Mary Helen Thomason Goddard – A teacher who made a difference | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I did not know Mrs. Goddard, but she was a legend at Stone Mountain High School and Stone Mountain city.  When she passed on September 1, 2016 the Facebook site for "I remember Stone Mountain" had numerous posts about her.

   I have written about various teachers in my life that made a difference.  It appears that Mary Goddard was just another one of those teachers that affected her students during and long after they were in her class.  I offer her Obituary here not as an obituary but as an example of how one person can influence several generations of students.

    I encourage you to just check this link and read the comments. It will only take a few minutes, but it will illustrate how a dedicated person can affect our world long after our first or last encounter with her.  She obviously did not become a teacher for money or power or recognition.    

    Mary Helen Thomason Goddard, age 96, passed away on September 1, 2016 while vacationing in Guadalajara, Mexico. Helen was born in Stone Mountain, Georgia on February 23, 1920 and is preceded in death by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Herman A. Thomason; brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. James A. Thomason; and also her husband, Mr. Hugh A. Goddard. Mrs. Goddard is survived by her niece, Pamela Thomason Kaveney, and Mrs. Kaveney's only child, Millianne Thomason, of Stone Mountain.

    From her earliest memories, Mrs. Goddard recalled that she always wanted to be an educator and delighted in playing the role of teacher with her childhood friends. She went on to graduate from Stone Mountain High School in 1936 and then the University of Georgia in 1939 at the age of nineteen. Her first teaching position was in South Carolina until she came home to teach at Stone Mountain High School in 1941. There she taught English, Driver's Education and Social Studies until her retirement in 1986. Mrs. Goddard enjoyed her students' achievements in the classroom and in their individual athletic activities. She returned to teaching as a substitute until the age of seventy-nine when she was diagnosed with a heart condition after spending over a year in Dekalb Medical Center and Emory University Hospital. In spite of her limited mobility, Mrs. Goddard continued her love of learning and teaching for the remainder of her life. She began traveling abroad at the age of ninety-three and took great pleasure in meeting new people, embracing them as her family and their culture as her own.

Throughout her lifetime, Mrs. Goddard devoted herself to her family and students. She passed on to her family her love of nature and her faith. At the age of sixteen, she joined the Stone Mountain United Methodist Church and was an active member for eighty years. Her students visited and corresponded with Mrs. Goddard long after their graduation. While in her eighties, the "Old Men of the Mountain" took her to lunch with them every month and she always shared these adventures with her family. For the past three years, she spent her time with new activities including whale watching, sunset celebrations, and visits to botanical gardens. Mrs. Goddard continued to teach her family and friends in her final years just as she had during her lifetime, with love, humor, kindness, patience, and faith.

Mrs. Goddard will lie in state at the Stone Mountain United Methodist Church on Thursday, September 15, 2016 with visitation from 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. to be followed by the funeral service with Pastor Ellen Shepard officiating. Interment will take place at the Stone Mountain Cemetery. Wages and Sons is handling the funeral arrangements.


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( September 15th, 2016 @ 1:48 pm )
 
Thankfully,I will not be around to hear or read my obituary and eulogy.

Here is an heavily redacted excerpt from an article I wrote about obituaries and eulogies. "An Obituary or a Eulogy"

My paternal grandmother passed in 1963. Her brother, Drure Stamps who was a Baptist missionary in China for 30 years, preached her funeral. I do have a distinct memory of his interpretation of an obituary and a funeral service. His position was that an obituary could be reduced to two lines.

They lived, they died, the ceremony will be at xxxx on xxx,xx,xxx.
They were xxx and their relatives were xxxx.

However, the passing is a time to rejoice in their life and the eulogy is time to celebrate their life. As I recall he said that because they charged per words in an obituary, you could usually tell how wealthy a person was by the length of the obituary. But you could tell how important they were by the stories told at the wake or funeral. Now when I see an obituary for someone I do not know, the first thing I do is look at the comments.

There is solace and redemption in the comments beyond just a short RIP or I will be praying for the family. A personal memory tells their story.

One of the comments from tells part of the story. Most of her students later started calling her Ma Goddard or Ma Helen, after she returned as a substitute teacher.

( September 15th, 2016 @ 12:39 pm )
 
Thanks for going back to the well.

This is just a hunch, but, I wonder: Will the teachers of today be remembered as often or as fondly as these teachers that you have memorialized?

It is a great series.
( September 15th, 2016 @ 11:28 am )
 
Teachers are an amazing bunch of folks.



Seeing Through Your Mind’s Eye...(Whatever That Is) Teachers We Remember (Archive), Education (Archive), Body & Soul When It Becomes September


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