I was born and reared in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama, the youngest son of Rev. Jesse McDonnell and Clara (Dolly) Donegan McDonnell, about the year 1874. My mother died when I was about three years old, leaving five children, two boys and three girls, to be cared for by my father--which task he did faithfully.

One of my aunts, on my mother's side, took the oldest girl to raise, and another one of my mother's sisters took the baby girl, leaving three of us at home with my father. As time moved on we reached school age, and he sent us to the public school.

The school was taught in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church building, known as the Poplar Hill Church, of which church my father was pastor. He was pastor of this church a number of years--even after I was grown and I myself had been ordained by the Huntsville Presbytery to preach the Gospel.

I finished the Popular [sic] Hill school while yet in my teens, when school closings were called exhibitions. I had one class-mate who graduated with me, Miss Fanny Harvey, who afterward became Mrs. Amos Linier.

I chose for my graduating recitation a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The September Gale," which was applauded by a large and appreciative audience. The poem follows:

                       The September Gale

I'm not a chicken. I have seen
   Full many a chill September,
And though I was a youngster then,
   That gale I well remember;
The day before, my kite string snapped,
   And, I my kite pursuing,
The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat;
   For me, two storms were brewing;

It came as quarrels sometimes do,
   When married folks get clashing
There was a heavy sigh or two,
   Before the fire was flashing,
A little stir among the clouds,
   Before they rent asunder,--
A little rocking of the trees,
   And then came on the thunder.

Lord! how the ponds and rivers boiled,
   And how the shingles rattled!
And oaks were scattered on the ground
   As if the Titans battled;
And all above was in a howl,
   And all below a clatter,--
The earth was like a frying pan
   Or some such hissing matter.

It chanced to be our washing-day,
   And all our things were drying:
The storm came roaring through the lines,
   And set them all a flying;
I saw the shirts and petticoats
   Go riding off like witches;
I lost, ah! bitterly I wept,--
   I lost my Sunday breeches!

I saw them straddling through the air,
   Alas! too late to win them;
I saw them chase the clouds, as if
   The devil had been in them;
They were my darlings and my pride
   My boyhood's only riches,--
"Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried,--
   My breeches! O my breeches!

That night I saw them in my dreams,
   How changed from what I knew them
The dews had steeped their faded threads,
   The winds had whistled through them;
I saw the wide and ghastly rents
   Where demon claws had torn them;
A hole was in their amplest part,
   As if an imp had worn them.

I have had many happy years,
   And tailors kind and clever,
But those young pantaloons have gone
   Forever and forever!
And not till fate has cut the last
   Of all my earthly stitches,
This aching heart shall cease to mourn
   My loved, my long-lost breeches!
                        --Oliver Wendell Holmes.

After graduating from the Poplar Hill school, I went to town to live and was a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Sunday School there. One Sunday morning, to my surprise, one of the ruling elders of the white Cumberland Presbyterian Church visited our Sunday School. He asked my pastor to let him see the boys of the Sunday School, to which request he gladly responded. We began to file down the aisles of the church. This grand and noble Christian gentleman reached out and shook hands with each of us. But the part that affected me most, was when he took my hand he held tightly on to me. Then he turned to my pastor and said to him, "Send this boy over to my house tomorrow."

One cannot imagine how I felt, a poor motherless boy, to hear that great Christian hearted, wealthy gentleman, a leader of his church and people, say to my pastor, "Send this boy to me."

When I went to his home the following morning, this good man said to me, "I have had it in my mind for sometime to help the colored people. I now think I can help them more by taking one and educating him, and sending him out to work among his people."

So I stayed at his home, waited on the table, attended to his horse and carriage-- this was before the days of automobiles--drove his children to school and went back and unhitched the horse and went to my school.

I stayed on the lot, being a lot boy as we were called in that day. I occupied the upper room of the barn over the horse. It was nice, neat and clean. There was a bell in my room with a cord extending to the "big house" as it was called; so when ever they needed me they pulled the bell cord. Sometimes, if my light was burning a little late into the night the bell would ring, which was a signal for me to close my book for the night.

At this time I was attending the State Normal College for colored people there. It seemed to me that the President of the college and all of the teachers there took special interest in me--of which, I am especially proud.

Time moved on, and in process of time, I was through at the state school at home. I next attended Roger Williams University at Nashville, Tennessee, for a time. Later I took graduate subjects at the State Teachers College at Carbondale, Illinois, after which I moved on to Marshall, Missouri. I was employed as teacher of the public school at Gilliam, Missouri. At Marshall, Mo., I met the girl who afterwards became my wife--Miss Idella Hawkins. She was a graduate of Lincoln University, at Jefferson City, Mo., and was teaching in the high school at Marshall, her home town. She also had done graduate work at the State Teacher's College at Emporia, Kansas. This girl was raised in a Christian home, her father was a minister, also caretaker at Missouri Valley College.

I am especially proud to say that she was raised on the campus of this great educational center--Missouri Valley College. Her father and my father, alike, though unacquainted, believed that there was dignity in manual labor. My father was a minister of the Gospel and also a successful farmer.

And now in closing, I wish to say that I have done and am doing all that is in my power, as God has given me wisdom to carry out the wishes of the great Christian gentleman, who said to me that he wanted to help the colored people and that he felt that he could do it better by educating one that he might go out and work to uplift his people.

My work has called me in every field where our churches are located. In the year 1898, when just a youth, and with the word "uplift" in my mind, I delivered the opening address at the founding of the synodical college at my home, Huntsville, Ala. I had been selected by the Huntsville Presbytery to deliver this founding address.

The school was founded by the able and scholarly gentleman, loved and respected by all who knew him, the Rev. J. F. Humphrey, D.D. His passing June 9, 1900, left a void that has never been filled.

Along with my church work, I have taught in the public schools of many communities, and many young men and women have had the benefit of the uplift spirit that is in me. Most of them are making good in their chosen fields.

My wife has been a real help to me in my work; always dependable, never disappointing. And with her help, if the God of Heaven so wills it, I hope to do more for the uplift of my people and for the glorifying of His cause.

[Source: McDonnell, John P. "The Onward March of Christianity" and An Autobiography. N.p. privately printed, n.d., pages 39-45]]