IDA MAE SMITH, ninth child of Virgil and Rachel Smith, was born January 4, 1892 in Mansfield, DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.  She began school in a rural community in Louisiana and when the family moved to Center, Texas, she enrolled in the fourth grade in the building which housed the Center University.  At the age of fourteen she passed the State Teacher's examination and started teaching school.   Trying to look older than her young age she pinned her hair on top of her head and lowered the hem of her skirt as she approached the individual school board members seeking employment in the rural schools of Shelby County.  She taught at Clever Creek, McClelland, Sardis, Antioch, Center, Ashton and Joaquin Schools, all of Shelby County.   She also taught in Hockley near Houston, Texas and moved to Beaumont where she was employed at Junker Elementary and Dick Dowling Junior High Schools for forty one years until her retirement in 1963.  Ida Mae was a graduate of the University of Houston with both Bachelo of Science and Master of Science degrees, she had also studied at the University of California at Berkley and the University of Texas at Austin.  On December 24, 1927, she married WILLIAM IRA POWELL.  William was a native of San Augustine, Texas.  He was a taax auditor for the State Comptroller of Public Accounts.  They were both active member in the First Baptist Church, Center, Texas.   She joined the church as a young lady on July 21 1925 in Center, Texas.  To this union no children were born.  W. I. Powell had been married previously to ??? LATNEY from Brookland, Texas.  The children of W. I. Powell are JEWEL POWELL, IVORY POWELL, WILLIE BEE POWELL and RUBY POWELL.  He died in 1958 in Beaumont, Texas.   Ida Mae died on July 30, 1972 in Beaumont, Texas.  Both are buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas.

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