Mary Ellen Weathersby Pope

Mary Ellen Weathersby Pope (April 14, 1905 March 28, 2007) was a reformist and home economics educator who worked at Mississippi State College for Women (MSCW, later renamed to Mississippi University for Women and commonly referred to as "The W"), which was the first public college for women in the United States. She was a graduate of MSCW's home economics program (the first in Mississippi) and, according to Jolly, embodied the reformist spirit of the home economics movement by advancing women's entry into positions of educational leadership, the inclusion and equal treatment of black Mississippians, and vocational adult education to improve the lives of the rural poor.

Weathersby Pope earned an honorary doctorate from Mississippi University for Women (MUW) in 2004; she was also the recipient of MUW's Medal of Excellence, an Alumnae Achievement Award, and a Celebration of Service Award from the Lowndes County Chapter of the MUW Alumni Association. She and her sister endowed the Weathersby Centennial Scholarship (The W's most prestigious scholarship), and MUW's Pope Banquet Hall bears her name.

Early life and family

Mary Ellen Weathersby was born to Robert Lodwic Weathersby and Ellen Harrell Weathersby on April 14, 1905, in Liberty, Mississippi. At the time she was born, the Weathersbys already had two sons (Van Huff and Charles Harrell), and two daughters (Nema and Anna Marguerite); two more daughters were also to follow. In Liberty, her father ran a general store with his brothers, selling "everything ... from potatoes to women's clothes." The business was a success; however, Robert contracted typhoid fever when Mary Ellen was around three years old and never fully recovered. Ellen Harrell managed the hotel and, before his death at age 55 on March 16, 1918, Robert kept the books.

Mary Ellen's mother, Ellen Weathersby, influenced her daughter's worldview by demonstrating that a woman could balance motherhood with a career and positions of leadership in her community. Late in life, she remembered watching her mother supervise male employees and took note of how "Mrs. Weathersby's hotel" developed a reputation for cleanliness and good food that made it a popular stop for salesmen traveling along the Illinois Central Railroad. For Mary Ellen, there was no question that domestic industry was socially and economically important, and her mother insisted that she had a knack for the work, encouraging her to pursue a career teaching home economics. As Weathersby and her sisters grew up, she witnessed how her mother carefully managed the family's finances to ensure they could attend MSCW, whose status as a public college for women made it an affordable choice.

Mary Ellen Weathersby entered college in 1922 when she was fifteen years old. Weathersby began attending MSCW at such a young age because her mother staggered the entry of her and her sisters to reduce the financial strain placed on the family at any single point in time.

Early career Over the next several years, Weathersby taught high school home economics and spent her summers beginning graduate coursework at Columbia University in New York, attending workshops at Mississippi colleges, and conducting camps for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). After the flood, she taught in Canton, where she developed a close relationship with Esther Rogers, State Supervisor of Home Economics in the Mississippi Department of Education. However, Weathersby soon recognized that the position required more knowledge of psychology and counseling than she had. In addition, she chafed at the old-fashioned beliefs of the Parkinsons, who tried to limit the topics she covered in a sex education class, and they also wanted her to measure the distance between couples at school dances and to create and teach a curriculum on etiquette.

In 1943, she returned to Mississippi, this time as assistant state supervisor of home economics for the state Department of Education. Her position with the Mississippi Department of Education allowed her to partner with professors of agriculture for team teaching at Mississippi Southern College (now the University of Southern Mississippi). In addition to classes at the college, they offered adults lessons in producing, harvesting, and canning to improve self-sufficiency and food safety.

With the end of World War II in 1945, Weathersby decided to take a position training home economics teachers at Louisiana State University, but she was back in Mississippi by the end of 1946. This time, MSC and The W brought her in to build and coordinate a joint graduate program in home economics at the two colleges.

In addition, Weathersby served as president of the Mississippi Home Economics Association and worked with MSC President Fred T. Mitchell to develop the curriculum for a planned undergraduate program in home economics, since female enrollment was growing. Returning to a subject that had caused friction with the Parkinsons at MSCW, she also joined a summer workshop to create draft curricula on family life and sex education at MSC.

Weathersby Pope retired from The W in 1974, the very year it adopted the name Mississippi University for Women.

As noted by Jolly in her work on the leaders of home economics education in Mississippi, Weathersby Pope was part of a wing of the Progressive movement that combined concerns with rural poverty and racial injustice to the convictions that 1) women's entry to public and professional life and 2) the application of science and technological innovation to everyday life would vastly improve the quality of life in America. She embodied this philosophy throughout her career. She was not a radical or revolutionary challenging the system, but she was an important reformer whose nudging resulted in incremental changes and benefited those with whom she interacted. When integration did occur in 1966, she taught one of the first integrated graduate classes at The W and made sure her black students got the same opportunities as whites, including personally driving them to a conference at the University of Mississippi to ensure that they reached the venue safely. Weathersby Pope and her students also pushed boundaries by eating together at a diner along the drive to Oxford and in the university cafeteria.

Reflecting on her career in 1995, Weathersby Pope continued to believe home economics could improve the quality of life for all Mississippians and noted the importance of including men and women of all races and ages in the field.

Women's equality Weathersby Pope's role as a leader in home economics education make her an important figure in women's struggle for equality. The importance of home economics (also known as domestic science and, before that, home demonstration) to women's entrance to the paid workforce and to the quality of life in the state of Mississippi cannot be overstated. "The profession was dominated by women, led by women, and originally established for women" at a time when women were pressing for their rights and access to education. In Mississippi, the mothers of the field were, like Weathersby Pope, largely educated at The W. They formed an important network of professional women through the Mississippi Home Economics Association and supported one another in lifelong mentoring relationships.