| Lillian Arhelger Memorial
Independence Park
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Lillian Arhelger
I can hear the roar of the Glen Bernie Falls on that
tragic Saturday in June, 1931. A cold and slippery mist is all around me
as I watch the Girl Scouts from Myers Park Presbyterian Church arrive in
Blowing Rock, N.C. Small feet leap into the air, and little palms come
together in joyous anticipation. One of the children's counselors is
Lillian Arhelger, a confident, attractive 21-year old Texan who has
just completed a year as a physical education teacher at Charlotte's
Central High School.
Lillian Arhelger is the tall lady standing on the far left of the
back row of this photograph of the 1931 Girls' Basketball Team of
Central High School. A native of Fredericksburg, Texas, Arhelger was
hired to bring "girls' sports out of the well known wilderness." She
succeeded. The basketball team lost only four games "through a long and
strenuous season."
The girls bolt along the path to the top of the falls
and leap onto the perilous rocks that border the precipice. Then
disaster strikes. "Virginia is going over the falls," her playmates
scream. Lillian does not hesitate. She jumps into the swirling water and
gropes for the hand of the desperate child. It's too late. They both
careen sixty feet downward into the deluge of the Glen Bernie Falls.
The child survives. Lillian lies crumpled on the
other side of the river. Her skull is fractured. Pieces of a decayed log
protrude from her mouth and nose. Somehow as if to atone for the
tragedy, the children and the counselors hold vigil on the lawn of the
Blowing Rock Episcopal Church, where Lillian's limp and unconscious body
waits for the ambulance. Lillian Arhelger died the next day in Lenoir,
N.C., never having come out of a coma.
The students at Central High School were shocked when
word arrived that Lillian was dead. They began a campaign to raise money
to erect a memorial to their fallen teacher. The students knocked on
doors all over town. The Charlotte Observer printed daily
tallies. One thousand dollars was raised in less than three weeks--even
in the depths of the Great Depression.
Landscape architect Helen Hodge designed the Lillian
Arhelger Memorial in Independence Park. She captured the mood of the
Glen Bernie Falls by using rock throughout and by making rushing water
the major theme. Have you visited the memorial? It is a compelling place
to go. "Those who make such sacrifice become enshrined in memory and
glorified in recollection," said the Charlotte News.
The Arhelger Memorial
The plaque at the memorial
The reflecting pool
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