Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 17:2 (Fall 2020)
Article: The Leavell Legacy
Author: Rex D. Butler

JBTM 17:2 (Fall 2020) p. 231

The Leavell Legacy

Rex D. Butler

Rex D. Butler is professor of Church History and Patristics, occupying the John T. Westbrook Chair of Church History at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

A visitor to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is immediately uplifted by the sight of the steeple rising from Roland Q. Leavell Chapel, situated in the center of the campus. Driving around the perimeter, the visitor finds at the southwest corner the Landrum P. Leavell II Center for Evangelism and Church Health. Back at the other side of the campus is the building that houses Leavell College. Entering that building and going upstairs, the visitor finds a small museum appropriately labeled “The Leavell Legacy.” Inside the museum, among the memorabilia, is a seminary catalog, and browsing through it, one sees that there are two academic chairs – the Roland Q. Leavell Chair of Evangelism and the Landrum P. Leavell II Chair of New Testament and Greek. Even the President’s Home bears the name of Corra Berry Leavell.

“The Leavell Legacy” indeed! The Leavell family has impacted NOBTS in so many ways that their name is found everywhere on the campus. As the seminary enters its second hundred years, it is appropriate to examine the legacy of this family, who continues to play a significant role in our School of Providence and Prayer.

George And Corra Leavell

The story of the Leavell Legacy at NOBTS must begin with the patriarch and matriarch of their family of nine boys, including Roland Quinche Leavell. George Washington Leavell (1844–1905) returned from the Civil War to a South that was decimated by the hostilities that had divided the nation. Nonetheless, he used his accounting skills to create a new life, first in Memphis, Tennessee, and then in Pontotoc County, Mississippi. On May 14, 1872, he married Corra Alice Berry (1851–1913), a music teacher at Chickasaw College. Complementing each other, he was sober and serious, while she was lively and vivacious. Together, they embarked upon a life focused on faith and family.

JBTM 17:2 (Fall 2020) p. 232

They specialized in raising boys. Less than two years into their marriage, their first of nine sons arrived on May 10, 1874. They named him Landrum Pinson for Dr. and Mrs. Sylvanus Landrum,1 pastor of Central Baptist Church, Memphis, where they were members; and for Colonel and Mrs. Pinson, in whose home they boarded. Their eighth son, the one who later had a major impact on NOBTS, was named Roland Quinche, his first name for a paternal ancestor, John Roland Leavell, and his second, for a professor at the University of Mississippi, Dr. A. J. Quinche, who negotiated with t...