AKA Soror Thelma T. Wynn, teacher, traveler and humanitarian, dies at 101

Source

When Thelma T. Wynn arrived in Liberia in West Africa in the 1940s, her eyes were opened to a world she hadn’t known existed.

“She used to say that Liberia changed her life completely,” said her granddaughter Lisa Hopkins.

“She said, ‘I brought back with me an unconditional acceptance of people of all races and backgrounds.’ “

A city girl, Thelma was disturbed by conditions in the rural country, but if Africa changed Thelma, she also had a strong impact on Africa.

She taught English at the Booker T. Washington Institute, in Liberia, from 1946 to 1952, and influenced the school to open its doors to girls.

She and her late husband, the Rev. Walter C. Wynn, also did missionary work among the people of Liberia, founded in 1822 by freed American slaves.

Too bad her own country had not yet experienced the acceptance of all people that she discovered in Africa. The reality was brought home to her when she was ordered to the back of a train in the Jim Crow South.

“I kind of wish we were all blind so we couldn’t see the differences,” she once said. “That would make life so much sweeter.”

Thelma Wynn, longtime teacher of English, theater arts and speech in schools in the United States, and a traveler who visited 54 countries, died Sunday. She was 101 and lived at Stapley Senior Citizen Community in Germantown.

Her family described her as a “beloved servant of all mankind.”

Among her many honors was the award she received in 2005 from the Booker T. Washington Institute Alumni Association of North America for “outstanding humanitarian services” at its 14th annual convention in Towson, Md.

“She was such a lady of true integrity and class,” her granddaughter said. “Her faith, wisdom and love for all are an outstanding testimony.”

Her family has been going through the many letters she received from students in Liberia expressing their appreciation for what she did for them.

“Some of the students couldn’t read or write, and she was so instrumental in their futures,” said another granddaughter, Nia Crawford. “The love and appreciation they expressed in those letters was beautiful.”

Thelma Wynn was born in Cambridge, Mass., to Willis and Elizabeth Harten Thornton. She started at Emerson College in Boston at the age of 16 and earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1929.

She taught English, speech and theater arts at schools in Massachusetts, Virginia and at the former Palmer Memorial Institute, in Sedalia, N.C., a school for African-American students. She earned a master’s degree in speech therapy in 1954 from Temple University.

She married the Rev. Walter C. Wynn in the early ’40s. He was headmaster of the Booker T. Washington Institute in Liberia.

He was also a handyman who showed the Liberians how to work with electricity and develop other skills to make their lives easier. Thelma joined the Boston City Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha and then transferred to the Omega Omega Chapter in Philadelphia.

She participated in fundraising activities for the sorority and was credited with starting its Calendar Girl Pageant, which raised funds for scholarships. She was a former “first lady” of the Pond Street Baptist Church, in Providence, R.I., and Taylor Memorial Baptist Church, in Philadelphia.

Thelma was alert and vigorous well into her later years. A stroke stole her ability to talk, but she never lost her mental acuity.

She also is survived by two daughters, Ingrid Catlin and Margarette Crawford; two other grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Services: 10 a.m. Friday at Grace Baptist Church of Germantown, 25 W. Johnson St. Friends may call at 9 a.m. Burial will be private.

Popularity: 2% [?]