Mildred Ardel Deese Harrison, 95, of Virginia Beach, VA died Sunday, February 8, 2009.
Graveside services will be held 10:30 A.M. Saturday, March 7, 2009, at Evergreen Cemetery with Rev. Don Woeltjen officiating.
Mrs. Harrison was born July 23, 1913 in Fitzgerald to the late Lester A. and Frankie Reiber Deese. She was a graduate of Fitzgerald High School and attended Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville. She taught schools in Irwin County, Ben Hill County and Brunswick. During World War II she worked at the shipyards in Brunswick, returning to teach after the war ended. While on a sightseeing tour to New England, she ended up taking a job as an IBM operator for the Lydia E. Pinkham Company of New York before returning to Fitzgerald. She and her family lived in Decatur, GA where she started the Wee Moderns Kindergarten and taught in the public school system before moving to Jacksonville, FL, where she taught school, retiring in 1972. She then obtained her Broker’s license and briefly sold real estate. Mrs. Harrison moved to Edenton, NC in 1980, was a member of the Edenton United Methodist Church and enjoyed traveling with her friend, Annah Martin. After the death of her husband, she moved to Chapel Hill, NC to live with her daughter Melody and family.
She is survived by her daughters and sons-in-law, Melody Harrison Savage and Myron and Paula Harrison Smith & Larry Kellam; grandchildren, Nicholas Popio, Andrew Popio, Nolan Smith and David Kellam. Along with her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Ralph Harrison.