FAIRHOPE, Ala. — In an address to the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education Reunion over the weekend of Oct. 5-7, Paul Gaston, professor emeritus of Southern and Civil Rights History at the University of Virginia, said, “The school became a virtual equal of the single-tax colony in defining Fairhope’s unique virtues, and Mrs. Johnson would soon stand beside my grandfather as his co-equal rebel leader.”

Gaston was reading from his autobiography, Growing Up in Utopia, soon to be published. His centennial reunion speech was the first event to be staged in the auditorium of Fairhope’s new library. It was followed by an hour of lively testimonials from graduates and former students of the school from all over the country

Invitations had been sent out to a list of hundreds, and over 100 people came to Fairhope to celebrate the 100th year of the school’s operation. They included people from all walks of life, from many eras of the school’s existence, including the oldest known graduate of the school, 99-year-old Mrs. Helen Porter Dyson, who graduated in the class on 1929. Mrs. Dyson attended Marietta Johnson’s Teacher Training Program and taught the First Life group (ages 6-7) for many years. Many people who lived in Fairhope from the 1930s and ‘40s recalled having gotten their introduction to schoolin in her classes.

Gaston is the grandson of E.B. Gaston, founder of Fairhope, president of the Single Tax Corp. and first editor of the Fairhope Courier.

Gaston claims to have enrolled himself in the kindergarten at the school at the age of 3 and attended all the way through his high school years, being the graduate with the longest tenure — 15 years — at the school. He said that the family story was that he, as a toddler, found his way to the campus and asked the first person he saw, “Where is that kindergarten?”

When directed to the proper building, he stayed and never left the school until his graduation from high school in 1946.

The Organic School Reunion began with a gathering at Centennial Hall on Oct. 5, at which families who have supported the school over the years were honored, and a silver bowl was given to the current president of the board of managers, Mary Lois Timbes Adshead. She read the chapter, “A Campus of Butterfly Trees” about her early experiences at the school, from her book Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree.

After the meeting in the library the next day, the reunion continued with an Open House at the school, where current students folk danced, and graduate Tom Jones demonstrated pottery making in the new Arts and Crafts Building. Parents provided refreshments and former director of the school, Mordecai Arnold, conducted a cake walk.

The Fairhope Tree Committee donated a tree in honor of the school’s centennial, and it was planted by the students with the help of former teacher Donnie Barrett, now the director of the Fairhope Museum.

A folk dance party was held in the Methodist Fellowship Hall Saturday night, and the reunion wound up with brunch on Sunday.