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Carrie Still Shepperson

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Carrie Still Shepperson
Carrie Still Shepperson, a Black woman with light skin, curly hair dressed with a center part, wearing a dramatic dark high-collared jacket with puffy sleeves and diagonal double-row button detail across chest
Carrie Still Shepperson, from a portrait made in the 1890s
Born
Carrie Lena Fambro

June 15, 1869
near Milledgeville, Georgia, U.S.
DiedMay 18, 1927 (aged 57)
Other namesCarrie L. Still
OccupationEducator
ChildrenWilliam Grant Still Jr.
RelativesVerna Arvey (daughter-in-law)

Carrie Still Shepperson (June 15, 1869[1] – May 18, 1927) was an American educator based in Arkansas.

Early life and education

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Carrie Lena Fambro was born near Milledgeville, Georgia, the daughter of Sarah Antoinette "Anne" Fambro. She graduated from Atlanta University in 1886.[2]

Career

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Fambro taught at Alabama State Agricultural and Mechanical College in the early 1890s, before she married. As a young widow with a little son to support, she moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, and taught there for 30 years,[3] at Union High School from 1896 to 1902,[4] at Capital Hill School beginning in 1902,[5] and later at M. W. Gibbs High School. She created a library at the Capitol Hill School, which she funded with a benefit program of performances by students and others. After that success, she continued to stage annual shows in Little Rock, to support the city's Black schools.[2]

Shepperson also led school choirs, and directed her students in Shakespeare plays.[6] She lectured on classroom discipline at a county institute for Black teachers in 1899.[7] She was secretary of the Little Rock branch of the NAACP.[3]

Personal life

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Fambro married twice, and was twice a widow. Her first husband was a fellow teacher, William Grant Still. They married in 1894 and had a son, composer and conductor William Grant Still Jr.[8][9] Her first husband died shortly after their son's birth in 1895.

Her second husband was railway postal clerk Charles B. Shepperson; they married in 1904,[10] and he died by drowning in 1922. She died in 1927, when she was about sixty years old, in Little Rock.[6] There is a large collection of her son's papers in special collections at the University of Arkansas.[11]

References

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  1. ^ The June 15, 1869 birthdate appears in her 1927 obituary in The Crisis, and on her gravestone in Little Rock, via Find a Grave; some other sources, including the Encyclopedia of Arkansas and a 1983 article by her granddaughter, give 1872 as her birth year.
  2. ^ a b Gordon, Fon Louise. "Carrie Lena Fambro Still Shepperson (1872-1927)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  3. ^ a b "Along the Color Line: Social Uplift". The Crisis. 35 (6): 196, 199. August 1927 – via Internet Archive.
  4. ^ "The Teachers Elected for the Next Public School Year, 1901-1902". Arkansas Democrat. 1901-06-01. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Assignment of Teachers". Arkansas Democrat. 1903-09-15. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b Still, Judith Anne; Headlee, Judy Anne (1983). "Carrie Still Shepperson: The Hollows of Her Footsteps". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 42 (1): 37–46. doi:10.2307/40022887. ISSN 0004-1823.
  7. ^ "Successful Normal; Closing Day of the County Institute for Colored Teachers". Arkansas Democrat. 1899-06-17. p. 6. Retrieved 2024-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Bell, Susan (2013-01-04). "Still Life". News and Events. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  9. ^ Still, Judith A.; Dabrishus, Michael J.; Quin, Carolyn (1996-08-20). William Grant Still: A Bio-Bibliography. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-313-25255-6.
  10. ^ "Marriage Licenses Issued". Daily Arkansas Gazette. 1904-11-25. p. 5. Retrieved 2024-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "Collection: William Grant Still and Verna Arvey Papers". ArchivesSpace at the University of Arkansas. Retrieved 2024-02-20.