Lola S. Lauff – Obituary.
Lola Kate Smith Lauff – SAVANNAH – Lola Lauff, 96, passed away Monday evening, December 19, 2011, at Hospice House, after a brave, optimistic effort to recover from an injury sustained last August. A native of Daisy, Georgia, Lola spent forty-one years in service to the children of Georgia's public schools, and after retirement, served as principal of St. Paul's Lutheran Day School for four years. Lola began her exemplary career in education as a classroom teacher in Evans County, then taught in Toombs County, and in 1943 moved to Savannah for the first of thirty-one years with the Savannah Chatham County Public School System. She was an elementary school teacher at Romana Riley and Virginia L. Heard Schools, and in 1963 accepted the position of General Elementary School Supervisor for the System, a position she held until retirement in 1975. Also in the early nineteen-sixties, Lola became one of Georgia's first "television teachers." She will be remembered for the thirty half-hour lessons in New Math which she developed with creative assistance from her husband John Lauff and taught on the air for the State of Georgia's innovative Educational Television Program. She also served as a member of Georgia's Television Advisory Board. Lola had studied New Math at Buffalo University on a National Science Foundation Scholarship. She also completed an intensive course for directors of Right to Read programs and served as director of the local Georgia Right to Read program. These accomplishments are in addition to her undergraduate work at Georgia College now Georgia College and State University, Duke University, and Georgia Southern University, where she earned Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Education; and a Fifth Year Certificate in Supervision and a Specialist of Education Degree from the University of Georgia. Lola held memberships in numerous local, state, and national professional organizations for teachers and supervisors. She was a member of Local and International Reading Associations, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society for Academic Excellence and a charter member of the Savannah Chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa, International Honor Society for Women Educators. She was a member of First Christian Church. For a Savannah Morning News 1975 article about Lola, her colleagues wrote: "Most precious about our friend and co-worker are her dedication to the job, her willingness to work long hours beyond those for which she is paid, her ever-present 'yes' to requests for help and comfort, and her ability to see a joke, chuckle cheerfully, and get on with the task at hand. If you have worked with Lola, you know what we mean – if you haven't, you missed one of the sweeter things in life." Though her service to her profession was extraordinary, it was surpassed by her dedication to her family. Doie, as she will always be known to them, watched over, worried about, and prayed for them all, every night and always by name. Her finest teaching was by example, in classrooms of wisdom, generosity, kindness, and inimitable sweetness. She was preceded in death by her parents, Penton and Eva Smith, her sister, Corene Carson, and her husband John Lauff. She is survived by her sister, Clara Jones Nysewander; six nieces, one nephew, and their spouses, Dr. Cynthia and Paul Bisbee, Edwin, III and Pat Carson, Dr. Paula and Jim Cleckler, Judy and Mike Fogarty, Dr. Donna and Arthur Roberts, Becky and Matt Martin, and Terri and Bill Lamb; and twelve grandnieces, grandnephews and their spouses, William and Allison Cleckler, Paul Cleckler, Rebecca Martin and Dr. Chad Thornhill, Jennifer Martin, Katherine Martin, Colin Fogarty, Sara Jane Fogarty, Stephen Bisbee, and Diane and Rafael Barrientos. Pallbearers will be her grandnephews. Visitation will be held Friday morning, December 23, 2011, at 11:30 a.m., at Fox and Weeks Funeral Directors, Hodgson Chapel, with the funeral service held at 1:00 p.m., also in the chapel. Interment will follow at Hillcrest Abbey. Donations may be sent to the Suzanne Fogarty Education Fund, PO Box 14560, Savannah, GA, 31416. Please sign our online guest book at www.foxandweeks.com.