Retirement – the action of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work, but has she done it yet? No! After 33 years in the classroom, officially retiring in 2005, she returned as a substitute teacher in 2006, and today she is still helping young minds to develop through love, discipline, and caring. Ageless, this youthful 76-year-old is still fulfilling her calling, being an exceptional teacher and role model both inside and outside the classroom. She adds credence to the axiom, “Great teachers are not made; they are born.”
Today, we honor Marjorie Smith Grant for her teaching excellence and her resilience, the ability to cope, to recover, to bounce back, to overcome adversity to live on. We all know that “Life happens!” but when life threw her rocks, Ms. Grant just laid a beautiful sturdy highway and kept walking.
Her agricultural parents, Lee Swinton and Lucille Lee Smith, worked hard. Farm life was tedious and strenuous, and she hated it all, mainly worms, any size. However, she and her siblings—Larry Donnell, Ivory Joe (deceased), Andrea Gail, Enola Gay, Marilyn, and Sylvia—endured it all with love and laughter, feeling protected by their “never-back-down” spirited parents who instilled into them the value of hard work, faith, and self-worth.
Born in 1949 in Bulloch County, she experienced racial boundaries. She remembers having to walk two miles to Pope Academy Elementary School because there were no buses for Black children, having to sit in the “Blacks only” balcony at the Georgia Theatre to watch a movie, having to buy a sandwich from the side window at Vandy’s Barbeque, and the “Whites Only” water fountain in Minkovitz.
Therefore, for two years to escape farm life and Southern segregation, she worked in New York as a factory model after graduating in 1966 from William James High School, then an all-Black school.
Returning home, she fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a teacher, receiving her B.S. degree in education from Savannah State College (now University) in 1972. She now holds a lifetime teaching certificate. Her first teaching job at Northside School was chaotic. Hired in September (school began in August) to teach 30 rowdy students, with no initial desks, no mentor, just an empty room – she learned in one day how to cope. Gradually, she built a rapport with her students by listening to them and implementing strict, fair discipline, a skill she still uses today.
As a testament to her professional resilience, she was William James Middle School (originally Northside) “Teacher of the Year” in 1998 and in 2001. She taught under the leadership of four principals: Mr. John Harris, Mr. Morris Ward, Mr. Earnest Dupree, and lastly retiring under Mr. Darryl Fineran. Throughout her career she has received several other recognitions: BCAE secretary, Community Service Award from Superintendent Lynn Batten, the Greatest Teacher Award, SACs School Accreditation Commendation, School Site Coordinator, and Team Leader for TOP STEP tutoring.
Her health also shows her resilience. She is an ovarian cancer survivor, being diagnosed in 1990. She suffered through her chemotherapy treatments while only missing a few days of work. Today, she is cancer free. Gallbladder surgery, cataract removal, and a broken toe (she unknowingly taught all day on it) warrants her the survival award, for sure.
Moreover, in December 1992, at the age of 43, she had a near-fatal car accident. As a result of brain trauma, she stayed in Savannah’s Memorial Medical Center for a week but recuperated at home during Christmas, slowly regaining her ability to think and speak while relying on God’s favor. Although away from her students, she was never away from their hearts. Many letters of well-wishing were written to her:
“Can’t wait until you come back” (Jeremiah Brown). “We have had so many substitutes, but we want our own, real teacher back. I can’t wait to see your again” (Angie Mincey). “Because no one could take the place of such a warm hearted, caring, loving and hard-working woman as yourself . . . I wish you a Merry Christmas” (Cassie Letsinger). “I’ve prayed for you every night . . . I love you and I miss you” (Desiree Murray). “I have really missed you. You are one of my best teachers” (Charneighsha Joyce).
“Mrs. Grant our classroom has seemed very incomplete without you” (Latoria Williams). “I miss you” (Frant Davis). “The 50 cents that I turned in to give you something was my ice cream money. I gave this money because I thought of you and ice cream may always be here, but you won’t. . . We miss you a lot! I love you!” (Kimberly Beavers). From the mouths of babes! Giving up ice cream money! What a testament!
Daily, she battles diabetes, a generational illness, yet she keeps moving. In 2005, her mom became bed-ridden; this influenced her self-less decision to retire, and then later her dad had a stroke. As the oldest she became their major caregiver, admitting that “taking care of them was emotionally and physically hard,” yet she persevered with the help of God and her siblings, overcoming yet another adversity with a warm smile, a loving heart, and strong hands.
Her “bounce back” attitude helped her to weather her next storm, becoming a single mom of three, but “she never skipped a beat,” says her daughter Chiante Grant Culver, telling her mom:
“Life happened and you had to raise us solo. . . Your strength is admirable.” Teacher Akeem attests, “AH Man! The strength of this woman. No matter what life threw at her, she went through it and came out stronger.” Unsurprisingly, all three describe her as “resilient.” Dominque adds that “she is God-fearing, loving, and nurturing,” and both sons agree that she “trained them up to be a man” while Chiante believes that her mom is her teacher and life role model.
Proudly, she says “They went through whatever I went through, and we all, by the grace of God, made it.” Three business owners and two teachers later—What a blessing! Ms. Grant admits that “I never would have made it without my God. With all my problems He always sent someone to comfort and help me.” They all worship at St. Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church pastored by retired teacher Timotheus Mincey. A former usher and choir member, she now faithfully serves in numerous other capacities.
This is her teaching philosophy:
“I believe that my most important task is that of a nurturer. Teaching involves more than just serving as an educator. I must be an encourager, a motivator, a disciplinarian, a role model, a mentor, and most importantly, a listener.” I agree because everything that I learned about being an educator, I learned from my sister, Marjorie Smith Grant. Retired teachers Evelyn Ward Johnson and Gwendolyn Sabb Lane, two lifelong friends, voice similar sentiments: “caring, dedicated, family-oriented, beautiful inside and out, spiritual, supportive, professional” with Lane adding that “our mothers were friends, and it was God’s plan for us to be best friends, too.”
Ms. Grant, may you continue to wear the robe of “Resilience” because you have yet to teach your last student. Those students whom you have taught still sing your praises as you continue to inspire, love, discipline, and encourage their offspring. Nope!
Retirement does not define you—just yet! You have been empowered to teach on!