By Patricia Earnhardt Tyndall

Mrs. Mitchell (Miriam Sexton Mitchell '43) was everyone's favorite teacher. Students, principals and school systems recognized her gifts for teaching throughout her 30-plus-year career in elementary education.

Her daughter, Dr. Miriam Grace Mitchell '68, was once one of her students and a life-long witness to Miriam Mitchell's love for teaching primary-age children.

"Education was her calling," Grace says, noting that working with young children from about two to about ten years old was her sweet spot. "Seeing the children thrive in the beginning of their education gave her immense pleasure."

Miriam, the oldest of eight children, gravitated toward teaching naturally. "She was always sort of the 'junior mother' in her family, helping to raise her brothers and sisters, and she was good at that," Grace says. "I think that's probably one of the reasons she was drawn to teaching younger children, where she was comfortable and effective."

She was the first among her siblings to go to college and her path to the classroom was firmly set when Miriam enrolled in East Carolina Teachers College (ECTC) in 1941 after attending Campbell Junior College (now Campbell University).

Miriam flourished at ECTC. Pages from her junior and senior yearbooks reflect her academic leadership, strong friendships and involvement in clubs and activities. She was multi-talented.

"She not only taught, she also sang and had a beautiful voice. She and several of her friends, who were also preparing to be teachers, would go to Camp Lejeune and sing jazz," Grace says. "I heard about those kinds of activities as often as I heard about her teaching. She was chosen to intern in the lab school, where at that time only the most promising students were selected for their student teaching assignment. Her professors observed early in her classes that she had a gift."

After graduating from ECTC, Miriam returned to Rocky Mount and married Carlton Mitchell, a Baptist minister. Miriam taught elementary school in Roanoke Rapids and then in 10 different school systems in North Carolina and New Jersey, rounding out her classroom years in Winston-Salem with Forsyth County Schools. While in New Jersey, Miriam did graduate schoolwork at Columbia University.

TEACHING BY EXAMPLE

Both Grace and her sister, Betty Morgan, followed their mother with careers in education.

"I always wanted to be a teacher. When I was in kindergarten, I'd line up all my dolls and play school. I loved it, you know," Grace says. "I never considered doing anything else."

Betty attended Appalachian State University, majoring in art education. She taught K-12 art in Georgia and the Boston area, where she won awards for her excellence in teaching. She has retired to Davidson, North Carolina, close to Grace, where she is an award-winning artist.

As many children of educators do, the sisters learned about teaching by watching their mother in the classroom. Additionally, they witnessed her teaching at church — as she worked with youth groups — and at home preparing for her classes.

"Miriam loved the classroom and was everybody's favorite teacher," Grace says. "She still had people who were in her first grade class who as grown-ups, 40 and 50 years old, who still loved Mrs. Mitchell. She still got Christmas presents from them decades after her retirement."

Her students and her daughters fondly remember an assistant Miriam had in her classroom.

"Mother had a puppet called Midnight and she always loved it, and she used Midnight to teach math," Grace says. "It wasn't even a fancy puppet, just a little tattered cat."

Midnight was a black cat (thus the name Midnight) and had a bowtie. Grace says any time a child was struggling or having trouble following rules, Midnight appeared. Children didn't want to disappoint Midnight, she says. The puppet was so beloved, it was worn out after the first few years and was replaced by a new Midnight. Betty has kept the new Midnight for many decades.

"Mom was always thinking about ways to get kids excited about learning. In different ways, we've used those (lessons) and modeled her desire for excellence in the classroom in the different tracks we've pursued in education," Grace says.

Miriam was a perfectionist. Grace remembers watching her mother — after years of teaching — sitting at the kitchen table making 25 separate paper pumpkins for the children in her class.

"She wanted them to be brand new for these kids," Grace says. "Even after she'd been teaching a couple decades, I think she actually loved doing all of that. She loved the labor."

Miriam's dedication and skill in the classroom earned her multiple Teacher of the Year honors, throughout her career. Grace and Betty found and saved the one typed nomination among their mother's keepsakes. The nomination was filled with examples that led her to win that award.

Downsizing to new homes in Davidson offered opportunities for Grace and Betty to reminisce over family memorabilia. Yearbook pages, Teacher of the Year nominations and a video of Miriam talking about her classroom, offer highlights of their mother's teaching gift.

"I'm ecstatic that we can give her some attention," Grace says. "I watched how my mom did it all. And she seemed so happy doing it."

Miriam was dedicated to Delta Kappa Gamma, an international society that promotes professional and personal growth of women educators and excellence in education. She was president of her chapter and throughout her career was active in many organizations and a variety of activities that dealt with education.

In 2016, while Grace was serving on the College of Education advisory board, she and her sister honored their mother with inclusion in the college's Educators Hall of Fame. In 2018, Grace also was inducted to the Hall of Fame.

EDUCATING EDUCATORS

For Grace, the route to becoming a teacher had only one possible trajectory — straight through ECU's College of Education.

"When I thought about where I was going to go to college it never occurred to me to go anywhere but East Carolina, because I wanted to be a teacher," she says.

Grace says the seeds of her successful career in education and educational leadership were planted at ECU. "You don't even realize how many professional things started there until you trace them back," she says.

She vividly remembers methods courses taught by Educators Hall of Fame professor Dr. Keith Holmes and Professor Emeritus Dr. Amos Clark. She has used many of those methods in creating curricula and programs throughout her career.

"Some of the things from those methods classes, I would change somewhat. But I would use similar formats to develop units and activities; because so much of those approaches were, and are, still the best way," she says.

Grace graduated from ECU and enrolled at Duke the next year to earn her master's degree in education. She taught secondary grades in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools and in Virginia, also serving as a guidance counselor, assistant principal and curriculum coordinator, before pursuing her doctorate in educational leadership and programming at the University of Virginia.

"To be an educator of educators, you kind of need a little of everything," she says.

She was the coordinator for the doctoral program in educational leadership at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, chaired the Education Department at Warren Wilson College and served as chairperson of the Education Department at Davidson College from 1988-1998.

Retirement brought a new career as an independent education consultant. She worked with many school systems, colleges and universities, community agencies as well as with the Model Teacher Consortium. The influence of ECU remained a constant throughout her career. Grace says any time a Davidson student wanted to pursue classroom teaching as a career after they graduated from Davidson, she always directed them to ECU.

CONTINUING A TEACHING LEGACY

Grace has long recognized the influence of East Carolina University's College of Education — in her mother's career and her own life and career — its reputation for education and its vital role in preparing North Carolina's educators.

Inspired by her mother's memory, Mitchell has chosen to invest in the college's future and help maintain its foundational commitment to prepare professional educators. Her gift, established through a bequest in her estate, will create two endowments, the Dr. Miriam Grace Mitchell College of Education Endowment and the Dr. Miriam Grace Mitchell Scholarship Endowment, to support the college's needs and honor her mother's teaching career.

The scholarship endowment will provide scholarship support for elementary education majors, in honor of her mother, and secondary education majors to increase the number of teachers in secondary schools. The College of Education endowment establishes a fund to provide general, unrestricted support to the College of Education. Funds will be available for faculty recruitment and retention efforts, student recruitment activities, professional development, furniture, conference travel, and other priorities of the college.

For Grace, the endowments are an extension and continuation of her mother's teaching legacy. Miriam, armed with her East Carolina education, taught hundreds of children; raised two teachers, who have each created a legacy of their own. Now, future ECU students will benefit from scholarships to become teachers because of Miriam Mitchell.

"I feel a lot of devotion to ECU," Grace says. "What's really been true throughout my entire career is that I still have a love for education and that comes from ECU. And a lot of that can be traced back to my early exposure to education from my mother."