Share Your Story Responses

Mr. Eric Williams

I would like to congratulate the JF Goodwin scholarship for 80 years of promoting higher education for African American youth in Bethlehem. The scholarship is dear to me as it has helped multiple members of my family to achieve their dream of obtaining a college degree. I enjoy supporting the scholarship fund as I know that my contribution will go directly to a worthy young person who is pursuing their dream of higher education just as I was in 1987. I will continue to support JF Goodwin and I look forward to celebrating subsequent milestones in the future. Thank you to JF Goodwin and the scholarship fund.

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Dr. Ernest H. Smith

Juneteenth 1945, My Introduction to the JFG Scholarship Club

One Sunday evening in June 1945, I as 13 year- old 8th grader, I was totally unprepared for the service that I
witnessed when I went with my mother to the St. John A. M. E. Zion Church. As I entered the church I recognized that the touch on the piano was that of my cousin Mayo Lanier and not that of Mrs. Mildred Armstrong. Upon entering the sanctuary I heard a choir of high school teenagers. Later, I not only learned that I was witnessing my introduction to the J. F. G. Club and the master of ceremony was Dr. J. F. Goodwin.  Also, that the elegant lady that trained and directed the scholarship choir and club was Mrs. Olivia Clark. In an later era she could have sought a career as a metropolitan opera soprano.  In remembering snatches of the program as it unfolded, Othelia Delvison sang Handle’s Alleluia.  She had a Marian Anderson timbre voice. Geneva Bolton from the Reading J. F. G Club played a piano solo. Robert Lee, an Irish Lyrical tenor sang the Lord’s prayer. Although he was a previous member of the J. F. G. Club, he was now dressed in his US Navy uniform.  The graduates of the class Liberty High School of 1945 were Margaret Johnson, June Johnson, El Rae Johnston, Donald Watson and William Brown. They sat dressed in their caps and gowns facing the audience. Each of them gave a heartfelt, well received speech.  I remember Donnie Watson’s humor when in his speech he placed a bet with the males in the audience using their last pack of cigarettes and the females using their last pair of nylons for barter.  Remember during the war years 1941 –1945 those objects were more valuable than gold on the black market. 

El Rae was commended for being the first black student to be accepted into the Liberty High School Glee Club, thanks to Mrs. Van Dora McKee-Fitch. She also desired to be taught by Lily Pons.  Donald was commended for his high academic standing and ranking amongst the males and his class. In the back of the church tables were loaded with gifts for the graduates given by families and friends. More importantly the church was packed with parents, friends and childless adults who came to encourage and salute the children of the black community.  For the first time I received the idea at the viewing for the first time, of the elegance of the black community.  Moreover, I understood that grateful carriage, hope, joy, community unity and involvement, family and obedient children, were required to bestow elegance to the wearer of one’s clothes. 

I received many gifts that night; the Johnson girls with their warm smiles and adult discussions with a 13 year old boy were gifts;  that El Rae opened the LHS Glee Club and the fact that Willie Brown had become fluent in German were gifts; Willie Brown along with Donnie Watson in proving themselves worthy of entering Penn State, despite their lowly economic status, they were gifts; Donnie had left the mark of academic excellence at LHS and the fact that Mayo Lanier’s music excellence expressed that night, as an accompanist, were set before me as gifts; that Dr. Goodwin took his time away from his practice to travel from Reading to Bethlehem and the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Harry Clark had opened their hearts and home to us, the communities children were priceless gifts. 

These gifts to me were my introduction to the J. F. Goodwin Scholarship Club.

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Desiree White Crawford    

Desiree is a graduate of Howard University School of Liberal Arts; Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a graduate of the University of North Carolina Law School. Desiree is the oldest daughter of Mayo “Maggie” Lanier White who was an active member of the J. F. Goodwin Scholarship Club during the 1940s; Liberty High School graduate Class of 1946.  She was an early recipient of a J. F. Goodwin Scholarship. Mayo attended Howard University School of Music graduating in 1950.

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Michelle Williams-Lopez, R.N. B.S. CCRN  

I can remember the excitement of winning the J. F. Goodwin Scholarship in 1975. At the time my mother, a divorced factory worker was struggling to support us.  Because of the J. F. Goodwin scholarship, I was able to fulfill my dream of attending nursing school and became the first African American to graduate from St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing.  I remain active in my nursing career to this day. 

Thank You to Dr. J. F. Goodwin for helping to make a possibility
a reality!!! 

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Mrs. Geneva Smith Hassell

Remembering the early days of the J. F. Goodwin Scholarship Club

Back in the early 1950s, each year the scholarship club held a Sweetheart Dance around Valentine’s Day.  We would have a band play and someone was crowned “Sweetheart Queen.” In February 1951, I asked my brother James Smith, who attended Lincoln University, to ask his band to play for us. He and his fellow band members agreed and they traveled to Bethlehem from  Lincoln University, against all odds, because there was a terrible snow storm that evening. There were no cell phones or texting in those days. I was on pins and needles until they arrived; they arrived late but we were so happy to see them.  We had a wonderful Sweetheart Dance and money was raised and funded for scholarships. I will always be grateful for the scholarship that I received.  In remembrance of the J. F. Goodwin 80th Scholarship Club Anniversary and the generous spirit of Dr. Goodwin, I will send a gift so that another student and/or students will feel supported on his or her journey. 

In 1970, the DC former members of the Scholarship Club held a fund raiser here [in DC] at the home of Dorothy Hairston.
Dr. Goodwin attended the event. Dr. Mordecai Johnson, President Emeritus of Howard University phoned in to the party. He said that he was not able to attend the affair but spoke in great honor and respect of Dr. Goodwin. He praised him for bringing students from Bethlehem and Reading to Howard University.

Happy 80th Anniversary J. F. Goodwin Scholarship Fund! May God continue to bless you. 

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Mrs. Olivia Lanier Ladd

Looking back in almost every moment of the day, we find ourselves being confronted with questions and opportunities.  Our lives are a constant flow of decisions.  What will I eat?  What will I wear?  Where will I go?  Whom will I go with?  What will I do?  What will I buy?  Where will I live? 

The J. F. Goodwin Scholarship Fund helped me to make up my mind.  The best decision that I made in my life was to further my education by attending Howard University in Washington, D.C.  Education is something that can never be taken away from you.

In his classic poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost describes coming to a fork in the road and having to choose between two paths that lie before him. The poem closes with the often most famous lines of modern literature; “I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.”  If you make great decisions you will live a great life; and have a sense of
purpose.

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Dr. Wandalyn J. Enix
June 21, 2015

I will never forget the fact that the JF Goodwin Scholarship was instrumental in all three of our educational endeavors.   Each one of the three of us, my sister Ernestine, my brother Ernie and I earned the scholarship in our respective high school classes.  We all graduated from Liberty and we were so close in age that there was one year in which all three of us were in college together.  I was a senior at Howard, Ernestine was at Kutztown and Ernie at Moravian.    Our dad worked at the Bethlehem Steel and mom started working at Hess’s Beauty Salon as a receptionist when I was in seventh grade.  She later worked  at Durkee’s Fine Foods because it paid more money.   There was no doubt about it . . . we could use the money.

JF Goodwin  finances also provided the opportunity for me to participate in a two-week high school summer seminar for high school students interested in sciences and mathematics at Lehigh University   It was my first experience in “college” and Mrs. Audrey Blue,  our advisor at the time,  had me apply for the seminar.  I will never forget it.  I was a high school junior.  The program was titled “CASSI” short for  Communications Arts Science Summer Institute.   JF Goodwin was wonderful and I am ever so grateful.

I had known since I was in third grade that I would go to college.  I will never forget the day I came running home from Madison Elementary School with my report card of all A’s when my dad said to me.  “Mmmmm you are smart!   Your going to college!”   Dad was the first person to put that in my mind!

I wanted to become a teacher.  And so after graduating Howard University,  I started to teach Social Studies at Broughal Junior High School.  While teaching at Broughal I earned the Masters of Arts degree at the school next door . . . Lehigh University.    I also earned principal certification at Lehigh.    And after teaching  a few more years at both Liberty and Nitschmann Junior High,  I went on to Temple University to earn the doctorate degree in education.

To keep it simple, I  always loved school and learning so that in 1984 I went on to Montclair State University in New Jersey to become a professor of education.   I earned the Associate and Full professorships and am now retired as Professor Emerita from Montclair State.     I must have taught thousands of students in my 44 years of teaching.   Many of my college students are now teachers, principals  and other administrators.    I attribute my success to my hard work, my fine parents,  Ernest “Bubbles”  and Mamie Enix,  my church family, and the support of  the JF Goodwin Scholarship.

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