Ethelyn Taylor Chisum

She was born to William Henry and Virgie Collins Taylor in Dallas, Texas, where she spent her formative years. Following graduation from Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College May 1913, where Ethelyn M. Taylor was senior class historian, she began her teaching career in the Rock Creek community of Smith County, Texas. Almost three years later she returned to Dallas and a lifetime as an educator, thirty-two years of which were spent as counselor at Booker T. Washington High School.

In 1923, she married Dr. John Chisum who was born in 1895, to Benjamin Chisum and Rosa Pauline White. Following his 1916 graduation as salutatorian of Dallas Colored High School, Dr. Chisum worked as a mortician prior to military service in France during World War I. It was a union that lasted fifty-five years until his death in 1979.

Community service was an integral part of life for Mrs. Chisum, with membership in Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, as well as the Priscilla Art Club, oldest club for Negro women in Dallas. She was a long time member and active worker of the New Hope Baptist Church while Rev. A. S. Jackson, Sr. was pastor; later Dr. and Mrs. Chisum joined Knight's Chapel A.M.E. Church. Mrs. Chisum was often chosen as a leader of Dallas organizations such as the Dallas Teachers Council, serving the group as president for ten years. Realizing the need for a YWCA to serve the black community, Mrs. Chisum was one of the founders in 1927 of the Maria Morgan Branch of YWCA. She was repeatedly honored by local organizations for community service as well as being listed in Who's Who in Education in America. In 1967, two years after retirement from the Dallas Independent School District, Mrs. Chisum joined the staff of Southern Methodist University to work with the Upward Bound program jointly sponsored by the university and the United States Department of Education. She continued her association with SMU until failing health forced her retirement in November of 1982. In an effort to upgrade the teaching profession, Mrs. Chisum often worked as an appointed committee member for the National Education Association as well as the Texas Education Association. Working alongside Dr. John Chisum, her husband of more than fifty years, Ethelyn Chisum strove to improve educational opportunities as well as the quality of life for the youth of Dallas until her death, January 27, 1983.

Source: The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present edited by Kathleen Thompson and Hilary Mac Austin