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| Menefee as St. Pat in 1908.* |
The
residents of Rolla and students enrolled at the Missouri University of Science
and Technology are well versed in the events of the first St. Pat’s
celebration. Students were denied a
request to dismiss class to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. In retaliation, the secretly met and plotted
the first Best Ever. On Tuesday, March
17, 1908, St. Patrick arrived on a handcar. The student body escorted him to campus where
he was met by a disapproving faculty at the steps of Norwood Hall. St. Pat approached the 29 year old director
of the Missouri School of Mines, Lewis E. (Lew) Young, and asked him to bow and
receive a blessing. Young obliged and
supposedly St. Pat stated, “I dub you the first Honorary Knight of St. Patrick
of Rolla.” Thus began a tradition that
has lasted for over a century.
This well
documented event has become legend on the university and in the city of
Rolla. What is less known is the life of
the first St. Patrick, George Gilmore Menefee.
He was obviously a popular person among the student body to be chosen to
portray St. Pat on that fateful day. However, very little is known about
Menefee.
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| Menefee from Georgetown College yearbook in 1907* |
George
Menefee was born in Stanford, Kentucky on July 25, 1886 to Dr. John N. Menefee
and Ellen Cowan. His father was a farmer
and subsequently was elected as the Mayor of Stanford. As a child he attended Stanford public
schools and excelled at his studies.
Menefee is mentioned numerous times in the local paper, The Interior
Journal, as being on the honor roll of his school. During his teenage years, Menefee was active
with the local drama club. He
consistently had leading roles in plays such as “Cousin Faithful” and “A
Notable Outcast.” The Interior Journal
stated in 1905 that Menefee “had been before the footlights several times in
good parts.” Menefee graduated from the
Stanford Male Academy in 1905 and was accepted to attend Georgetown College in
Georgetown, Kentucky. While attending
Georgetown, Menefee immersed himself in activities and organizations. He was a member of Delta Phi Fraternity, captain
of the football team and played upright bass with the school’s music
department. For unknown reasons he left
Georgetown after his sophomore year and traveled to attend the Missouri School
of Mines in Rolla.
The Missouri
University of Science and Technology archives has very little information
concerning Menefee’s time on campus. What
is known is he only took one course in Civil and Mining Engineering. There is currently no record of Menefee being
a part of any organization on campus; however he was likely very well known
among the student body. Nicknamed the
Kentucky Colonel, Menefee’s only known contribution to the university was
portraying St. Patrick. He likely had no
comprehension of his impact upon the history of the university. By the summer of 1908, Menefee left Rolla to
attend the University of California-Berkeley to study chemistry. Menefee's stay in Berkeley was brief. By November 1909 he accepted a position as a
chemist with the Lakeside Sugar Refinery in Eagle Lake, Texas.
During his
adult life, Menefee worked various jobs across the country. Prior to the United States involvement in
World War I, Menefee had worked in Eagle Lake, Texas, Columbus, Ohio Birmingham,
Alabama and Syracuse, New York. His
employment typically consisted of working as a salesman with a plethora of
companies including the Forest Paint Company in Syracuse, New York and the Ohio
Varnish Company in Birmingham, Alabama. While
crisscrossing the country, Menefee met and married native Kentuckian Hallie
James Edwards. Edwards had a daughter
and a son from a previous marriage.
Menefee and his new family finally settled in Birmingham, Alabama where
he would live the remainder of his life.
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| Georgetown College football team, 1907. Menefee is second from left in the back row.* |
The
Menefee’s lived life as a typical middle class family in Birmingham. George was employed as a manager with the
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. His
wife tended to the rigors of the home while her two children attended school. In 1920, Hallie began to suffer from a
prolonged cough and chest pains. She was
diagnosed with Pulmonary Tuberculosis and was admitted into the Red Mountain
Tuberculosis Sanatorium near the suburb of Homewood south of Birmingham. As her conditions worsened, Hallie was moved
to the larger St. Joseph’s Sanatorium in Asheville, North Carolina. Within months of her move, Hallie succumbed
to the disease and died on December 15, 1922.
After his
wife’s death Menefee met and married divorcee Beauford Terry Henderson. Similar to Hallie, she had two children from
a previous marriage. For the remainder
of his life, Menefee continued to work with Goodyear. On August 3, 1943, George Menefee passed away
in Birmingham at the age of 57. His
remains were transported back to Stanford, Kentucky and buried in the Menefee
family plot at Buffalo Springs Cemetery.
George
Menefee may have never known the impact he had on Rolla and the university yet
for over a century we reenact the events he first acted out. The arrival in Rolla on a handcar, the march
down Pine Street and the submission of the faculty to the will of St. Pat,
these acts have become tradition and Menefee will forever be held in high esteem
in Rolla.
* Image of Menefee as St. Pat courtesy of the Missouri University of Science and Technology Archives.
* Image of Menefee from the Delta Phi Fraternity Courtesy of Georgetown College, Bolton Archives,
The Belle of the Blue: 1907
* Image of Menefee from the Georgetown College Football Team Courtesy of Georgetown College, Bolton Archives, The Belle of the Blue: 1907
Special thanks to Leann Arndt of the State Historic Society of Missouri-Research Center-Rolla
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