Faculty: Elocution, Expression, and English Literature, 1910-1911. Drama instructor until the closure of Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute.

Birth: Mar. 19, 1884, Durham County, North Carolina, USA
Death: May 23, 1968, North Carolina, USA

Spouse: George Franklin McAllister (1874 – 1937)
Married: 25 Jun 1913, Salem, Roanoke County, Virginia

Children:
Virginia Shirley McAllister Smith (1914-1997)
Grady Franklin McAllister (1916-1925)
Elizabeth Katherine “Betty Kate” McAllister Boozer (1918-2009)
Carolyn Crabtree McAllister Moose (1921 – 2015)
Thomas Caswell McAllister (1923 – 1944)

Burial:
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church Cemetery
Mount Pleasant, Cabarrus County, North Carolina, USA

Source: www.findagrave.com, # 13023945.

From Clarence E. Horton, Jr., and Kathryn L Bridges, eds. Piedmont Neighbors: Historical Sketches of Cabarrus, Stanly, and Southern Rowan Counties from the Pages of Progress Magazine. Concord, NC: Historic Cabarrus, 1999, 241-242:

Uncle George (Colonel McAllister) gave Helen a job in the mess hall of Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute at $5.00 per month. She got up each morning at 5 o’clock, walked to the college, set the breakfast table, and helped with the meal. As there was no organist at the college, Helen also played two hymns for the morning chapel and walked back to Mont Amoena for her first class. It seems Colonel McAllister was “seeing” Miss Crabtree at Mont Amoena. She came from Virginia to teach elocution at the  school. Helen’s books carried many little notes back and forth and she was paid an extra nickel if she picked a bouquet of violets on the way back and slipped them to Miss Crabtree. The two teachers later married…

____________

The Lutheran Orphanage arrived in Salem, Roanoke, Virginia in May of 1896, occupying a brick home on five acres at the corner of present-day Florida Avenue and Boulevard. The orphanage eventually bought the former Hotel Salem on College Avenue (shown here), which it occupied from 1900 until 1927. Ethelyn Crabtree was a teacher at the orphanage with fellow Mont Amoena alum Dora Barrier in the 1910 Census. Ethelyn served on the faculty of Mont Amoena in the 1910-1911 school year and married Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute principal George McAllister in 1913.

Photo: Virginia Room of the Roanoke VA Public Library

____________

The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, VA) 25 Jul 1911, p.4.

MISS CRABTREE LEAVES TO STUDY
Salem Girl Who Haw Won Distinction Will Take Further Lessons in Expression

Salem, Va., July 24. – Miss J. Ethelyn Crabtree, of Salem, will leave about August 1st for Washington City for four weeks of study in one of the famous schools of expression of that city.

Miss Crabtree is an A. M. graduate of Roanoke College and is considered by many who know her to be unexcelled in this part of the State as an expression instructor.

She was at the head of the expression department of Mont Amoena Seminary in North Carolina last winter, and at the close of the session was elected lady principal of the seminary for the coming winter.

Mont Amoena Seminary is one of the leading seminaries under the management of the Lutheran Synod.

The Concord (N. C.) Daily Tribune had the following to say of Miss Crabtree as the leading character of “Ingemar,” which was rendered at the commencement of Mont Amoena Seminary in May: “Too much credit for this classical production cannot be given Miss Crabtree, who took the role of the charming and dainty “Parthenia,” and in addition to this most trying emotional character which she interpreted with great force and beauty, she had the entire production under her direction, which reflects wonderful care and training.

“Miss Crabtree is, with possibly one exception, the most gifted lady who has ever appeared before a Concord audience.”

“Her acting was par excellence.”

____________

Winfield Scott Downs, Encyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. 11 (American Historical Society:1940), p. 474.

At Salem, Virginia, on June 25, 1913, Professor George Franklin McAllister married Julia Ethelyn Crabtree, daughter of Professor John Thomas and Mrs. Kate (Shirey) Crabtree, of that city. Her father was an outstanding educator. He was a professor of Latin and Greek at Roanoke College, Salem, Virginia, for twenty years, and for the last nineteen years of his life was superintendent of the Lutherans Orphans’ Home, at Salem, where he died, November 4, 1922. His wife also was a teacher, and both were members of some of the fine old families of the South. Mrs. McAllister was graduated from Roanoke College in 1904, and for a time taught in Mont Amoena Seminary for Girls, at Mount Pleasant, North Carolina. She is an admired and active figure in the church, civic and social circles, a valued contributor to the cultural life of Mount Pleasant. Professor and Mrs. McAllister were the parents of five children: 1. Virginia Shirey, a graduate of Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute and Newberry College, South Carolina. 2. Grady Franklin McAllister, who lost his life by accident at Mount Pleasant, December 8, 1925. 3. Elizabeth Kate, who attended Peace Institute at Raleigh, North Carolina, and is now an undergraduate at Newberry College. 4. Caroline Crabtree, a student at Newberry College. 5. Thomas Caswell McAllister, a student in the local high school.