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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Maitland Newsome, Home Economics Teacher


  Maitland Wadsworth Newsome went peacefully into The Arms of her Maker December 30, 2011 at the age of 92.  The daughter of a prominent family in our community went off to college at the University of Montevallo and returned home to raise a family, make a garden and teach Home Economics, when most of the areas's families lived on dirt floors.

  Mrs. Newsome taught the daughters of the pioneers and their mothers were just as eager to learn. My Granny did not know to rise dishes, my mother taught her. It was something she learned in Home Ec. class.

All the girls looked up to Mrs. Newsome. "Do it right the first time and you won't have to do it again" was a favorite motto.

  She represented all we aspired to be- ladies. Kind and gentle and patient, she had her standards and stuck to them. She taught us all of the skills necessary to keep a home, as well as the fiber arts.

  I often think about how she brought an entire generation, plus one, out of the dirt and into the twentieth  century. What a privilege it has been to have been one of her students. She taught my Mother when part of the class period involved the lighting of a wood burning cook stove and she taught me in a brand new, state of the art Home Economics building that she had had a hand in designing.

  It was in this building we stitched our very first aprons. Rest in Peace Mrs. Newsome, I still am wearing mine.

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