.
"They were not allowed to go to public school in Portland," said Lashonda. "That was the only option."
Mama Helen attended there, keeping pictures of the building and looking after its upkeep. The school closed in the 1960s and later reopened as a community center.
"I woke up with something on my heart, and I wanted people to see the resilience of my ancestors," Lashonda said. "They came off a plantation and built a life."
LaShonda has collected Mama Helen's pictures and done tireless research, sending it the Tennessee Historical Commission. Next week, that group will consider it for a statewide nomination to send to the National Register of Historic Places.
Mama Helen died in 2015. Its in her memory that LaShonda hopes to get this place on the register.
"I know my grandmother would be so proud, and she's really the real reason I started this," she explained. "She would really be proud."
