Professor and Mrs. Greene Edgar Sheffield During the 1920’s

Calvin Ritter of Monroe County has shared the above photograph with the society. Greene Edgar Sheffield was born December 23, 1888 in Itawamba County, the son of William Jessie and Mollie Duvall Sheffield. He attended Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Mississippi State University) from 1912 to 1916 and taught a couple of years before entering the service during World War I. He was in the 79th Division of Infantry and fought in the Battle of Argonne Forest in France. He was discharged in 1919. During 1922 he married Thessel Little (1895-1965) of Amory in Monroe County. She was the daughter of James Elliott and Emma Catherine Little.

He is best known locally as being the superintendent of Itawamba Agricultural High School from 1923 until 1940 and taught at Itawamba Junior College from the time of its organization in 1948 until 1958 when he retired. He was a life-long educator having taught schools at Pine Ridge and Milland (below Natchez), Smithville, Fulton, McNeil (in Pearl River County), Coldwater, Potts Camp and Hamilton. It was estimated that he taught more than 6,000 pupils throughout Mississippi during his long career. He was a lay minister of the Methodist church having been ordained during 1926. Greene Sheffield, known as “Mr. Greenie” by his pupils, died in the Methodist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee on November 6, 1959. He was buried in Hillcrest Masonic Cemetery in Fulton.