Miss Leonora When Last Seen
By Peter Taylor, first published in The New Yorker
When the decision to build a new integrated school falls into the hands of an elderly woman, a small Tennessee town grows desperate to escape the control of her family, which has historically worked to prohibit progress and change.
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In the small Tennessee town of Thomasville, Miss Leonora has been missing for two weeks. Although she has sent postcards and regularly goes for trips alone, the townspeople feel that this time is different. In particular, one of her former pupils from high school worries over the context of her departure. Miss Leonora is the last member of the Logans, a family who founded Thomasville and always stood as an impediment to its progress. It becomes a problem for the entire town when her property — by inheritance — is chosen as the site for a new consolidated county high school. Although they offer her compensation, Miss Leonora, who worked for the old high school before her retirement ten years ago, refuses to give up her property and make way for change. Although a new consolidated school would mean integration, the townspeople push for it because they will do anything to be rid of the Logan family’s control. With multiple affluent members, the Logan family has historically stopped any new industries, jobs, railways, peoples, and other forces from contaminating the small town with ideas from the rest of the world. Miss Leonara’s former pupil is certain that her current trip is a means to delay the new school. He ponders what he has learned about her mysterious personality over the years. She is an intellectual woman who is always reading something. He recalls an incident from the time she worked as a teacher at the local all-girls institute. She caught one of the students stealing and arranged for her to go back home. The girl committed suicide in a nearby moat, and Miss Leonora watched as they fished her body out. In 1922, the institute caught on fire, and even then, Miss Leonora had a calm, unreadable expression while she watched the flames. On the day Miss Leonora leaves for her trip, her former pupil visits to talk about the new school. He feels that she still treats him in the same mysterious manner as before, and acts like he and the rest of Thomasville are under the control of a greater plan she has envisioned for them. He is unable to say a word to stop her and watches as she drives off.
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