Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 11, 1995 TAG: 9505130005
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But there is a common thread to their outlook on motherhood. Each of the winners seems to recognize and respect her children as individuals.
The secret to rearing children, said Jeannine Clay, Mother of the Year for Family Life, is to remember that "each of them is different."
"They're not just little replicas of you," said Joy Sylvester-Johnson, Mother of the Year for Religious Activities. "They're gifts you've been entrusted with."
"You have to allow for individual differences," agreed Sharon Bushkar, Mother of the Year for Community Services. "It doesn't matter what you want for them. You have to accept the kind of person they are."
When Bushkar was working toward her English degree at the University of Richmond, she also took classes in drama and journalism, hoping those skills would help her in the job market.
Despite her careful preparation, the career she eventually chose was full-time motherhood.
Bushkar, 45, feels lucky that her husband, Phillip, has sufficient income from his cardiology practice to allow her to stay home and concentrate on rearing her children. Many women would like to stay home but aren't able to, she said.
Because she has the luxury of not having to earn a living, Bushkar said, "I feel like I owe the community something. The valley has been really good to us."
Her children are so spread out in age - Jud is 18, Natalie is 13, and Brent is 10 - that Bushkar has been on as many as three PTA boards at once. She has been on the Penn Forest Elementary PTA board for the past seven years. At one time or another, she has filled every position except treasurer on them all.
She is a sustaining member of the Junior League and active with the Roanoke Academy of Medicine Auxiliary, the American Heart Association and the Hunting Hills Homeowners' Association. She also reads the newspaper once a week for WVTF-FM's Radio Reading Service.
Bushkar said she has a hard time saying no to people who ask her to volunteer, but she is one of those rare people who doesn't want to belong to an organization unless she has a job to do.
The volunteer spirit has rubbed off on her children as well, she said. Jud is a member of the Cave Spring rescue squad and a certified emergency medical technician. Natalie has volunteered at an area hospital, although she has been told she is too young.
Despite her involvement in community affairs, Bushkar said her children come first, and she rarely goes to nighttime meetings, so she can spend more time with them.
As the oldest of five children, "all I ever wanted to be was a good mother," she said.
Rheba Mae Cannaday, Mother of the Year for Education, didn't want her age published in the newspaper. Her fifth-grade pupils are always asking her about it, she said, and she prefers to leave them guessing.
In the 41 years Cannaday has been a teacher, one of biggest changes she has seen has been the intense interest the children show in her personal life. They ask questions she would never have dreamed of asking her teachers. Although the questions sometimes can be intrusive, she said, she likes the way today's students are willing to challenge her and think for themselves.
Cannaday was born in Roanoke and grew up in the Starkey area of Roanoke County. She attended G.W. Carver, the only school for black children in the county. There, she played basketball for the school team. One of nine children, she was the first in her family to go to college, graduating from Virginia State University.
The decision to become a teacher was an easy one, she said. She and her siblings spent a lot of their free time playing school. Two aunts were teachers, as are three of her sisters. Her dream was to return to Carver as a teacher, but she was offered a job in Roanoke instead.
Three of the schools Cannaday worked for no longer exist; they were closed when the city schools were integrated. She spent 18 years at Highland Park and has been at Westside Elementary for the past six years. Six of her seven nominating letters came from the principals and staff members with whom she has worked.
"Rheba treated all the children as her own, expecting each child to do their best, to respect their elders and their peers, and to always be on their best manners," wrote Thomas Gagnet, retired principal of Highland Park School.
Her daughter, Dawn Cannaday Ross, wrote, "She practices what she preaches at home."
"I make our room a family," Cannaday said. She expects the children to treat each other with consideration.
At the end of the school year, Cannaday will retire, she said. Her husband, Irvin Cannaday Jr., also is retiring. She plans to do volunteer work and keep busy with her grandchildren.
Jeannine Clay, Mother of the Year for Family Life, was nominated by Kim Sesay, the younger of her two daughters. When asked to describe Kim's personality, Clay mentioned her daughter's sense of humor.
It's a trait Kim must have inherited from her mother, because Clay, who is blind, can find some humor even in her disability.
Clay, 49, lost her eyesight in 1987 after surgery to remove a tumor on her optic nerve. One day soon afterward, she said, she got ready to go shopping, and was halfway to the door before she realized she couldn't drive herself anymore. Rather than feel sorry for herself, she chooses to laugh about the situation.
"I adjusted well," she said. "I got myself ready for it."
Because of her blindness, Clay was forced to retire. Since she always held down at least two jobs, it wasn't easy to give up working, she said.
Originally from Lexington, Clay worked as a teacher's aide there for seven years, then in the Roanoke schools for nine years after moving here in 1978. She married and was divorced twice, while her children were small, so she raised them by herself.
It would have been easy to go on welfare, she said, but it wasn't something she wanted to do. She preferred to follow the example of her own mother, who worked as a domestic to support her three children.
Although she is disabled, Clay tries to stay active.
"She just kept on going," Kim wrote in her letter. "She never has stopped to dwell on her condition."
Clay does volunteer work for her church, High Street Baptist, and belongs to several organizations for the blind. She has taken several plane trips by herself to visit her older daughter, Courtney Henderson, in Florida.
She has had to cut back on some activities, however, because of transportation costs and because she doesn't have as much energy as she would like. The tumor, which has been operated on three times, is growing again, and probably cannot be removed by surgery now, she said.
At home, Clay keeps busy cooking, listening to books on tape and doing ceramics. She is expecting her first grandchild, courtesy of Courtney, in November.
Lucy Saleeba, 73, Mother of the Year for Business and Professions, had to close her store in Southeast Roanoke last year after suffering a heart attack and undergoing bypass surgery.
Life hasn't been the same since, for her or for her customers, who came to her not just for groceries, but for help in handling their bills; for sandwiches and Lebanese cuisine served on an old oilcloth-covered freezer chest; and, sometimes, just for a sympathetic ear.
"It broke my heart" to close the store, Saleeba said. "I miss the people." After her husband, Eddie, died in 1986, "the store became Lucy's comfort and strength," wrote Saleeba's daughter, Elizabeth Baker, in her nominating letter.
During the 45 years the business was in operation, it became a focal point for the neighborhood. Saleeba kept many families from starving by offering credit or free food, Baker wrote.
"She wasn't just a mother to her own children," said Mary Bishop, a reporter for this newspaper who wrote several articles about Saleeba, "she was a mother to all of Southeast."
Despite the long hours she spent in the store, Saleeba still managed to find time for Elizabeth and her two other children, Maria Niswander and Edward.
They played happily alongside her as she worked, Saleeba said. Even pregnancy couldn't slow her down. One of the children came close to being born right there in the store.
Her approach to rearing them was "to let them know you love them, help them with their troubles and with their schooling."
Although the "closed" sign hangs in the window of her store and its aisles are deserted, the place doesn't look abandoned. The food and other goods that still line the shelves are kept carefully dusted, as though the store were going to open again the next day.
Saleeba said she has thought of selling the business, but has decided to save it for her son, in case he decides he wants it. Every day, she spends a few hours there.
"There were such happy times here," she sighed.
Joy Sylvester-Johnson, Mother of the Year for Religious Activities, has to work a little harder at making time for her family than some other mothers might. Her job as director of development at the City Rescue Mission is more than just a way to make a living.
"I don't think of what I do as a job, but as a calling," she said. "It's all tied together."
An admitted workaholic who is "super-organized," Sylvester-Johnson is generally at her desk well before 8 a.m. and often doesn't go home until 7 p.m.
The mission, supported by private donations, is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It serves more than 150,000 meals to the hungry each year, offers the homeless a place to stay, and helps them with education, clothing, and spiritual needs. Much of the Mission's work is accomplished through Sylvester-Johnson's tireless fund-raising efforts.
She and her husband, John, try to set Saturdays aside to spend with their two children, Anders, 14, and Kara, 9, but between speaking engagements, charity events and other commitments, it's not easy, Sylvester-Johnson said. And now that the children are older, she added, they have other things they want to do, too.
So, the family hit on a unique solution: every morning at 5:50 a.m., they all get up and go to the YMCA and swim together. It's not hard to get the kids up and out of bed, either, she said, because the whole thing "was their idea."
The family also spends a lot of time together at the mission. "The kids are very involved," Sylvester-Johnson said. They come there after school and do their homework in a room set aside for the organization's educational program, which is run by their father; they play with the children who are staying at the mission (there are more of them every year, Sylvester-Johnson said); they help with special projects and have dinner in the mission's dining room.
Sylvester-Johnson, 45, has been involved in missionary work all her life. Serving others is "not just about `fire insurance' for the future," to secure a place in the afterlife, she said. "I think we are called to do something good. I think there are little glimpses of heaven on Earth."
WBRA (Channel 15) will broadcast a taped interview with the Mothers of the Year on Sunday, Mother's Day, at 3:30 p.m.
by CNB