Lillian Secrest Buie's Weblog

Announcing the Release of 'Teacher of Our Town'

We are proud to announce the publication of Teacher of Our Town: Lillian Secrest Buie, a 335-page book. North Carolina English Teacher of the Year for 1979 offers intimate portraits of Southern life, with contributing memories from a host of friends, relatives and former students.

Like nearly every high school English teacher in America, Lillian Buie taught Thornton Wilder's play Our Town and tried to open her students' eyes to the ways that literature resembles life, and that life resembles literature. Now, in this collection of essays compiled and edited by her son Jim from letters, journals, and short stories, Lil Buie looks back on her own life, finding similarities to "Our Town." Union County, N.C. where she grew up, and Scotland County, N.C., where she lived in the same house for 60 years, provided windows on the world and into the human condition. Her words are enriched by excerpts from dozens of letters from former students, friends and relatives, recalling specific memories and the influence of this "teacher of our town" on their lives.

To learn more about the book or to order it from the publisher for $24, plus $3.06 by USPS Media Mail, click.

Read Jim Buie's observations about blogs, books, and "blooks." Click.

Last of the Home-visiting Physicians: Lil’s Tribute to Edwin Womble, MD Upon His Retirement in 1985

Friends, Wagramites, Scotland Countians, lend me your ears. We come not only to praise our doctor, but to tease him a bit. The good that men do should certainly live after them, but their special human foibles endear them to us now. So let it be with Edwin.

He is our friend, faithful and just to us, and we have much cause to love him. Here under leave of the homemakers, square dancers, family and all the rest, come I to speak at Dr. Womble’s appreciation dinner. He hath brought many babies to homes in Scotland County. (In fact, one year, we registered more than a half-dozen youngsters by the name of Edwin Cornelius at Scotland High. That was probably about 15 years after the weekend when he made nine deliveries from about three o’clock Saturday afternoon to three o’clock Monday morning, all of them but one delivered at HOME.)

Clyde Edgerton's Praise for 'Teacher of Our Town'

Clyde Edgerton, author of seven critically acclaimed Southern novels, including Raney, Walking Across Egypt, and Lunch at the Piccadilly, offers these comments on Teacher of Our Town: Lillian Secrest Buie:

"Clearly, Lillian Buie is the teacher we all needed in school, the philosopher we all needed next door. Coincidentally, she was a creative writing student of mine at St. Andrews College in the 1980s, and my life is richer because of it.

"This book gives us a fair representation of Lillian and thus brings to us her take on life, a way of seeing the world that is rare -- a perspective that made days or projects with her as wondrous and fresh as a warm day in early spring. Lillian became a part of all all who knew her, and if you didn't know her, then this book is for you."

To learn more about the book or to order it from the publisher for $24, plus $3.06 by USPS Media Mail, click.

Table of Contents for 'Teacher of Our Town'

Lillian Secrest Buie, North Carolina English Teacher of the Year 1979, offers intimate portraits of Southern life, with contributing memories from a host of friends, relatives and former students.

Introduction: A Southerner Looks At Southern Life and Literature

This piece is for anyone who loves Southern literature, or who has studied it, or wants to see how literature mirrors life, and life mirrors literature.

Chapter I:    A Mischievous Country Girl, Who Loved Sam the Ram

In this chapter, Lil describes her early years in the small town of Monroe, NC., with farm animals as pets within town limits. You'll learn about the ways neighborhood children entertained themselves in the 1920s, illustrative stories about changes in public education since 1920 from a very personal perspective, bonds built by lifelong friendships, how a young girl caught a love of literature and how children (in days before television and computers) depended on individual imagination and creativity to entertain themselves and each other.

Chapter II:   Product of A Stormy Marriage of Opposites

Lil offers literary character sketches of her parents -- funny, poignant and revealing stories that inspire the reader to contemplate their own parental influences.

Chapter III:  Talking to the Dead 

Lil reflects on the long deceased relatives and friends who influenced her, and how she feels their spirits remain with her even though their bodies are gone.

Chapter IV: 'Honey, What You Need Is A Hubby or a Hobby’ 

Excerpts from Lil's high school and college diaries in the 1930s, illustrating how adolescence has changed (and not), as well as the barriers she faced as a young woman, an exceptional student and scholar at Duke University who was not taken as seriously as she would have been if she were a man. She was steered into teaching, motherhood and homemaking as the main outlets open to  her.

Chapter V:    A River Runs Through It

In letters, scrapbooks and journal entries, Lil describes how she fell in love with the "literary colony" of Riverton -- along the Lumber River -- and Wagram, NC in the early 1940s.

Chapter VI:   Bride, Babies and the Bomb

Lil describes her whirlwind courtship to John M. Buie of Wagram, their six-week engagement, marriage in the early days of World War II, followed by the birth of two daughters.

Chapter VII:  Magic Mother, Witch Hazel

Lil describes her contentment as a young mother, enjoying time at the beach, destroyed by the horror of Hurricane Hazel which swept her beach home away.
   
Chapter VIII: Soul Sacrifice

In poignant letters, journal entries, recollections of family members and friends, Lil's experience as the mother of a severely retarded son are revealed, the emotional and practical struggles she faced, and the family's effort to find meaning in the life of a child who had to be institutionalized.
    
Chapter IX:   Teacher of Our Town

Students' recall Lil's strong guiding influence on them as a high school English and Social Studies teacher in the towns of Maxton and Wagram in the 1950s and 1960s.
   
Chapter X:    Idles, Idylls, Idols 

Nieces, nephews, students and children describe idyllic summers in Wagram under Lil's tutelage -- whiling away many idle hours depending on their own imaginations in the same ways that Lil was inspired to do by her mother in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as memories of summer travels abroad to England meeting "idols" such as the Queen of England.
   
Chapter XI:  Preacher of Our Town

Lil was not just a teacher of English. She sought to stimulate and shape students' spiritual development by discussing theological issues, sharing her own faith and doubt, and traveling to the Holy Land, all of which she laid out in this chapter.
      
Chapter XII:  Hearts of Darkness   

Lil's role in the struggle for racial integration | Quelling Riots at Scotland High School |'Evaluate Yourself as a Racist' | 'An Unforgettable Experience of Betrayal' | In the Long Run, Hearts of Darkness Were Not Victorious | Old Racial Barriers Finally Fall

Chapter XIII: North Carolina’s English Teacher of the Year

Lil's Approach: Writing Should be Fun! Teaching by 'Contagion' |Days in the Life of a Teacher | Students Recall What Mrs. Buie Was Like as a Teacher | Every Teacher Must Be Part Actor | A Group Poem: The People of SHS, Yes! | Room 246: What Tales It Could Tell | NC English Teacher of the Year
 
Chapter XIV:  When Your Mother Becomes Your Child      

In journal entries, Lil poignantly describes caring for her mother at home, her mother's last days of lucidity before death at the age of 90, ironically foreshadowing Lil's own death 26 years later.

Chapter XV:   And the Saints Go Marching On: Vignettes of Life in Wagram and Tributes to Dear Friends 

Bess Nicholson | Edwin Womble | L.W. "Dusty" Odom |Venetta Brown | Odessa Memory | Wrae Ward Smith                                      

Chapter XVI:  Falling Columns and Fading Daffodils

In this thinly-disguised autobiographical short story, written in the third person, Lil combined the strange, the eccentric, the funny and the poignant, merging the decline of the Old South with her husband's failing health and his cousin Alderman McLean's declining antiques business.
 
Chapter XVII: John Buie: Diamond in the Gruff

In journal entries and a eulogy, Lil offers a character sketch of her husband John. Jim Buie and Ann Buie Loomis, in separate essays, both funny and sad, describe their father's death and how the family coped with and came to terms with it. 

Chapter XVIII: Wise Woman 

Aphorisms from Lillian Secrest Buie -- pithy quotes collected by her children and students.

Chapter XIX:  Let Me Love and Live Again

Lil describes her final years, adventures and struggle against depression in old age, and desire to "love and live again" through the words, ideas, children and grandchildren she leaves behind.
 
Chapter XX:   Happy Final Days. Glimpses of the Beyond?    

Lil's granddaughter, Eve Vance Fleishman, describes the personal concert she gave her grandmother that gave her the peace to let go. Funeral Director Beacham McDougald writes of Lil's memorial service as a model of family-oriented personal expression. "After the death of a loved one, we tend to be in a thin place psychologically where we can better perceive the spiritual world," Jim Buie writes in "Glimpses of the Beyond," describing Scotland County, with its links to Celtic spirituality, as a particularly "thin place." Mary Wayne Watson quotes from Maya Angelou's poem, "When Great Souls Die."

To order this book from the publisher for $26, plus $3.06 by USPS Media Mail, click. 

                                                                                                                                       

A Funeral Director's Perspective on Lil Buie's Memorial Service

By Beacham McDougald, CFSP
McDougald Funeral Home

“I loved your mother’s memorial service!”

To no one’s surprise, Lil’s two daughters knew exactly what I meant.

            
Along with their other sister and brother, they had created a most memorable, unique and enjoyable memorial service for their mother. It fit her personality like her clothes. As a funeral director the memorial service was a moving and touching educational experience; exactly what the family wanted.

Lil was a very unique lady. For a large number of years she was a high school English teacher with a unique connection to her students. She knew that a few were gifted in creative writing; most could be taught the basic principles, and other struggled to write comprehensively. She knew that she was not a successful teacher if she did not connect with all of them. Lil was also ahead of her times in many ways, notably on social issues. In the rural South in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, her positions on race earned her both praise and scorn. As times progressed, many of those who scorned her came to appreciate her visions and wisdom.

            
It is rare that a family is as prepared for Lil’s memorial service as were her children.

Glimpses of the Beyond?

By Jim Buie

At midnight after my mother's mid-afternoon burial, there was a huge thunderstorm that struck the pear tree in the back yard of the house she lived in for sixty years. My son Matthew was sleeping in the back room, and was awakened by the windows rattling loudly. Lightning bolted into his room. The overhead light turned on, and the phone started ringing, amid crashes of thunder. More

Sharing Photos

Family and friends of Lillian Secrest Buie can share photos here. See the photo essays to the left. If you would like any photo for your personal collection, right click and "save as" to your computer. If you have photos you think friends and family would be interested in and would like to share them here, post a note here or email jim at buie dot com.

Happy Final Days

This photo of Lil and Eve was taken on Saturday night before Lil's death on Monday morning.

By Eve Vance Fleishman
Lil’s Granddaughter

In January, 2006 Mima told my aunt, Celeste, that she had a dream that I came to Wagram and performed a concert for her and her buddycakes. And every time I talked to her after that she’d ask, “When will you come?” Finally, the first weekend in June, I came.

We held a concert in the church sanctuary on Saturday night. Mima was just beaming. I feel she gave me an incredible gift to be able to tell you that her final days were happy days filled with love and song.

Late Saturday night after the concert, Mima wasn’t feeling so well and I stood by her bedside and sang to her while she appeared to sleep. When I started singing “The Way You Look Tonight,” she opened one eye and began singing with me. Then she told me that Gramps used to sing her that song. We held hands and kept on singing. Celeste walked into the room to hear Mima crooning, “tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto, let’s call the whole thing off.” We finished with "Amazing Grace" and "Danny Boy."

I kissed her goodnight and she said, “sweet dreams.”

That’s a night I will never forget.

Video from Lil's Special Day

Lillian Buie's grandson, Matthew Buie-Nervik, and her son, Jim Buie, have created video clips from her memorial service at Montpelier Presbyterian Church in Wagram, N.C.

• Click here to watch brief tributes from her brother, Mac Secrest; her sister-in-law, Ann Eastman Secrest; her nieces, Mary Ann English Clark and Bella English; her nephews, Andy English and David Secrest; her daughter-in-law Lucia Holliday; her niece, Sue English Hall; and her grandsons, Greg Loomis and Ted Vance, at a luncheon at the church before the memorial service. The edited version is about 20 minutes.
• Watch video of Lil's Memorial Service here. The edited version is about 20 minutes. The Rev. Holly Russell officiated, with remarks by Lil's children Kathy Buie Vance, Jim Buie, Ann Buie Loomis, and Celeste Buie Lewis, and music by Lil's granddaughter, Eve Vance Fleishman, a professional singer in Nashville, accompanied by Lil's other grandchildren, Ted Vance, Dan Loomis, Greg Loomis, Matthew Buie-Nervik, and Alex Buie.
• Watch video of Lil's burial here (about 10 minutes). The Rev. Holly Russell and Beacham McDougald of McDougald Funeral Home officiated.

If you have a slow Internet connection, right click on each link above, then click "save as" -- to your desktop. Depending upon how fast your connnection is, on a slow connection the file could take as long as 25 minutes to download. If you prefer a a DVD or CD instead, request one below, or send email to jim@buie.com.

Lillian Secrest Buie, 1920-2006

McDougald Funeral Home of Laurinburg is sending this obituary to daily papers in North Carolina and Gainesville, Florida.

Lillian Secrest Buie,
Scotland County Teacher

WAGRAM – Lillian Secrest Buie, 86, a longtime Scotland County teacher and North Carolina English Teacher of the Year 1979, died Monday morning, June 5, 2006 at her home, surrounded by loved ones.

Mrs. Buie was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2001, and has been in declining health since then. But she continued to read widely, attend cultural, political and church events, and take a strong interest in the news of the day.

The family will receive visitors on Friday night at McDougald Funeral Home in Laurinburg from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. A memorial service will be held at Montpelier Presbyterian Church on North Main Street in Wagram at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 10. A short graveside service will follow at Springhill Cemetery in Wagram. Friends are invited to gather at Cypress Bend Vineyard on Riverton Road for reminiscing after the graveside service.

Lillian Secrest Buie was born January 31, 1920 in Monroe, N.C. She graduated from Monroe High School in 1936, and from Duke University in 1940. She began her teaching career in Kannapolis, N.C., then Greensboro, N.C. After her marriage to John McNair Buie of Wagram in 1942, she took 15 years off to be a fulltime mother to her five children. In the early 1950s, she was a founder of the Scotland County Association for Retarded Children. She returned to teaching in 1957, and taught high school English for three years in Maxton, N.C., and history and English at Wagram High School for eight years. When Scotland County Schools consolidated in 1967, she moved to Scotland High School in Laurinburg, where she taught English until she retired in 1983.

She is survived by a brother, A.M. Secrest of Chapel Hill, and his wife Ann; four children, Katherine Buie Vance of Waldo, Florida and husband John Vance; Ann Buie Loomis of Chapel Hill, N.C. and husband Bob Loomis; Celeste Buie Lewis of Wagram and husband John Lewis; Jim Buie of Apex and wife Lucia Holliday; six grandchildren, Ted Vance of Ft. Lauderdale, FL and wife Michelle; Eve Vance Fleishman of Nashville, TN and husband Mark; Dan Loomis of Zebulon, N.C. and wife Jennifer; Greg Loomis of Richmond, VA; Matthew Buie-Nervik of Holland America Cruise Ships; and Alexander Buie of Apex, NC; four great-grandchildren; many loving nieces, nephews and former students.

She is preceded in death by her husband John McNair Buie; a son, John McNair Buie Jr; and a sister, Mary Covington Secrest English.

Donations can be given in Mrs. Buie’s name to Montpelier Presbyterian Church, Box 407, Wagram, N.C. 28396; or to the Parkinson’s Association of the Carolinas, 601 East Fifth Street, Suite 140, Charlotte, N.C. 28202.

An interactive web site, www.lillianbuie.com, has been established in Mrs. Buie’s honor, where people can leave messages. A 300-page book, Teacher of ‘Our Town’, a collection of her autobiographical writings and dozens of comments from former students and friends, is nearing completion and can be ordered online. A portion of the proceeds will go to charity(ies) related to education, literacy, and/or North Carolina or Scotland County history.

You may add your public comments to any article on this blog. A "forever teacher," it is Mrs. Buie's wish to stimulate thought, discussion and writing by her former students. Or, if you prefer, you may send your private comments to jim@buie.com. Jim will share your comments with other family members.