The House of Ruth

Civic and fraternal organizations were commonplace in Quakertown and served an important role in the community as mutual aid organizations. These women, pictured around 1910, belonged to the House of Ruth, an African American women’s organization that was active in Quakertown at the time.

Lucile Sims, Emma Walker, Ella R. Hampton, Jessie Taylor, and Maggie Hampton were teachers at the Fred Douglass School located on the corner of Terry and Holt streets in Quakertown. Mysteriously burned down in a fire on the first day of school in 1913, the Fred Douglass School was rebuilt in southeast Denton in 1915. Later renamed the Fred Moore School after its principal, Fred Moore, the school served the black students of Denton and the surrounding areas until the school board voted to begin integration of Denton ISD schools in 1963. Once black students had been completely integrated into the other formerly all-white schools in 1967, the city of Denton saw no need to keep the Fred Moore school open. The school officially closed in 1968.