By By Bobbi Crudup and Becky Chaney / special to The Star
Jan. 11, 2004
Faye Edwards, 72, died on Jan. 6, 2004, at her home in Meridian. Miss Edwards was born in Selma, Ala., on March 5, 1931. She was educated in the Meridian Public School system and received her B.A. from Randolph Macon Women's College. She also attended Vanderbilt University, the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Madrid and Harvard University.
Survivors are her many friends, including special friends Rosalyn Cothran, Helen Blanks, Bobbi Crudup, and her five cats: Patches, Pretty Boy, Squash Blossom, Gray Baby and Sophie.
Faye was an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church for many years, where she sang in the choir and served on numerous committees. Faye loved her church wholeheartedly.
She also loved teaching, but loved her students even more. Before her retirement in 1997, she taught Advanced Placement English and creative writing at Meridian High School and was named Star Teacher several times. She also taught at Meridian Community College.
In earlier years she taught in Mexico, Florida, Turkey and Egypt. She served as a guide at the United Nations in New York City and was the director of the East Harlem Protestant Parish Tutorial program for 10 years.
Faye was a member of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society, Mississippi Association of Educators and the Retired Teachers Association. She was a longtime member of the Fortnightly Club and gave book reviews for many organizations. She helped found the local Amos Network, volunteered as an English/Spanish translator, served on the Mental Health Association Board, and actively supported LOVE's Kitchen.
She participated in the Mississippi State Writing/Thinking program and was a member of the Alabama Writers' Conclave and the Sowashee Writers' Group. She was a voracious reader and happily told people that she had subscribed to The New Yorker since 1958.
As a regular contributor to the New York Opera Society, one of her dreams was to write an opera about the life of Gov. Theodore Bilbo. Although she did not realize this dream, she did write essays and
poetry. Some people say she even spoke in iambic pentameter.
Faye's love of life, her optimism and enthusiasm enriched many lives. Perhaps she expressed her philosophy of life best in her poem:
A Sonnet on the Sonnet
I tried to write a sonnet chaste and tight
On why I like the ordinariness
Of life. With this, I fear, a problem might
Arise insoluble-that life is blessed
With amplitude and randomness and rude
Distractions like a sudden shower fall,
Disorders that belie the rectitude
That reigneth in the sonnet's narrow hall.
So we are pinioned, bound and caged in verse
That is so ordered, neat, precise-when life
Itself defies this form. Life is not terse.
A form I need unruly, tangle-rife,
Unrhymed (for life has rhyme nor reason none)
Unmetered (life ill-timed and never done).