WOOSTER Virginia Blackwell wanted to be a teacher and she wanted to be a teacher in her hometown.
The opportunity finally arrived in 1963, almost 20 years after Blackwell earned her degree from West Virginia State College, an all-Black school at that time. Wooster City Schools hired her as a special education teacher, making her the first Black teacher in the district’s history.
“She was just glad she got to teach… She didn’t look at it as a fight but her right,” said Carolyn Huff of her mother, who died on March 3. She was 98.
Virginia Blackwell s early years
Blackwell was born on March 29, 1922, in Wooster. She graduated from Wooster High School in 1940 and earned a degree in music education with a minor in history from West Virginia State College in 1944.
BITS AND PIECES: Celebrating Black History Month in Wooster the-daily-record.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from the-daily-record.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
newspaper, obituary, Friday, 10 May 1946, page 29, column 1, George W. Seaver obituary;
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 31 December 2020).
This death notice provides only an age, an approximate death date, his occupation, and the names of his three living children. There is no mention of parents or spouse names, or his daughter s given name.
George Watson Seaver (1854-1946) was born 9 December 1854 in Marion, Virginia, the son of William C. and Elizabeth Ann (Pruner) Seaver. He married Seanah M. Painter (1876-1919) on 29 October 1896 in Sullivan County, Tennessee. They had four children: Maude Elizabeth Seaver (1897-1980), married about 1919 Dr. Malcolm Marvin Brown (1887-1948).