A community icon dies at 106

Mary Wilson outlived many of the children she taught at Liberty Hill, Buckhorn, Union Grove, and Graceville Elementary schools. But those who live on remember her as a key figure in their young lives.

Long before she passed away Monday at the age of 106, she had become an icon of the black community in Jackson County, revered for her dedication to young people in the schools and in her church, Greater Buckhorn Missionary Baptist Church.

The Pastor there, Rev. William Harvey, called her a pillar of the church and community.

“She was very, very, very important to the life of this church and I can’t think of anything she wouldn’t do for anyone,” Harvey said. “When I came here 35 years ago, she was already there and has been so helpful to me through the years. She helped direct the choirs, the youth programs, and was deeply involved in all the ministries we have, really. I haven’t seen one just like her before or since. Man, she was dedicated.”

He said she taught him things all the way up to her 100th year, when her health had declined to the point that she could no longer attend services.

Harvey remembers one particular experience in which she helped him learn lessons in patience and see the bigger picture.

“There was a time when we had (certain meetings) on Saturday evenings, in a period where not all the people who were supposed to show up would come,” he said. “It would be me, and her, and my wife, and maybe one or two more. It was pretty discouraging to me. On one of those nights, I walked down the aisle to turn out the lights. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her, ‘Well, I’m turning out the lights. Nobody’s here.’ She said to me, ‘Well, we’re here.’ So back I went, turning the lights back on. This happened a couple of times before I finally got it. I didn’t turn the lights off after that, no matter if it was just us. We could do what we could do.”

Wilson was also a key leader in Second West Missionary Baptist Association activities for many years.

Wilson started her career in elementary education at the tender age of 15, before she even had a high school diploma of her own. She first taught at church-based schools of Liberty Hill and Buckhorn. Later, she moved on to Union Hill, where she spent the majority of her career.

Once she learned the state of Florida would start requiring its teachers to be certified, Wilson took tests to earn her high school diploma in 1939, and then set about the task of earning her teaching certificate at FAMU, then known as Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College. She went there in summers off from teaching during the “grace period” years the state allowed teachers to get their certifications. She earned her degree and certification in 1953, a task that took five or six years.

Many of her students went on to become professionals in a wide range of occupations including medicine and law. Known as a no-nonsense but loving teacher, Wilson demanded much of her students and made sure they knew she believed they could achieve on the same level as their white counterparts even though the students were segregated throughout all but one of her teaching years. She made it her business to instill that belief in her students, as well.

And her devotion to educating children inspired at least three other family members to follow in her path.

Wilson’s son, LeRoy, her grandson Lamar, and a niece Callie Mary Thomas, whom she helped raise, all became educators. Through the years, she also made sure the families in her extended community had what they needed to survive in hard times. She lived frugally herself so she could also help countless children in the family and community attend college.

Lamar Wilson said his grandmother was a soul mate and one of his greatest champions through life.

“She was my first teacher,” he said. “My foundation and love for learning and education, and my career, is rooted in her. When other kids were out playing, I was often inside learning phonics or how to write my name. By the time I actually started school, I was ahead of the game. She was serious about education, elocution and grammar, really a perfectionist. She was very firm, but very loving. She knew there was a purpose to it and she was resolute. She got things done.”

Her niece, Callie Mary Thomas, is a retired English teacher. She said Wilson guided her into that career.

“She started taking care of me when I was a small child,” Thomas said. “I lived with them at night, and she was very good to me. She helped provide just about everything I needed as a child, and as an adult she helped send me to school. She was one of my teachers at Buckhorn Elementary, and she was a strict disciplinarian because she wanted you to learn and achieve so that you would be able to take care of yourself, to make your living. She had a love for all of us. She was a good woman.”

She said her aunt never talked to her about the future in terms of “if you go to college;” it was always “when you go to college.”

“ She encouraged me to become a teacher because she felt this was a field in which you could go and get a job anywhere you wanted to live,” Thomas said. “But she wanted me to come back to Jackson County and teach, and was instrumental in keeping me here. I started at St. Paul School in Campbellton, for nine or 10 years, then transferred to Grand Ridge for 20 years, and then went to Marianna High School, where I retired in the 2003. I taught 41 years, but she taught a lot longer than I did, and across a lot of subjects and grades. I think she influenced a lot of lives in a very positive way. She had us at church every time the doors opened and she was very involved with youth there, too.”

Wilson’s son, LeRoy Jr., said his mother “had undying love” that will survive the death of her physical body, living on in all the lives she touched.

“She’d give her last,” he said. “She saw that everything was provided for, and she taught us to live by the golden rule; do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

He said his mother passed peacefully Monday.

“She’d been living with me and my wife since 1999,” he said. “The day she died, she said she was tired but not hurting or anything. The next time I went in there to check on her, she had her hand folded across her. She was at peace, she was in no pain, she was gone to Heaven. She had a long, lovely life of helping people and I was privileged to have her as my mother.”