Hickory Valley Dedicates Walking Trail to Beloved Teacher and Historian Robert Haralson

The town of Hickory Valley gathered to honor and remember Robert Haralson as they formally dedicated Hickory Valley’s Walking trail to him on Saturday, November 4, 2023.

“Robert loved Hickory Valley more than any person I’ve ever seen to love a town. He thought this place was heaven,” shared Regina Brotherton, as she welcomed and greeted those in attendance.

Robert Haralson’s nephew, Rex Brotherton, spoke about his uncle’s life, his love of teaching and the people he touched over the years.

“Robert Haralson was a scholar, he was a teacher, historian, and he was a true southern gentleman. He was born March 30, 1922, in Duncan, Mississippi, the third of six children born to Robert Howell Haralson, Sr. and Jennie Clark Haralson. Shortly after he was born, the family moved back to the ancestral home of Dancyville, Tennessee near Brownsville. When Robert was three years old the family moved to Hickory Valley after his father got a job with the State Highway Department to maintain Highway 18 from Hickory Valley to the Mississippi state line. Robert would live here for the remainder of his life. He graduated from Grand Junction High School in 1939 and attended Memphis Normal College, which is now the University of Memphis, briefly before entering the service in 1942. He served in the 8th Air Force during World War II in England and France and attained the rank of Technical Sergeant. He was part of what became known as the greatest generation in our nation’s history. The Army AirCorp tried to train Robert to be a pilot, if you can image that, but they soon found out that it would be safer for him and everyone concerned if they put him behind a desk and gave him pencils instead of bullets. He spent most of the war as a logistics clerk at Burtonwood Air Depot in England. Now everyone has their owns strength and Robert’s strength was his intellect . . . it was good that the army realized that in him during his early military days.”

After the war, Robert returned to Hickory Valley, “Robert told me once that the most beautiful sight that he ever saw in his entire life when he was coming back from the war, when he topped the hill south of Hickory Valley, and looked down and saw the Methodist Church and the town coming into sight.”

After the war, he continued his education and received a Master’s Degree in education at Duke University in North Carolina. After receiving his master’s degree he returned to Hickory Valley and became a teacher and administrator in the Hardeman County School System for over 30 years, before retiring in 1977. During that time, he served as principal of the Hickory Valley Elementary School and the Grand Junction High School and he ended his career teaching history at Bolivar Central High School. “His impact on the children of Hardeman County is astounding. I never meet one of his students who didn’t tell me that Robert was their favorite teacher.”

During his retirement years Robert became a world traveler. He set out to see all the places in the United States that he had taught about. He travelled to each of the 13 original colonies and located the battlefields where his great great grandfather had fought during the American Revolution. He made it his goal to drive his S-10 pick-up truck to see every capital building in the United states, which worried some of his family.

“He was gone for weeks at a time and I’ll have to say, I really worried about him, cause I didn’t know if he was going to make it back or not, but he made it back every time and he always had a great story to tell about each place that he visited,” said Rex Brotherton.

His travel destinations also included Russia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Egypt, Israel, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan and China.

Rex shared that Robert’s greatest passion was family genealogies. He had traced his family’s ancestry back to the 1600s.

“People would travel from all over the county and they would sit on the front porch at his house and discuss their family’s roots. Geneologies were just like jigsaw puzzles to Uncle Robert. He loved to connect people together and help them to understand their family history. Robert wrote over 60 volumes of genealogical information on families in Hardeman County. I’ve always thought if he had the benefit of the internet in his day there is absolutely no limit to what he could have accomplished. All of his research and information is part of the legacy he left behind for generations to come.”

Robert never married or had any children, but he dearly loved his many nieces and nephews and hand wrote their family history in a ledger book for each one. He desired each one to love their family history as much as he did. He wrote the same quote in the front of each book, “There be them that have left a name behind, them that their praises might be reported, and some there be which have no memorial, who are perished as though they had never been.”

“I’m glad to be able to say to you this morning that Robert Howell Haralson Jr. left a name behind that can be praised and that will endure in the hearts and minds of the people who knew him.”

Robert Howell Haralson Jr. died on November 20, 2020, at the age of 98.

You may learn more about the walking trail in the video below.

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