Today the Dent Plantation Home sits quietly among the noisier, more highly developed industrial parks located outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. Built in 1854, the home served as a field hospital for wounded soldiers during the Battle of Chickamauga, during the Civil War. Lives were saved there while some ended there as the battle raged nearby.

One would think that the old plantation home had served all its historical purpose with that lone contribution, but over thirty years later, it would begin to serve its greatest purpose, one that would far overshadow its Civil War service.

On March 7, 1896, the General Assembly met and on its agenda was the need to take action on developing a school and home for orphans and deprived, unwanted children. On January 4, 1898, the Dent home was acquired. It was later called Bonny Oaks Farm at Jersey.

Mr. J.C. Kalleen was the first superintendent of the children’s home and school. Its first child was brought there on February 22, 1898. The child’s father had passed away and the mother could no longer afford to provide for the child.

Two months later, on April 28, 1898, a section opened for Black children.

On July 31, 1899, Z.C. Patten gave the deed to the Trimble farm to the school and the land was used to establish a Girls’ Department. The acreage of Bonny Oaks School was then 324 acres.

An elementary school was built on the property. The school consisted of three classrooms, each of which facilitated two grade levels. It included a music room, also.

In time the Bonny Oaks School would include facilities for big boys, little boys, little girls and big girls, both black and white. The boys usually worked the farm while the girls worked on housekeeping, laundry and cooking. Bonny Oaks was about as close to self supporting as a community could be. They raised their own crops and livestock, including a dairy barn.

Dr. William Shelton Keese arrived at Bonny Oaks in 1925, after 14 years in the ministry. His wife, Lucy, was the driving force behind the construction of a chapel for her kids. She would come to be known as the Mother of Bonny Oaks, though there would be others to follow that held the same beliefs, traditions and concerns.

Donations began to come in, usually from businesses in the surrounding area when it was realized the good that was being done there. At Bonny Oaks, nobody got a free ride, but nobody was treated unfairly either. The children seemed to be learning that what you get out of life is usually comparable to what you put into it. People were volunteering to sponsor children. Sponsors were not quickly accepted, it was a matter of qualifying for the honor. It was also a matter of matching up children with sponsors. If the child felt uneasy with the sponser, the deal was off! After all, a sponsor could take a child away for the weekend, or even on vacation, once permission was gained.

Following Dr. Keese' retirement in 1945, Mr. Foster Davis became the superintendant of Bonny Oaks. He had previously been the manager of the Bonny Oaks farm and dairy activities.

Children were encouraged to participate in sports and scholastic events, depending on each child’s talent. There were competitions to win trips to places like Oakridge National Laboratory and Washington, D.C. Weekends usually meant a trip to the movies or some other entertainment. But, none of it was done until the child had done his or her chores! Sundays were reserved for church activities.

Bonny Oaks had a clinic that was operated by a nurse who lived on the premises. It was available at all hours and was equipped to handle small emergencies; larger emergencies were handled by a trip to the local emegency room.

In 1955, Mr. Malcolm Adamson arrived as the new superintendant of Bonny Oaks, following Mr. Davis' departure. He was responsible for the start of the Acorn, the newsletter that kept everyone updated on the events at Bonny Oaks.

Following Mr. Adamson's tenure, Mr. Ken Clay became the superintendant of Bonny Oaks. Sadly, he would be the last superintendant and the one who saw Bonny Oaks close down in 1988. Bonny Oaks was a property of the county, In 1988 the county closed the old landmark, leaving only the Dent home and a few buildings on its circular driveway. Mr. Clay did an excellent job, but he was only one man fighting a government that saw little profit in raising children and much profit in selling real estate for commercial ventures.

There would never again be the laughter of little children, the sounds of cheers as a baseball game was played nearby or the sight of little girls playing hopscotch or learning to use a hula hoop. The days of swimming in the nearby creek or camping on the weekend were gone. After ninety years, a quietness returned to the grounds of the old Dent House, the laughter was gone, never to return.

*****

In October, 2000, in Arlington, Texas, former Bonny Oaks resident, Chris Haven did a search for a new website name. The name, www.bonnyoaks.com was available and she took it. Today, thanks to the hard work of Chris and her Bonny Oaks friends across the country, the official, non-profit site for the Bonny Oaks School was born. It has grown into a huge website, containing thousands of articles with pictures of people and events that helped shape Bonny Oaks School. It even has many scanned images of school pictures of the kids and different editions of the Acorn, the dreamchild of Mr. Adamson.

If you are reading this and you lived or worked at Bonny Oaks School in Chattanooga, please visit your website, it's at http://www.bonnyoaks.com or click here. Your brothers, sisters and friends would like to hear from you!

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