Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Life can be full of twists and turns. Sally Jo Winters Whitehead, during her lifetime, experienced a wide range of challenges and opportunities that brought her times of joy and success. But she would be the first to tell you that those twists and turns also had their difficulties and setbacks.

I knew Winters from our days in high school at Hampton. I got to know her better a couple of years ago when she came to Ivy Hall Nursing Home as a resident and was in the room next to a neighbor and friend of mine. When I visited my neighbors, I often stopped and chatted briefly with Sally.

As her obituary read, “Sally Jo was special. One of a kind.” You knew when she was happy, and you knew when she was angry. It spilled out into her everyday life. But she had a love for people, especially those who were going through hard times, and it was in those areas that she worked.

After high school, she spent 20-plus years employed at the Carter County Health Department, caring for others. She worked in home health, and she enjoyed her work, especially the patients she called on each week.

Winters had a competitive spirit and gave her all to what she was doing—whether it be playing softball in high school, attending a patient in home health or later as a teacher. While she was working at the health department, her life took another turn. She returned to school to become a teacher. She earned her bachelor’s degree in education from East Tennessee State University and went on to earn a Master of Education from Tusculum University. During the same time, she was raising a family.

Winters was the mother of two daughters, Dina Jean, who is deceased, and Mikki Fletcher, and a son, Jackie Whitehead. Additionally, she had five grandchildren, who knew their grandmother as “Mawey.”

When Whitehead finished college, she began teaching at Hampton Elementary in a class for Academic Behavioral Intervention—more or less, a class for students with behavioral problems as well as learning issues. At the same time, she coached girls’ softball.

Sally had empathy for her students and was quick to let them know they were loved and that they could do better no matter how bad life was for them or how bad they were.

A friend and fellow teacher, Kim Walsh, noted on the funeral home guestbook page that Sally did her student teaching under her. She shared that Sally believed special education was where she was meant to teach, and she came back frequently to visit, bring treats and get updates on the students. “She would support and defend her students at all costs. Because of this, they learned the meaning of respect and connection. Family was her focus,” Walsh wrote.

When I stopped to chat briefly with Winters at the nursing home, she always mentioned that she formerly was a teacher and taught students with behavioral problems. “I miss it,” she would share.

From conversations with her, it didn’t take long to learn that she had been very involved in her work, and her goal was to make a difference in the lives of her students.

As a teacher, Winters was an encourager, and as a home health worker, she was an encourager. No matter what she worked at, she was an encourager.

That enthusiasm also was on display at her grandchildren’s ballgames. Her son shared that you always knew when “Mawey” was at the game. “Mom’s hobby was spending time with her grandkids,” Jackie said.

He jokingly shared that his mother was not much of a cook or a person who enjoyed keeping house. “Her work and family consumed her. However, she did love home cooking. Mom considered soup beans and cornbread a delicacy,” Jackie said.

Sally was a Hampton Bulldog for life and was a member of Hampton Christian Church but attended Valley Forge Free Will Baptist Church. “When she went to the nursing home, she watched their service online,” Jackie said.

At Ivy Hall, Sally endeared herself to the staff. She suffered numerous health problems resulting from her diabetes. That was another twist and turn in her life.

Sally Whitehead was one of those people who made life count. She breathed in the good and exhaled the bad. Her life was a journey of twists and turns. It was not all good, but it was not all bad. She would be the first to tell you the good outweighed the bad.

People come and go, but every person who comes into your life has a purpose for being there, and they can enrich your life. My visits with Sally Jo Winters Whitehead were often brief, but she enriched my life as well as the staff at Ivy Hall.