- Forsyth County -

Death Has Claimed
   Miss E. A. Lehman

For Fifty-Two Years She Was Teacher in Salem College -
She Was 81 Years Old.

The large number of friends of MISS EMMA LEHMAN will be grieved to learn of her death which occurred at the Sisters' House in Salem last Monday night at 10:30 o'clock. Although she had been in her usual health for several days, her condition was not considered serious. Death was quite unexpected. MISS LEHMAN was for 52 years a teacher in Salem College and was known and loved throughout the South.

The deceased is survived by one sister, MRS. SALLIE E. KAPP, who was with her when the end came, and one brother, MR. O. J. LEHMAN of Bethania.

MISS LEHMAN, who for the past few years had been senior retired teacher at the college, was known and loved by thousands who for the last sixty years had come under her influence as a teacher and leader.

MISS LEHMAN was born in Bethania on August 28, 1841. When quite a child she gave promise of being a brilliant woman and made good that promise. She was sent to the Academy at the age of 13 and finished the course at 16. In August following, at the earnest solicitation of an old friend, DR. BEVERLY JONES, who recognized her intelligence and ability she took charge of a public school near Bethania, where she taught boys almost as old as herself. The wisdom of this selection was soon apparent in the way she conducted her school. Afterwards she taught at the home of her uncle near pilot mountain. In 1864 she entered the Academy as a teacher and from that time until she retired MISS LEHMAN taught continuously in the college. From the year 1878 she had charge of the senior class.

Easily mastering any branch of study she chose to teach, MISS LEHMAN did her work systematically as became her Moravian training, instilling in her pupils the principles of true education - - not alone the getting of knowledge, but the development of the highest type of the true woman in character and intellect. MISS LEHMAN was conscientious in her devotion to her work and widened her sphere of usefulness until she was recognized as one of the foremost educators in the State. She inspired her pupils with the love of God, the beautiful, the true - the greatest incentive to study. She was quick to see in each one the different faculties to be developed and taught them to help themselves. She knew her pupils better than they knew themselves.

Always a good disciplinarian, MISS LEHMAN commanded the respect of her pupils, inspired their confidence and love and many are her "old girls" all over the South who remember with feelings the affection of their old teacher and the time spent under her guiding hand

In the midst of her busy school life, replete with almost endless duties, for a conscientious teacher, MISS LEHMAN found time for literary work and wielded a facile and versatile pen, as a little volume of her poems published by the Grafton Press of New York in 1904 attests. These poems show the love of God and nature permeating them, lifting thought to higher and better things. They were the writings of the deep spiritual nature of the woman. She wrote poems for various publications - this little volume being selected from them. In 1889 MISS LEHMAN spent the summer in Europe with a party of North Carolina pupils and a very interesting sketch of her travels was published on her return.

MISS LEHMAN was a fine botanist and discovered a new plant which she sent to Albany, N.Y., to the state botanist's office. The plant is named for her, Monotropsis Lehmania.

After fifty-two years of service, much of it as the senior teacher of Salem College, MISS LEHMAN entered into retirement, living in her well-known rooms at Salem College, which became the center of pilgrimage for those who knew and loved her, and never a day passed when she was not visited by her former students.

Although in declining health, MISS LEHMAN retained a most acute interest in the college life to the very end. A recent visitor to MISS LEHMAN was ex-Secretary SHAW, who expressed himself as amazed at her grasp of modern affairs and world conditions and her exceptional mentality in the midst of her gradual physical decline.

The Salemite - 11 November 1922

Note: Emma Augusta Lehman was the daughter of Eugene Christian Lehman and Amanda Sophia Lehman m. n. Butner