Over 100 years ago, a humble wagon train lumbered down from the hills of Tennessee to the virgin forests of Elmore and Montgomery Counties along the Alabama River as a young family looked for a fresh start. The wagons belonged to the Greer family who were full of hope for a new life, to farm, to raise families, to build churches and to live off their land.
Little did they know at the time how much their strong Christian faith and convictions would help bring about the start of a small Christian school later called the Montgomery Bible College as war ravaged the world decades later. Little did they know how many lives that small school would impact over the course of more than 80 years as it grew to become known as Faulkner University.
The Greers who settled in Alabama paid for 2,000 acres of forest and put down roots. Those roots have grown strong and deep as the Greers still own much of the same land in north Montgomery County, still farm, and still have several generations of Greers living on the land. The family has expanded into several different business ventures over the years however, and their roots have spread from as far north as Tennessee to as far south as Mobile, Alabama.
A generation later, on April 13, 1942, during World War II when the patriarch of the family at that time, Joe Greer walked into the meeting house of the Church of Christ on Panama Street in Montgomery, Alabama. He was met by Rex Turner and Leonard Johnson who had called a meeting for Greer, Jack McDonald, Solong Whitehead, Brooks Boothe, John McDonald, Charlie Womack, Elly Bird and Wilbur Slauson to come together. Greer led the prayer that day that opened the meeting. The proposition was for the men present to serve as trustees of the proposed Montgomery Bible School. That school located on Ann Street in Montgomery, Alabama would later change its name to Alabama Christian College and then move to its current location in the early 1960s. It would then again change its name to Faulkner University around 1985. Throughout the years, the mission of the school and the intent of those founding men has remained the same- to be a beacon of hope in a lost world.
At the time of that meeting, Joe’s son, Beau Greer was only five years old, yet even as a young boy, Beau felt the significance of what his father and the other men were planning.
“I remember when the school was started and I remember the first board meeting that they had,” Beau said. “My dad and others had first met in a barber shop on Mount Meigs Road before they started meeting on Panama Street. Once they found property on Ann Street, they moved the meetings over there… I remember when they talked about it, they decided that they needed a better school than what was available in Montgomery at the time, so they decided to build a Christian school. My dad was still a farmer, so it was a lot of work for him to do both, but he knew it was important.”
At that time, the Greer family was farming 1900 acres of land, most of it was roasting ear corn to feed the dairy cows across the county, an essential part of the war effort. Because they were farmers, the Greer family had a reprieve from fighting on the frontlines.
“I remember the war was very deeply involved and some of our relatives’ friends were in the war and they came back and told us many of the things they witnessed during the war,” Beau said. “But we were on the farm, so we had a deferment because they needed food as badly as they needed ammunition.”
The Greer farm also provided produce, milk and eggs to the students attending Montgomery Bible College. In turn, the students would help on the farm to gather ears of corn when a storm would come through and knock the ears to the ground.
“The students helped harvest the produce. I was young, but we all helped. We grew a lot of corn and cantaloupe and watermelon and in addition we later found ourselves in the egg business,” Beau said. “We brought eggs to the school’s dining hall. My dad would load up his Volkswagen truck and drop of produce there twice a week. Most of the students who came, did not have money so some of the board members and my dad chipped in a provided the teachers’ salaries so the students didn’t have tuition, but they could still get an education. All the students worked on the school to help out. I was very well acquainted with most of them and we learned to love each other and got along really well with each other.”
Beau started attending the school himself in 1946 when he was 8 years old since at that time, the school was offering elementary and high school grades in addition to two more years at the junior college level.
In the final two years of high school Beau drove the school bus that picked up all the children from around Montgomery County that attended school there. It was during this time that he met his future wife, Joy. They have been married 66 years, have four children, 12 grandchildren and more than 60 great-grandchildren. Even though his father served on the school board and was chair for 25 years, Beau worked at the school, just like all the other students.
“I grew up with the students in my class and I loved every single one of them. We had a good time going to school there. The students and the teachers were great people,” Beau said. “When we graduated from high school, we were the largest class at the time with 40 graduates. Then I went on to the junior college for two more years and that was as far as you could go at the time… I could not even imagine how Montgomery Bible College could have grown.”
“My father and the other founders would be amazed. They never dreamed they would have a college in 1942, that is as large as it has become and I am fascinated with the outcome of the school. I’m still attached to the school. My children have all gone to the school when it was known as Alabama Christian College and my father served on the board up until it was renamed Faulkner University.”
The Greer family continues to support Faulkner University today. A wooden antique wall clock hangs in their foyer, the same that hung in the original school building on Ann Street that signaled the change in classes. It hangs as a humble reminder of the university’s past and the Greers’ part in its beginnings.
