By Beverly Belcher Woody
Miss Harriett Ellen “Hattie” Hylton was born in the Mountain View section of Patrick County in March of 1873. Her parents were Ballard Preston Hylton and Sarah Ellen Dillon Hylton. Miss Hattie’s father was a merchant and salesman, and the family divided their time between the farm in Meadows of Dan and a home on West End Avenue in Danville.
Miss Hattie trained as a schoolteacher but later became interested in social work. She had a special affinity for the young people who left the family farms in Patrick County and went in one of four directions: the coal mines of West Virginia, the furniture factories of Bassett, Virginia, the textile mills of Draper, Spray, and Leaksville, North Carolina, or the mills in Danville, Virginia.
In 1907, Riverside and Dan River Mills hired Miss Hattie to open a kindergarten. This was not a kindergarten like we think of today. This was a daycare where parents could leave their children while they were at work in the mill. The following year, Miss Hattie became the superintendent of welfare for Riverside and Dan River Mills.
The Danville Bee reported that while serving as the superintendent of welfare, Miss Hattie started a night school where workers could learn to read and write. She also started a medical clinic for employees of the mill and an onsite YMCA. In 1919, the textile workers voted to name the women’s dormitory “Hylton Hall” in Miss Hattie’s honor. She had earned the respect of the company’s blue-collar workers as she ran a company welfare system that brought education, health care, and recreation into their lives.
In March of 1923, the Danville Bee reported on the following momentous occasion. “It was learned yesterday that the boarders of Hylton Hall several days ago remembered in a substantial way Miss Hattie Hylton for whom the handsome welfare center at Schoolfield was named. The girls of the home gave Miss Hylton on the occasion of her 50th birthday a handsome string of beads with an appropriate letter reminding her that they were not forgetful of her work in behalf of Hylton Hall and in promoting welfare in Schoolfield during its earlier stages.”
In 1925, Miss Hattie moved to Greensboro, North Carolina and opened the Hylmore Tea Room. Apparently, her energy was limitless as demonstrated from the following advertisement in the Greensboro Daily News: “The Hylmore Tea Room at 106 ½ North Elm Street will be open for business beginning on Saturday, October 1st. Luncheon, 11:45 am to 2:00 pm; Afternoon Tea, 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm; Supper, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. The Tea Room will be open after the moving pictures and theaters close.”
Sadly, after only a few years, the Hylmore Tea Room was lost in a fire. Not one to give up, Miss Hattie took over management of the Jefferson Standard Tea Room, which was located on the top floor of the tallest building in Greensboro.
In the 1940s, Miss Hattie returned to Danville and helped care for her brother and nephew. She was a faithful member of the Main Street Methodist Church where she was the soprano soloist in the church choir. Miss Hattie passed away in 1958 and was buried in the Green Hill cemetery. She was 85 years old.
(Thank you to Shirlien Belcher, Betty Smith, and Cheryl Sutphin for their contributions to this article.)
