(An excerpt from my memoir My Life In the Sunshine)
During my recent interview with Rabbi Gohlstin on WMPU, a local radio station, he shared that he had gone to Dyke Elementary. I told him my mother taught there and his eyes brightened. “You mean Mrs. Prewitt? All the students loved her.”
My mother would later become an assistant principal at Parkwood Elementary school. She obtained a Master of Arts degree in education and became one of the first African Americans promoted to elementary school principal.
But educating didn’t stop there, and it didn’t begin there.
My sister, Marcia Prewitt Spiller, taught school in Columbus before moving to Atlanta where she also obtained her master’s degree. After working at the Children’s School for a number of years, Marcia was chosen as Head of School of that private educational institution.
Marcia recently retired from Woodward Academy, another private school in Atlanta, as Vice President and Dean for Academic Affairs. Prior to retirement, Woodward Academy created a Marcia Prewitt Spiller Excellence in Teaching Award to be given in perpetuity.
Both my sister and my mother were beloved educators, but little did I know after searching through some papers my mother had stored, that my grandmother, Mary Louise Smith, had also obtained a teaching certificate. I know little else about grandma except that she would pinch me whenever I was near her and say, “This is for what we didn’t catch you doing.”
There’s a lot my parents didn’t catch me doing, but It’s almost impossible to go off the rails surrounded by three generations of educators in your life.
