Posted 10:21 pm Sunday, February 05, 2012
Lemons Spends Her Life Helping Others, Staying ‘Out Of Trouble'
Velma Ruth Lemons was born helping people.
The oldest of four children and of 26 grandchildren, she moved on to be a school teacher for almost four decades, teaching Sunday School classes and Boy Scouts along the way.
Mrs. Lemons, 89, was born in the Texas Panhandle in 1922. With no electricity and no running water, they lived on dusty, windy prairieland. She grew up on a ranch, where you did your own plowing and everything else, she recalled Wednesday. Mrs. Lemons rode horses -- the only means of transportation a lot of times.
As the oldest sibling, Mrs. Lemons, grew up being responsible for people, she said.
As a child, she was taught to read and do simple math at home. She started school at 9 years old and graduated from high school as valedictorian when she was 16.
The first two years of high school, she rode a school bus 100 miles one way to school each day, she said. Her junior year the family moved closer to town so she only had to walk a quarter of a mile.
When she was in high school, there were no telephones to call substitute teachers when needed so as a freshman, Mrs. Lemons would be pulled out of class to substitute teach younger students.
Mrs. Lemons did well in school. She couldn't do anything else or her parents would have had a fit, she said with a chuckle.
After high school, she attended West Texas State University at Canyon, where she continued to play the drums in band, play basketball, volleyball and run track. She also joined the swim teach and played semi-professional basketball for two years.
During college, she taught social studies to the basketball players on the side and worked as a student teacher. She coached basketball and the swim team at the college for two years.
While in college, she also taught Sunday School classes to middle school children and went on to teach Sunday School in Dumas and Stinnett.
"I was born helping people," she said. "I was always helping somebody."
TEACHING
When she was a junior in college, Mrs. Lemons was visiting cousins in Dumas and met a man who asked her to come teach there. She taught social studies to six classes, with up to 60 kids each, for two years. Then she went back to living with her parents in Stinnett and taught there for two years.
That would be the beginning of her 39-year teaching career, primarily teaching history.
While taking summer college classes, she met her husband, Charles Lemons Jr., a builder from Tyler who was on his way to Alaska. After meeting her, he never made it there, she said.
Mrs. Lemons graduated college in 1949 and the couple married and moved to Tyler in 1950. She said moving to Tyler was very different from the Panhandle.
Although it was dryer, windier and dirtier, "you just adjust to it pretty well," she said of where she grew up.
Here, the Lemons lived on two acres of land out on Farm-to-Market Road 14, where they had a garden, yard, horses, cows and chickens.
Mrs. Lemons took a job at Tyler Independent School District and taught at Bell Elementary for two years. She went on to teach for 30 years at nearly every school in Tyler, including Orr, Marsh, Bonner and Douglas elementary schools and junior high school. She also taught at East Texas Christian Academy for one year.
She taught at Orr the longest, from 1960 to 1993. After retirement, she continued substitute teaching for several years.
She saw a lot of changes throughout the years in the school system, "but I didn't change a whole lot," she said.
During her teaching career, she taught many children after teaching their parents.
"I didn't tolerate crude out of them," she said of her students. "They all behaved in my classroom. I could just shake my head at them and that was enough."
She said she didn't have a lot of disciplinary problems with her students or her children.
"I spanked their backside every once in a while but I didn't have to do much of that," she said.
Because she didn't have any trouble with any of her kids, she said she guessed she just looked mean.
But maybe the children listened to her because of her experience of raising her four children and helping raise her younger siblings.
"I got a long with people pretty well," she said. "I still give orders."
She said people always asked her what she would do in a particular situation and teachers still ask her for advice.
STAYING OUT OF TROUBLE
During her long career, the only time she wasn't teaching was when she was out having her four children, she said.
Sherryl Miles, her oldest daughter, works for Brookshire's warehouse; her son Marc is a petroleum landman in Tyler, Bart is a Tyler Police officer and Clark is an aerospace engineer at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
"There's nothing dumb about any of them," she said while talking of her children's accomplishments.
Because she was so busy with raising her children, tending to her home and being involved in teaching and community organizations, Mrs. Lemons said, "I stayed out of trouble."
When her children got old enough to be in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, Mrs. Lemons was very active in their activities. She was involved in Girl Scouts for eight years and Cub and Boy Scouts for 38 years. When her three boys made it to Eagle Scout, she taught Eagle Scout Merit Badges at nearly every church in Tyler, as well as in Chapel Hill.
"I don't know how many Eagle Scouts I taught," she said. "There's no telling."
She received the "Faithful Servant" award in 1998 from the Boy Scouts of America for her work in scouting, church and community.
Mrs. Lemons was also very active in church, teaching Sunday school before she moved to Tyler, and once here, she taught toddlers for 60 years at West Erwin Church of Christ.
Mrs. Lemons, who has been living at The Hamptons Assisted Living Community since August, still goes to church nearly every Sunday.
Mrs. Lemons has served on several organizations throughout the years.
She was a member of the American Classroom Educators in Tyler for six years, serving as vice president and president, and was member of the Texas Education Association for 21 years, serving on several committees. She served on the Texas State Textbook Committee six times, and served as chairwoman of the committee to rewrite school curriculum.
She was a member of the P.T.A. since 1944 and received the P.T.A. Lifetime Membership while at Orr Elementary. She was also a member of the Texas A&M Mothers Club since 1980 and has served several positions, including president of the organization.
If you know of a professional woman or business service in the Tyler area you think should be highlighted in this column, contact me at cmurphy@tylerpaper.com or 903-596-6289.
