Ethel Baily

Ethel Linville Bailey, 87, now a resident of Sheffield, passed away at home on Monday, July 9, 2007.



Ethel was born in the family home on Little Cypress Creek in Wayne County, Tennessee, on May 21, 1920, the seventh child to Dora and James Linville. She attended high school in Collinwood, Tennessee, where she excelled in athletics, particularly basketball, leading her 1937 team to the state finals in Murfreesboro. A shooting forward, she scored a school record of 612 points in that championship series. She attended Austin Peay Normal to receive her teaching credentials and later received an undergraduate degree in education from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. While caring for four small children, she completed a master’s degree in education at Wayne State and did work toward her doctorate.



She first taught in the two room schoolhouse at Fairview in Wayne County, Tennessee. After the war, when she moved to Michigan, she studied and taught in early elementary education. She taught for 34 years in the Garden City, Michigan school system near Detroit, and for the last 26 years in kindergarten at Henry Ruff Elementary School. She was loved and admired by students, parents, and colleagues, and acknowledged as an excellent teacher and educational leader. During her long career, she served as a teacher to other educators and taught over 2000 individual boys and girls, often several generations of the same family. An active member of the Garden City Library Commission, she chaired its building campaign, opening the new building in 1954; she also served on the Board of the Northwest Child Guidance Clinic for many years.



Ethel married Essel William Bailey, who grew up near her on Middle Cypress Creek, in May, 1941. They raised four children together and were proud of every child. They enjoyed traveling and once took a nine month trip around the world, visiting 34 countries and making many new friends; along the way, Ethel was invited to teach both children and teachers in schools in England, Scandinavia, and Australia.



Ethel loved all children, and her own especially. Teaching, basketball, collecting classic cars and old dictionaries, trees, flowers, the ocean, and the great outdoors were all passions.



Her husband, Essel, survives her, along with all her four children, Essel, Jr., of Ann Arbor, Michigan, James, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and David and Amanda Diane, of Grand Junction, Colorado; her grandchildren, Trey, Justin, Nicolas, Emma, James, Thomas, Robert, and John, and many nieces and nephews, including Debbie (Linville) Eisemann of Grand Junction, Colorado, and Peggy (Smith) Lowery, formerly of Collinwood. She was predeceased by her sister, Bessie (Linville) Smith, and by her six brothers, Rex, Kermit, Ralph, James, Paul, and Ross.



Services will be Tuesday, July 10, 2007, at 11:00 a.m. at Shackelford Funeral Home Chapel, Collinwood, Tennessee, with Emerald Bailey and Dean Olive officiating. Burial will be in Oak Grove Cemetery with Shackelford Funeral Directors of Wayne County in charge of the arrangements. Visitation will be from 9:00 a.m. until service time at the funeral home on Tuesday.