Will new school have an old name?: ; Isom Cabell was a fascinating figure from past

Isom Cabell Elementary is one of the names proposed for the newschool on the West Side. The other choices are River View Elementaryand West Side Elementary, with a decision to be announced today.

Much has been written about the naming process, which involvedinformal balloting among parents and students.

But little has surfaced about the fascinating figure from thepast with the unusual first name.

Who was Isom Cabell?

He was born in the late 1860s at the Cabell Farm in Institute.

His father was Simon Cabell, a wealthy white man whose family hadonce owned slaves.

Isom's mother was a black woman, Sally Flagg Cabell.

As a boy, Isom lost his arm in a mowing accident. The armreportedly was buried somewhere in the bottomland at Institute.

Rendered useless on the farm, Isom went off to school.

He excelled at what is now West Virginia State University. Heraised money for tuition by giving vocal lessons.

After graduation, he took a teaching job in Moundsville.

A church-going disciplinarian with a musical bent, Isom startedthe first Sunday school at the state penitentiary.

Cabell spent eight years in Marshall County and moved back to theKanawha Valley.

He served as principal at two schools for black children -Islands Elementary and Washington Grade School - on the West Side.

His 81-year-old grandson, Charles Grigsby, remembers Isom as afairly handsome man with dark brown skin and stern face,

"He was quite a gentle person unless provoked," said Grigsby, whowas interviewed by phone from his home in Johnstown, Pa.

Grigsby knows. He provoked him.

That happened one day in the early 1930s when Grigsby and hissister waltzed into Washington late.

Principal Cabell did not tolerate tardiness and forcefully lethis grandchildren know.

"I know he was good at handling a yardstick because he put it onmy bottom a couple times," Grigsby said.

Isom died in 1933. Grigsby remembers seeing the body covered witha sheet.

Isom had a son, Marsden Cabell, who also was an educator and wenton to become an influential figure in the state during the New Deal.

An active Democrat, Marsden worked as the "state supervisor ofNegro activities" for the National Youth Administration, a New Dealprogram that tried to keep young people out of the unemploymentlines.

The new grade school on the West Side will be constructed on thesite of the old Cabell Junior High.

It's not clear whether that school was named in honor of Marsdenor Isom.

According to "Black Past," a history of African Americans in theKanawha Valley, blacks who worked at the Kelly Axe factory grewtired in the 1930s of sending their children on a streetcar to theEast End for junior high school.

So these "proud and aggressive" parents waged a campaign for aschool in their community, wrote authors James Randall and AnnaGilmer.

In 1939, the parents got their school. It was built on FloridaStreet on a lot large enough to hold the school and a footballfield.

"Black Past" says the school was named for Isom.

But the West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia says it was named forMarsden.

Isom's granddaughter, Eleanor Easley, 68, said she doesn't havestrong feelings about the name of the new school. It's up to thecommunity to decide, she said.

"It's their choice. It's their neighborhood," said Easley, wholives in Institute near a Cabell family graveyard.

Without knowing it at the time, she followed in Isom's footsteps.She went to West Virginia State, taught voice lessons and became aschool teacher.

"You follow things," she said. "It's genetic. You follow thingswithout knowing why."

CHRIS JACKSON/DAILY MAIL PHOTOS Eleanor Easley, the granddaughterof Isom Cabell, looks through notes about Cabell that hergrandmother took.

Eleanor Easley plays a piano piece by Beethoven in her home inInstitute.