S adie Mai McMahan or Miss Sadie to many of her students, was born May 06, 1907 near Beech Grove in Rutherford County, Tennessee. Her parents, Robert Alexander (Alex) McMahan and Cordelia Florence (Delia or Deeley) Keele McMahan were married Nov. 6, 1898. Alex was a Baptist minister and at times also farmed. Later, he worked as a clerk. Sadie Mai’s family also included siblings Joseph Oriel (b. 1900), John Stanley (b. 1901), Basil Beecroft (b. 1904), Connie Nikoda [Koda] (b.1910) and Jean (b. 1921). After living in the Beech Grove/Rutherford County area throughout 1920’s, the family moved to Manchester when Sadie Mai was a senior in high school. Sadie’s mother, Delia, died in 1934. Her father married Gertrude Roberts on Sept. 28, 1935.

Education was the great focus of Sadie Mai McMahan’s life. She graduated from high school at a time when only 13 to 14 percent of students did and received her Bachelors of Arts degree from the Tennessee College for Women (TCW) in Murfreesboro in 1929 where she was on the basketball team. She later earned a Master’s degree in 1947 from Peabody College (now a part of Vanderbilt University) in Nashville. She was a proud graduate of Tennessee College for Women and attended at least one homecoming weekend there in 1935.

A great fan of basketball, she was girls’ basketball coach to students in Noah and was an early coach of Alline Banks [Sprouse], who later was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and is considered by many to be one of the best basketball players ever.

By 1940, Miss Sadie Mai was living in Coffee County where she taught school for a salary of $800 for the year. In 1943, during World War II, she was one of 100 Tennessee teachers chosen to take a course in Aeronautics with the Army Air Corp, receiving flying lessons. (She kept up her skills during her career and in 1968, attended an Aerospace Workshop at MTSU.) She later taught “math and fiz [sic] ed” at Cheatham County High School. In 1961, she was chosen to be Coffee County’s Teacher of the Year and was entered in the state contest sponsored by Life Magazine for Teacher of the Year. She was named Tennessee’s Teacher of the year in 1962– 1963.

Miss McMahan was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, a sorority of women educators and served as both president and vice-president of local chapter (Alpha Pi).

Many of her students remember Miss Sadie as a disciplinarian but good teacher: Belinda Riddle Phillips noted, “I loved Miss Sadie Mai! She was designated hall monitor and short skirt supervisor! She would take a dollar bill and measure with it from just above your knee. If your dress hem was higher than the dollar bill you had a problem! She was a fantastic teacher!” Larry McIntosh remembers that when the boys would get too rowdy, Miss Sadie would threaten to paddle them, which in her distinctive voice sounded like “poddle them.” Oneta Floyd Teal agrees that Sadie Mai was a nice teacher.

Joyce McCullough said, “I had Miss McMahan for Algebra in 9th grade. I remember playing trap [a win or lose game of math skills] on a regular basis and always feeling challenged to win. Because of her excellent teaching, I qualified to attend the math contest in Sewanee for Algebra II. I placed 13th in the state, not a great achievement but I credit Miss McMahan for giving me a solid background in math.” Lori Campbell Amos also has good memories of Miss McMahan’s math instruction: “I did everything I could do to make a B+. Miss Sadie would let us do extra credit, and I could bump my grade to A-. At the end of my Algebra I year, I signed up for ‘low’ Algebra II. Someone from the school called my dad and told him I should be in ‘high’ Algebra II. I told him that I couldn’t do it. I stayed in ‘low’ class and made A+ because it was basically a repeat of Miss Sadie’s class.”

Teaching was a great love, but Sadie Mai McMahan was also very active in local civic and cultural groups. She was a founding member of the Manchester Garden Club. At a club meeting in 1933, Sadie gave a talk on the former Tennessee State flower, the passion flower and the newly adopted state flower, the iris. She won second place in the county fair of 1932 for her marigold entry. She combined her love of teaching with her love of gardening in 1933, when she organized a junior gardening club at Manchester City School (now College Street Elementary School.) In 1935, she was one of Manchester Garden club’s delegates to the state convention of Federated Garden Clubs, and in August 1994 won Best of Show and Arboreal and Horticultural Award at her club’s “Floral Artistry” flower show. At this same time, she was awarded a certificate for 35 years of garden club membership. On November 13, 2003 a Memorial Bench with her name inscribed was placed in Dave King Park in memory of the founding members of the Garden Club.

Sadie was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy serving as president of the Calvin C. Brewer Chapter in 1990. She was also a member of the Tullahoma Chapter D.A.R.

She was a founding member of the local Philharmonic Club which was organized May 20, 1932. In April 1933, she hosted the group at her house which, according to the Manchester Times was “beautifully decorated in dogwood and redbud.” The discussion topic for the night was the work of Richard Wagner with Sadie giving a presentation on “Tannhauser.”

She served as program leader and later president of the Tres Artes Club in Manchester and often gave the program discussion. She was also member of the local chapter of the Eastern Star, as well as the Thursday Afternoon Literary Club.

In addition to her club memberships, Sadie Mai McMahan was active in the private social life of Manchester as evidenced by her hosting a watermelon feast honoring Mrs. Josephine Jared Vokes on Mrs. Vokes’ visit to Manchester in 1977. She attended a bridal shower held in Beech Grove for Miss Cornelia Vaughn in 1937. Sadie Mai never married.

After a life of learning, teaching and serving, Sadie Mai McMahan died on Nov. 16, 2003 at age 96 and is buried in Shelton Cemetery in Rutherford County.