Hockaday School

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Hockaday School. Now, some dreams take a lifetime to build. And some take exactly the right phone call.

Ela Hockaday was born in 1875, and she came up through the public schools of Bonham, Texas — solid ground to start on. From there she graduated from the Denton Normal School, the place we now know as the University of North Texas, and she didn't stop there. She went on to pursue graduate studies at Columbia University and at the University of Chicago.

By any measure, this was a woman who took education seriously. And she'd been turning that same seriousness over in her mind for years, nurturing what the marker calls a long-held dream — promoting quality education for girls in Texas. Then came 1913.

A group of Dallas residents reached out to her with an offer: come head a new preparatory school for girls. That was the call she'd been waiting for. On September 25, 1913, the school opened its doors in a large house on Haskell Avenue.

Ten students. Four part-time teachers. A big house and a bigger idea.

The place became known as the Miss Hockaday School for Girls, and from that first day it was built on four cornerstones that Hockaday herself laid down: character, scholarship, courtesy, and athletics. Not one. Not two.

All four, together, every day. The school grew. Enrollment climbed — resident students and day students both.

The curriculum stretched to cover primary and secondary education, and eventually Hockaday established a junior college that ran from 1931 all the way to 1951. Twenty years of higher learning growing right out of that same root. The campus moved with it.

In 1919 the school relocated to Greenville Avenue. Then in 1961 it moved again — this time to a hundred-acre site on Welch Road. A hundred acres.

Not bad for something that started in one large house with ten girls and four part-time teachers. Ela Hockaday lived until 1956, long enough to see what that dream had grown into. Ten students on a September morning.

A hundred acres by the end. That's not just a school — that's a vision that kept its word.

What the marker says

Ela Hockaday (1875 - 1956) received her early education in the public schools of Bonham, Texas. After graduating from the Denton Normal School (now University of North Texas), she pursued graduate studies at both Columbia University and the University of Chicago. An experienced teacher, she was contacted in 1913 by a group of Dallas residents with an offer to head a new preparatory school for girls and was thus able to realize a long-held dream of promoting quality education for girls in Texas. Opened on September 25, 1913, in a large house on Haskell Avenue, the school became known as the Miss Hockaday School for Girls. With an initial enrollment of ten students and four part-time teachers, the school began a tradition of excellence in education following Hockaday's cornerstones of "character, scholarship, courtesy, and athletics." Experiencing steady growth in enrollment of resident and day students, the school expanded its primary and secondary curriculum in later years to establish a junior college, in operation from 1931 to 1951. Moved in 1919 to a campus on Greenville Avenue, the Hockaday School was relocated to a 100-acre site on Welch Road in 1961. (Incise on Base) Virginia Maxson Buchanan-Smith '60 Mary Maxson Thompson '67