2. Notes on Faculty and Staff of
Southeast High School
This is an experimental effort. In this space will
appear information about the faculty and staff
who were at Southeast High School in 1962.
The content may be biographical or anecdotal
concerning our beloved faculty and staff. If you
have interesting information about or a photo of
a favorite faculty or staff member before, during,
or after his or her years at Southeast and wish to
share it, please forward to me and I will post it
here.
3. Sallie Elaine Deatherage
Sallie Elaine Deatherage was born to Buckner Fant Deatherage and Georgie Botsford Deatherage on July 9,
1894 in Jackson County, Mo. She went to Westport High School and the Mary Baldwin Seminary in Virginia. She
had an older sister Dorothy who married William Roy Stanley. She was married briefly to Castle Morrison, a union
at the time of World War I which was soon dissolved. She then continued her education at the Pratt Institute in
New York where she received her librarian degree. She served at Central and Westport Library in Kansas City
and then went on to be the head Librarian of Southeast High School from 1938 to 1964.
Before the library moved from the school, a plaque was put on the library wall in tribute to her work and loving
service for so many years. Harry McMillan, Principal of the school spoke for the voices of those who knew and
loved her: "Honor is not rewarded without reason, it must be earned. This noble woman has earned her tribute to
her life. Sallie Elaine walked in the shadows of the library, but the light of her influence, was as if she walked in
the bright light of noonday. She sought not publicity, nor the spotlight. She gave wisdom. She gave of herself, by
which was seasoned so beautifully with understanding. She gave of her faith in people, unsparingly of her energy
and from a beautiful supply of her loving helpfulness. She lead youth to their threshold of their mental capacities
and to the realm of universal values. She gave of herself. By her example she taught that 'the soul hath greater
need of the ideal.' This master Librarian spoke of the real, by the real we exist, by the ideal we live. She taught us
to work with love, to bind ourselves, to another, and to God. This master Librarian spoke not more courteously
and understandingly to one person than to another. Her numerous deeds of kindness were like modern miracle
drugs, administered by a loving and mindful physician."
"We praise and magnify the name and memories of this good woman."
Sallie Elaine was also the beloved aunt of her sister Dorothy's children: Sallie Stanly Oliver and Georgette Stanley
Page, and the beloved great aunt of their children Georganne and Stan Oliver, and Sallie and Chip Page.
She lived for years with her widowed mother Georgie Deatherage at the Sophian Plaza on Warwick Blvd., moving
to a smaller apartment on Warwick during the depression years, then moving to Park Lane Apartments on J.C.
Nichols Parkway before her death on June 22, 1964. Ms. Deatherage is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Kansas
City, MO.
