Emma Sharpe Avery

Honoree:
Emma Sharpe Avery

Submitted By:
Emmy Lou Jeffress Burchette

His face aglow, the man spoke to my grandmother with a mixture of reverence and excitement. Like a shy high school boy, this forty-something man shifted his feet and told her about his work, his family, his successes in life. He wasn’t bragging, but wanted her to know he was doing well, and thanked her for all she did for him in high school. “I wouldn’t have made it without you, Mrs. Avery,” he confessed. “You kept me in school by giving me the encouragement I needed to stay the course.”

He signaled for his wife and two sons to come over and meet her. He introduced them proudly, “This is Mrs. Avery and her family. She was my high school teacher. I had her for history, and she helped me with a lot of other things.” Then my grandmother reached over and patted his arm, a gesture she made in love to family and her beloved students. “Good luck,” she told him, “I’m so pleased to see you.”

My grandmother was the mother of six children, but also the teacher of hundreds of others, all of whom benefited from her talents as a teacher and her motherly compassion. With long silver hair always worn in an upsweep style, she carried herself with a lady’s presence and talked softly when in conversation. Her eyes could carry a twinkle or a steely gaze, whichever the situation warranted. She didn’t have to make her presence known, when she spoke, others listened. When she entered a room, men and even ladies stumbled to their feet out of endearment.

As a history teacher in a Greensboro, North Carolina high school in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Emma Sharpe Avery didn’t have a lot of resources for her students. She taught classes filled to the brim with students, and those students had a wide range of talents. Some could barely read, others moved quickly through the curriculum. One of her biggest challenges was to keep the boys focused on school while WWII raged, impacting every family in town in some way. She knew that if they left school, their lives would never be the same. She didn’t give them easy grades, but she provided extra help after school or in the mornings before classes. She found ways to translate topics into meaningful comparisons to the students’ lives so they could understand the complexities of a subject. She listened to their hardships and helped them figure out how to solve problems such as getting homework done with a job after school. She did a lot of listening, and found ways to encourage each and everyone.

My grandmother was well prepared as a teacher, graduating from “Woman’s College,” now known as UNC Greensboro. I always knew that her profession was more of a life passion than a job, although she worked to support herself and her family after her husband died from a heart attack at an early age.

Over the years, the line of students stopping by to say hello taught me a lot about the impact a teacher makes on lives. They never forgot, nor will I.