news-record.com

Thank you, Mom (Victoria Andrews), for rising every morning at 4 a.m. to make a full breakfast for eight children of your own, plus whomever was staying with us at the time.

Then you walked almost two miles to school loaded down with lunch and supplies for your students. You taught school in a one-room school house from the age of 16 when there were no African-American school teachers in the rural Mississippi area where you lived.

You were allowed to teach after completing 10th grade and taking a courthouse exam. Your great-grandfather had built the school. He was also an immigrant slave owner and erected the school for his bi-racial children. You continued to attend school summers until you earned a college degree.

You were the first formal school teacher of all of your children. When we reached sixth grade, we went on to the “big school” in the county.

All of your students from the community loved you because you often packed enough food so everyone could eat when a student did not bring a lunch. Some of your students were older than you because they worked fields and could only attend school every once in a while.

Your students went on to become teachers and other professionals and are still in touch with you.

You took in pregnant girls when their parents put them out and you shared our clothes and school supplies with students who did not have either.

Though you had a meager salary and often homemade supplies to work with, you taught us the love of learning and creativity. We were valedictorians, salutatorians, won spelling bees, Girl/Boy Scout honors, 4-H honors, military officers, and the community rallied when a student was sent to one conference or the other. You taught us self-motivation and to set high standards for ourselves.

Mom, even though you have been retired for more than 30 years, you still sit up at night making lesson plans and organizing supplies for your one-room students -- the only ones you remember. You now have Alzheimers Disease and are reaching for your 95th birthday. You made generations of good citizens.

You suffered trauma when your youngest grandson was killed at 13 five years ago in Paris, in a bus crash while travelling with a soccer team. You raised him from an infant and had been his tutor. You always ask why he is not coming to see you.

I love you very much.

Your loving, care-giver daughter,
Nikki DeVeaux