Jo Scott Pyron

Jo Scott Pyron left family and friends on April 9, 2016, in Greenville, SC. She was born in St. Matthews, SC on August 25, 1917, and at no time in her long life was she an ordinary person. Her critical intelligence distinguished even her childhood. From babyhood, so family lore goes, her parents, Willa Fulmer and Smith Scott, acknowledged and encouraged her intellectual gifts. Wit and humor proved the natural corollaries of her braininess. Even feeble in her final illness, she could still make medical staff laugh, and for her family, she will live forever in her bon mots, jests, banter, word play, and delight in malaprops.

She graduated with honors from Limestone College in 1937 with a double major in history and English literature. The same week she married Arthur Herman Pyron who widowed her in 1971. In Taylors, SC, where Herman worked at Southern Bleachery and Print Works, she raised her three sons, Scott, Darden, and Christopher to whom she passed along her incisive intelligence, intense curiosity, and scrupulous sense of equity - not to mention a certain contrary streak. Things of the spirit inspired her too. Even if raised like a pagan, as she insisted, she joined the Baptist church and became a Christian when her eldest was born. She was devout ever after, and tithing became as natural as her even notorious propensity for thrift.

While she might have preferred to stay home all day, read books, eat fudge, and play bridge - a habit she cultivated deep into her nineties, she began teaching elementary grades in the Greenville public schools in 1954 where she worked for nearly 25 years. Although she was completely Southern born and bred, both her faith and reason encouraged her racial generosity and tolerance in these troubled years. This proved a notable legacy to her family.

How to measure her impact? That she is namesake to three different women over three decades suggests one manifestation. Her three sons honor her legacy in a thousand daily ways, as do her daughters-in-law, Debra and Marguerite. Her five grandchildren - Christine Novac, Brigham Pyron, Jane Pyron, Scottie Snipes, Geer Pyron, and their spouses, Mike, Lisa, Harley, and Milly treasured her, as did her niece and namesake Jo Wenger and grand nephew David. She lived long enough to impress her mind and humor on three great-grandchildren, Riley Snipes, Ella Pyron, and Dardey Snipes and no less on her loving caregiver, Elaine Madison. Whether or not she longed for the responsibility, in this small platoon she was an unlikely sergeant major.

In celebration of her life the family will host an informal memorial at Cherrydale Alumni House at Furman University in Greenville, SC on Sunday, April 24 at 2:00 p.m., with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her honor to White Oak Baptist Church, 1805 Wade Hampton Blvd. Greenville, SC 29609 or to Interim HealthcareHospice, 16 Hyland Rd, Greenville, SC 29615. Cremation Society of SC has provided services.