Class of 1945 Alumna Charts a Meaningful Course in Life

Class of 1945 Alumna Charts a Meaningful Course in Life

 

 

As a civil rights worker in 1964, Debora Mebel Sherman, a 1945 Hamden Hall graduate, lived in fear in Selma, Ala. Much earlier in her life, she ignored contemptuous remarks about becoming a teacher to experience a lifelong vocation in education. She’s led campaigns to help stop a war and protect immigrants and their families from abuse. She established the first League of Women’s Voters in a town where none existed. She has been recognized for her visionary thinking and compassion for others by a major university. She has worked in schools and corporations, been a reporter, researcher, and communications expert.

In short, Debora Mebel Sherman, at 91 years old, believes she has “seen it all.”

So when confronted to cope with the novel coronavirus, her resilience has moved her volunteer face-to-face work as a life coach to motivating her clients over the phone, sending them virtual hugs and kisses with each conversation.

“I ask them, do you feel my hug?” explains Debora, whose nine clients are immigrants seeking help with their communication skills.

There is the stockbroker from Turkey who was forced to start over again, taking a low level job in a bank. Thanks to Debora, who taught the former financier everything from how to effectively answer a question to writing a compelling memo, her client is now an assistant branch manager.

There is the orthodontist from Brazil who, with help from Debora, earned a certificate in counseling and is now gratified to tend to people’s welfare.

Then there is the former professor of architecture from Peru, who struggled with words. “We are now on the phone, the Boston Globe in hand,” Debora explains. “He chooses an article and we read it aloud together.”

A Russian photographer is now exercising via the phone line, thanks to Debora. A chemist from Peru is learning English, thanks to Debora and Netflix. “We watch the same movies and then she tells me what words she didn’t understand. I define them, she re-watches the movie to learn their meaning, and we talk again.”

As for the Albanian woman whose dreams were shattered with the closing of her restaurant due to COVID-19, Debora is simply sending some TLC.

“I tell her, ‘I’m kissing you on your left cheek. Do you feel it?’ ”

 

Debora’s journey to her volunteer work in retirement is one that spans seven decades and can be traced back to her days “under the pines.”

“At Hamden Hall, we were treasured for whatever we could do,” Debora recalls. “For me, that wasn’t sports. It was history.”

And more specifically, it was a teacher who took her to the Sterling Library at Yale University to conduct historical research. By the time Debora arrived at Barnard College to major in art history, everything came easily to her.

After Barnard, Debora’s first marriage to Air Force veteran Bill Arnold took her to Buffalo, N.Y. There, despite disparaging remarks about a career as an educator by family members, Debora started teaching second grade.

“I fell in love with teaching,” she says, recalling that her first classroom was housed in a converted bus garage in Clarence, N.Y. She also credits her success in education to a weekly visit by a state supervisor who would pose the following questions: Why did you do this? What else could you have done?

These questions encouraged Debora to always think forward and explore the possibilities in all aspects of her life. In Buffalo, that included the pursuit of a master’s in early childhood education and developing a core curriculum for the local schools.

“I was full of ideas,” Debora says. “I was an excited, creative teacher and I broke the mold, inventing new things.”

Three years into Buffalo, Debora and her husband moved to Great Neck, N.Y., where Debora’s life faced new challenges. She contracted hepatitis from swimming in the Long Island Sound and was hospitalized for six months. Once recovered, she took over as director of a cooperative nursery school. Then a year later, she moved to France with her husband, who had accepted a job with NATO.

During their two years in France, the couple had a daughter, Kathy, and then moved back to the states, to Goshen, N.Y.

“During this time, a woman came to me, concerned about her husband, an intelligent steelworker who nonetheless could not read. I began researching about kinesthetic learners—those who aren't necessarily suited to the traditional classroom. They tend to learn best when they are physically active.”
Once Debora mastered that challenge, she found herself immersed in more kinesthetic research, all the while investigating the mission of the Women League of Voters. Soon after, Debora established Goshen’s first league and became its first president. Among her accomplishments was leading the women in a local campaign that resulted in the town’s first sewer system.

She also spread her professional wings and became a reporter for a local radio station. Her coverage began with league issues but quickly expanded to reporting on all town activities and meetings.

When Debora’s marriage ended during this period, she decided it was time for a change of scenery.

She quips that she “threw a pin at a map” and ended up with a teaching job in Greenwich, Conn. Once there, she started taking courses at the University of Bridgeport, earned a second master’s in literacy, and started a side job as a reading specialist in public and private schools.

Debora eventually landed at Norwalk Community College as director of communication skills where she ran a language lab.

She also met Harvey Sherman who would become her second husband. The couple has been married for 57 years and has one adopted son.

 

In 1963, Debora started working on her doctorate at New York University in the field of adult learning and cognitive psychology.

Then in 1964, Debora’s calling to make the world a better place took her to Selma, Ala., in the height and heat of the civil rights movement.

“I went down to help teachers,” Debora recalls. “But I was told, if they talked to me, they would be fired. I was followed, threatened, told if I got into a taxi driven by a white driver my life would be in danger.”

Debora’s trip was on the heels of the murders of three white civil rights workers—James Chaney from Meridian, Miss., and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City—who had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African-Americans in Mississippi to vote.

From the moment Debora arrived in Selma, her troubles began. On her first day, while attending a rally on the steps of the Brown Chapel, John Lewis, one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington and later was elected U.S. Rep. for Georgia's 5th congressional district, gave Debora a personal shout-out.

“He welcomed me by name, saying ‘God sent Debora Sherman to Selma,’ ” Debora recalls. “And in the back of the crowd white men stood up in black trucks carrying guns. Later that night, I received a phone call and was told ‘we’re coming to get you.’ I called the police and they laughed at me. I called the FBI and they ignored me. So I sent a telegram to President Lyndon Johnson and asked him for help.”

The next day, Debora met with the superintendent of schools to discuss segregation in Selma schools. The gentleman, aware of Debora’s precarious situation, called his wife and asked with humor if he could “bring home an agitator.”

Back in the superintendent’s office the next morning, Debora discovered evidence that the white schools in Selma were receiving much more funding than black schools.

“The ‘separate but equal’ legal doctrine was to guarantee ‘equal protection’ under the law to all people,” Debora explains. “In Selma, it was anything but equal.”

Debora contacted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with her findings. She proudly notes that her work contributed to the eventual passing of the Civil Rights Act in July of 1964 that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

After Selma, Debora returned home and resumed her doctoral studies at NYU. In 1978, she made a career move to the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston) where she served as director of the center for applied language and mathematics. Debora notes that UMass is a nationally ranked public research university known for its inclusive culture and commitment to public and community service.

In 1982, Debora organized a career and volunteer advisory service for women in Boston who needed to reset the buttons in their lives. “These were women who did all the right things—went to college, married, then stayed home to raise their families. Then when their husbands began leaving them, they were left with nothing. We helped these women find internships, get jobs, and regain control of their lives.”

In 1983, Debora accepted a job at Lesley University in Cambridge as the dean of outreach where she created satellite programs for adult education in the United States and Europe.

She was also called upon by Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Thomas O’Neil III to consult on the establishment of adult learning courses for state residents.

Additionally, Debora began working in banks and major corporations, training their employees in communication skills: writing, interviewing, public speaking, etc.

Debora remained at Lesley for 20 years, until her retirement at age 70. In 1999, the university named Debora a professor emerita, honoring her as a “visionary educator, passionate advocate for students—one who nurtured and gave hope to students who viewed themselves as having limited ability and potential.”

During Debora’s early years at Lesley, while relishing her professional community, she was dealt a personal blow when her husband—just 51 at the time—suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. “Harvey’s engineering career was wiped out,” Debora says, adding that she took over his medical care and recovery at home, with the help of assistants.

In the years that followed, Debora’s advocacy work continued. When Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch voted for the Iraq War authorization in 2002—against the Democratic House leadership—Debora rallied her fellow anti-war grandparents to come together and convince their political leader to think otherwise. Although it took some time, eventually U.S. Rep. Lynch had a change of heart and supported President Obama's withdrawal of troops in Iraq in 2010 and 2011.

More recently and closer to home, Debora brought Canton, Mass., grandparents together to petition for the protection of immigrants and their families—especially the children. “There are thousands of children still living in cages,” she says. “And we don’t even know where they are.”

Fast forward to the present; Debora and Harvey appreciate their retirement that includes spending time with their two Dutch grandchildren who were born in Holland where Debora’s daughter, Kathy, now lives.

The couple adores cooking together, specifically dishes from Northern African (they visited Morocco twice). They even bought a tagine—a North African clay stewing pot—to ensure culinary authenticity. “Harvey is my sous chef and chops up all the vegetables for the dishes we make and share with our neighbors,” explains Debora. The food, by the way, is often packaged in pottery made by Harvey—his second career.

As for Debora, she finds fulfillment in her volunteer work.

“It’s a two-way street, ” Debora says, explaining she finds gratification in enhancing the lives of people who have left their homes and careers in another place and time. “You gotta keep going,” she maintains. “And we’re having the most wonderful time in our lives, despite what is happening in the world.”

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Going full circle, Debora recalls that about 12 years ago, she attended a ceremony at Lesley College where Congressman Lewis was awarded an honorary degree.

Debora says:  “Now I know he’s a politician who always wants to say the right thing but when I asked him if he remembered me, he looked at me and said, ‘Yes, I remember you. You’re Debora Sherman and God sent you to Selma.’ ”