The board and staff of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center mourn the passing of board member and BMC alumna Sue Spayth Riley. Sue died on May 25th in Charlotte, NC at the age of 85. An advocate of creative, experience-based learning, Riley was also a long-time civil rights advocate who pushed to desegregate various public facilities in Charlotte. A memorial service is planned for June 18, 2006 at 4:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Church of Charlotte on Sharon Amity Rd., with a reception to follow. Memorials may be made to the Sue Riley Scholarship Fund of the Open Door School or the Unitarian-Universalist Endowment Fund, 234 North Sharon Amity Rd., Charlotte, NC 28211.
Biography
Sue Spayth Riley, an innovative early childhood educator and author, died of lung cancer on May 25, 2006 in Charlotte. She was 85. In 1966, Riley founded the city’s first integrated preschool, the Open Door School at the Unitarian Church of Charlotte. An advocate of creative, experience-based learning, Riley was also a long-time civil rights advocate who pushed to desegregate
various public facilities in Charlotte.
Biography
Sue Spayth Riley, an innovative early childhood educator and author, died of lung cancer on May 25, 2006 in Charlotte. She was 85. In 1966, Riley founded the city’s first integrated preschool, the Open Door School at the Unitarian Church of Charlotte. An advocate of creative, experience-based learning, Riley was also a long-time civil rights advocate who pushed to desegregate various public facilities in Charlotte.
Riley was born in 1920 in Houston, TX. Her father was a newspaper cartoonist, editor, and publisher. Her mother was also a journalist as well as one of the first female graduates of the University of Michigan. After a nomadic existence as a young child, she settled with her family in the Ferrer Colony in Stelton, N.J., a community centered around the Modern School, founded on the ideals of the Spanish educator Francisco Ferrer. She continued her educational odyssey in the 1930’s at Black Mountain College near Asheville, majoring in drama and performing once as Lady Macbeth. At Black Mountain, she also met her first husband, Jeremiah F. Wolpert, who died of polio at a young age in 1949. She completed her undergraduate degree in 1971 at Goddard College in Vermont and then added a master’s degree in early childhood education from UNC-Charlotte.
She began her career during World War II as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Hays, Kansas, and then worked for Time Inc. in New York City. She later became a reporter and columnist for her father’s newspaper in Dunellen, N.J. After establishing the Open Door School, which set the standards for progressive preschool education in the region, Riley mentored a generation of educators at Central Piedmont Community College. Until her final months, she continued to work with children and teachers as an advisor to the Open Door School. She is the author of “How to Generate Values in Young Children,” a book designed to help educators and parents find ways to teach young children how to develop good decision-making skills. The book has been a perennial favorite of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Riley, who was also preceded in death by her second husband, Jesse Louis Riley, is survived by son, Thomas Wolpert of Wynnewood, PA, and his wife Joan F. Wolpert, and their son, Riffy; son, Jeremiah B. Wolpert of Pulaski, TN; son, Michael George Riley of Roanoke, VA, and his wife Arline Taylor, and their daughters, Susanna Taylor and Sarah Spayth; stepdaughter, Clodagh Feeney Watson Riley of Dearborn Heights, MI; and stepson, Peter Riley of London, Ontario.
A memorial service is planned for June 18, 2006 at 4:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Church of Charlotte on Sharon Amity Rd., with a reception to follow.
Memorials may be made to the Sue Riley Scholarship Fund of the Open Door School or the Unitarian-Universalist Endowment Fund, 234 North Sharon Amity Rd., Charlotte, NC 28211.
