IMPORTANT EVENTS IN GSL’S HISTORY

School assembly on the steps of Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, circa 1958-59, featuring Father Richard MacDonald (upper left) and school founder Lorena Webber Walker (end of fifth row, far right).

Early school classroom in one of the basement floor rooms at GraceSt. Luke’s Church, probably third grade, approximately 1958-59.

Acolytes and students assemble for the dedication of the new Day School Building, 1960.

Although GSL's official founding year is 1947, the school’s earliest origins on this site in the heart of Midtown’s beautiful and historic Central Gardens neighborhood actually date back to 1919. That year, the Rev. Bartow B. Ramage, rector of St. Luke's Church, began a small parochial school for the neighborhood in the red clapboard parish house adjacent to the church, on the present site of Trezevant Hall. His wife was the teacher, and their daughter joined them on staff in 1923. But after Rev. Ramage's retirement the following year, the school closed in 1924.

Years passed and in 1940, Grace Church merged with St. Luke's to create Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal Church, which celebrated its first service that year on Thanksgiving Day. In 1947, former St. Mary’s kindergarten teacher Lorena Webber Walker approached the Reverend Dr. Charles Stuart Hale, the second rector of the newly-merged church, to see if she could rent space to begin operating a kindergarten. A scholarly man himself and firm believer in the importance of a Christian education, he agreed. From humble beginnings in the church’s Parish Hall, a thriving day school was formed. Grades were added each year, and the school was issued its first charter in 1959, with groundbreaking on a new Primary Building. The school expanded and grew, adding Morton Hall (1971) for Middle School and above, and Bratton Hall (1973) for senior kindergarten through grade five. By the mid-1970s, GSL was graduating several high school classes. But space constraints led the school to right-size into a kindergarten through ninth-grade configuration in 1979, allowing GSL to focus on developing students in preschool through middle school. This ultimately evolved into the two-year-old to eighth-grade model the school enjoys today. Major improvements over the years included the acquisition of Snowden Field (1986), which helped raise the level of the school's Middle School athletic offerings, and the purchase of Miss Lee’s School of Childhood, which was founded in 1924 but had closed in 1986. GSL’s re- opening of Miss Lee’s in 1987 allowed the school to expand its preschool offerings. In 1990, the church and school collaborated to link the church, the school administrative offices, the middle school, and the Saints Gym via an addition known as the Evans Building. In 2010, the Anchor Center opened on Lemaster between Linden and Peabody, across from Morton Hall and the Church, and featured a new gym, cafeteria, library, music and art rooms, science labs, dedicated space for After School Care, and a greenhouse. In 2013, the Little Lukers program was added, expanding the preschool program to include two-year-old children. GSL was one of the first schools in Memphis to add such a program. We are thriving today, excited about the future, and proud of our history on this beautiful corner in Central Gardens!