A Biography of Tom Cloer, by Leia

 

Biography of Tom Cloer

By Leia Rose Thomspon

Tom Cloer remembered his early days in “Stinkin’ Creek,” Tennessee in the 1950s as poor, rough, lazy, and very country. Tom Cloer was born in 1945, the son of a nomadic sawmiller who moved from town to town cutting down trees with his bansaw, and Tom called dad’s workplace the “big ban mill.” 

In 1951, the family followed the sawmill to Ellijay, Georgia, and that is where Tom Cloer was born and started school.  Tom loved school for the learning, an dhe also has many funny story from his elementary school days.  For example, his friend JP Davis, who was “not the brightest bulb” was always getting in trouble.  One day, he had to write “I will have my homework on time” one hundred times on the board.  But JP was so angry, he wrote, “You are sh**!” one hundred times, instead.  After that, the teacher was so angry that she got in a fist fight with the kid!  Tom Cloer was prone to fighting himself.  Many of the students solved their problems by boxing.  In seventh grade, Tom knocked out a kid who was 240 pounds!  Another funny story happened when Tom Cloer was taking a message to a teacher and suddenly saw a kid jump out the window and start running away. 

Next, the sawmill moved the Cloers to Stinkin’ Creek, Tennessee which was “the roughest part of the Southern Appilacians.”  Even though Tom Cloer was really bon in Ellijay, Georgia, he always says he is “from Stinkin’ Creek, Tennessee” because of his many memories there.  Tom Cloer always says “Stinkin’ Creek” with Southern twang.  Every summer in Stinkin, Tom Cloer and a friend stacked 35,000 lengths of lumber a day.  “Two boys handled every board that the sawmill cut in a day.”  Tom Cloer dislocated his shoulder many times during this work. The boys had to drink tap water to stay cool, but the tap water in Stinkin’ Creek smelled like rotten egg because of sulfur from the coal mines. 

Tom Cloer went to Jacksboro High School and played football as runningback all four years.  He was captain his senior year, and loved playing football.  He hurt himself everywhere.  He broke both knees, both ankles, both shoulders, and both hips.  And, of course, he continually dislocated his shoulder.  Often his brother would be on the sidelines to pop his shoulder back into place so that Tom could continue the game.  Eventually, the orthopedist from the Tennessee Volunteers had to fix his shoulder for good. 

Then there was the time when Tom Cloer was expelled from high school.  Tom Cloer grew a beard and was called to the principal’s office.  The principal called Tom into the office, told Tom that he shouldn’t have a beard, and said, “It was a moral thing.”  Tom yelled about the principal having an affair with the lady in a house closeby, “Is THAT a moral thing?”  This is why Tom was expelled.  Tom being expelled really depressed his mother, Grace Cloer.  But Tom said that he was already making money at the sawmill with his dad, but his mom eventually war his down and took him to the school superintendent in Campbell County.  The superintendent was a nice man who knew of Tom’s success at football.  The superintendent allowed Tom to return to school as long as he shaved his beard.  Tom did.  Tom Cloer graduated with honors in 1963.

Tom Cloer went “up the road from Stinkin’ Creek” to Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Kentucky.  He roomed with a friend at the Seldom Inn his freshman year.  In college, Tom was on the Judo team and actually became the instructor after the retiring instructor asked him to be.  It was at Cumberland College that Tom Cloer met Elaine Kowalski from Brooklyn, New York.  He took her to Cumberland Falls to see the Moonbeam Rainbow.  Four weeks later, at the end of the school year, he proposed and they got married.  It was 1965.

Both Elaine and Tom were schoolteachers and taught in one-room schoolhouses in the poor parts of the South using “box movies” and “shadowbox plays” for the kids.  They have a lot of fond memories of those days.  Tom taught them to read through “teaching by communication.” Tom described it this way: “I can think, and what I think can be said, and what is said can be put on paper, and what is put on paper can be turned back into talk.” 

To stay close to his family who still followed the sawmill, the Cloers moved to Pickens, SC.  There was a school in Pickens that wanted two teachers in adjoining rooms to teach first and second grade.  Tom and Elaine taught there together.  At one point Tom Cloer was a teaching principal of a school, teaching language arts first through fourth grade.  Tom also had to work with disciplining the kids.  Because the janitors and lunchroom workers often came to work late, Tom had the kids on detention work as janitors and lunchroom workers.  The first meeting of the PTO was interesting.  When Tom got to the school, everyone was standing outside because “the Riddle kids” were on the top of the school throwing water balloons.  Tom got the kids down from there and punished them.  The next day, the same Riddle kids had plowed around the school so you couldn’t get in.  There was one teacher who “was crazy and shouldn’t be teaching” so, Tom called the superintendent.  In order to prove his point, he put the phone up to the intercom and heard the teacher cussing at a student while he peed in the radiator!

When asked what his favorite teaching and parenting moments were, Tom talks about teaching Shana Cloer (Tom’s daughter) to read and write at a really young age.  By first grade, she could read and write perfectly and the teacher had to send her to read with an upper level class.  Shana ended up walking right by the classroom and into the library where she read books for the rest of the term.  When Tom Cloer found out she was doing this, he asked her, “What did you read?”  Her reply was, “one shelf.”  Tom said, “You just keep on reading, Shana.”

Eventually, Tom wanted his advanced degree.  Tom got his master’s degree from Clemson University.  Tom knew the very first black student to enroll in Clemson University whose name was Harvey Grant.  Tom and Harvey were friends.  After getting his advanced degree, he began teaching college.  Soon, Furman University asked Tom to teach a summer language arts course and, after the summer was over, invited him to be a full-time professor.  Eventually, Tom Cloer was the very first South Carolina professor of the year and he has won many, many awards in addition to this with his name hanging on many plaques all over Furman University.

Tom Cloer worked at Furman University for many years.  Now that he is retired his favorite activities are hunting and fishing.  Tom still lives in Pickens with Elaine and their daughter Shana and their grandson Harvest.  Tom’s life was full of movement from place to place and learning the funny stories and culture of his various Southern homes.  I asked Tom Cloer if he had any advice for me.  He said, “Believe in yourself, and know who you are. … Life is like a party, if you don’t get an invitation, … invite yourself.”