NEWS
Miss Winnie Potts: An Article for Women’s History Month
Beloved teacher, Mary Winifred “Winnie” Potts, was born in Mecklenburg County in 1898. Her parents were merchant William A. Potts and his wife, Lucy Thompson Potts. Miss Winnie’s father died in 1911, and by 1914 Winnie had completed high school and was attending a private seminary in Davidson run by Miss Maude Vinson.
She later attended Queens College in Charlotte, where she was active in student life. She graduated in 1920 and, according to the college yearbook, her activities included being the humor editor of the school annual, the prophet of the senior class, and the president of the student body. Two quotes accompanied her senior picture: “My mind is my kingdom” and “A woman of polite learning and liberal education.” She must have been serious about learning because she was on the honor roll all four years of her college career.
In 1923 Winnie received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina. At the time, women were admitted for upper-level classes or graduate education. According to the yearbook, she was “a plum good co-ed” whose “long suit is chemistry … She was classed as a student at Queen’s College for a short time, but decided that a higher education might be obtained only in an air of masculine seriousness; hence, her advent on this campus and her record as a student of serious purpose.” She was also a member of the Chi Omega sorority.
Winifred Potts as a student at Queens College.
“Miss Winnie” was an inspired teacher and became a legend in the Davidson school. Historian Mary Beaty described her as: “attractively eccentric, offhand, slightly cynical in her humor and tempering irascibility with kindness” and used these qualities to “keep fractious seventh graders a little off balance, and interested in spite of themselves.” Beaty added that “She is rightly counted among our community’s finest teachers.”
James Puckett had her for seventh grade in the 1950s, and in his book Olin, Oskeegum & Gizmo, he remembers her as “a loveable, if somewhat histrionic, teacher who used to shout at the entire class, ‘Have you lost your minds?’” Once she gave his brother, John, a C in math, and felt so guilty that she was moved to tears.
In a column appearing in the October 2, 2018 Laurinburg Exchange, another of her pupils, D.G. Martin, noted that “Miss Potts had a set of strategies to encourage us to behave, in and out of class. To discourage mischief-making while she was writing math problems on the blackboard, she told us that people said she could see out of the back of her head … Her most persuasive tactic, one she used when one or some of us were flirting with serious trouble, was to tell us about her visits from the FBI. ‘They come to talk to me when one of my former students is up for a big job in the government. I have to tell them the truth about what I know that person did in my class. Just remember that when you are thinking about getting into trouble with me.’”
Winifred Potts lived on Potts Street with her mother Lucy until Lucy died in 1958. Winnie died in August 1990 at the age of 91, but she clearly lives on in the memories of her students.