Obituary of Sadye Shaw ~ 1997
Transcribed by Joan S Dunn
Source: The Virginian-Pilot Apr 5 1997
There was a time when Newsome Farm was a quiet forgotten neighborhood,
tucked away in a corner off Newtown Road, where even the most basic
amenities were missing.
There were no sidewalks or street lights. After a heavy rain, water would
stand knee-deep on the dirt roads.
Trash and mail pickup was a sometime thing.
What made it particularly galling for resident Sadye Shaw was that
Virginia Beach was in the midst of an unprecedented building boom that was
transforming the city into the state's largest, while Newsome Farms was
virtually ignored.
If anything, her friends said Friday, Shaw was determined. When the city
announced 20 years ago it would target 12 low-income neighborhoods for
improvements, including Newsome Farm, Shaw made sure her community would
benefit.
And it was her determination, her drive and her generous spirit that
friends celebrated on Friday at the First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk,
where Shaw's funeral drew together city officials and friends alike.
Shaw, 78, died March 30 at Sentara Leigh Memorial Hospital after a brief
illness.
"She played a key role in getting improvements to Newsome Farm," said
Andrew Friedman, the city's director of Housing and Neighborhood
Preservation.
"She was precise, determined, energetic and always looking for ways to
help the process, to help get the job done."
It was Shaw, Friedman said, who invited then-City Manager Thomas
Muehlenbeck to Newsome Farm to see firsthand the lack of basic services
in the mostly black community. That meeting started a process that through
the years culminated in new streets, lights, better drainage, and improved
city services overall.
Today it is a handsome place, with tidy ranch homes - including the one
that Sadye's husband, Norman, a bricklayer, built in 1963. He lives there
today. Until her death, Shaw served as the secretary to the advisory
committee on target neighborhoods.
Alice Green, who served on the New Light Civic League, another target
neighborhood, said Shaw was a delightful person.
"She was the same the first day I met her, the same person all the way
through," Green said.
"She was very nice and enthusiastic about uplifting her community and her
people."
Shaw came to public attention for her work with the civic league, but her
first love was education.
Born in Bayboro, N.C., she was the daughter of Thomas T. and Cora
McMillian Ringer.
She earned a bachelor of arts degree from Fayetteville State University
and later master's degrees from North Carolina A & T State University and
William and Mary College.
She worked as a teacher for more than 40 years, having taught in the
Pender County, N.C., public schools and retired from the Norfolk Public
Schools in 1982 as program adviser to teachers of emotionally disturbed
children.
She and her husband had one daughter, Stephanie Shaw-Wilson, who died in
1994.
Luvenia M. Tyson, a neighbor, said Shaw was an active woman who could
sew, fish, sing, play the piano and who loved to collect ceramics, many
of which now cover the walls of her home.
"She just loved people," Tyson said. "She really did."
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