Priscilla May Thomson Jackson

1922 - 2018

Priscilla May Thomson Jackson

Chapel Hill, NC - Priscilla May Thomson Jackson was born March 8, 1922 in Canton, China. Her parents Dr. J.O. Thomson and Ethel Ramsey Thomson were missionaries to China. J.O. Thomson joined the Canton Hospital in 1910 as a surgeon. Priscilla, who grew up in China, attended the Shanghai American High School and crossed the Pacific Ocean five times before attending Oberlin College with a major in political science. Priscilla then transferred to the University of Chicago, after marrying the love of her life Walter Jackson, who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago Theological Seminary.

Priscilla and Walter were part of a group which founded CORE, Congress of Racial Equality, and they moved to Detroit in 1943 to start a branch of CORE. In Detroit Walter secured a job in Herman Gardens where he started the first U.S. church in a housing project. Priscilla played the organ for church services and helped start a co-op store with UAW staffers' wives. Jennifer Agnes and Lillian Avis were born at this time in 1944 and 45. The family next moved to Pittsford, Vermont where Walter became the minister of the Congregational Church; son Nathan Oscar was born in Proctor, Vermont in 1948.

Priscilla and family returned to Detroit in 1949, where Walter became a stockbroker and an Assistant Minister. Priscilla joined the Detroit Women Writers, as well as monitoring 3 lively children. A move to Birmingham, Michigan, suburb of Detroit followed in 1954. Priscilla became active with the Birmingham Community House, the League of Women Voters, and the Woman Writers' Work Shop. At this point Priscilla was offered a job in the newly developing Oakland University in Oakland County, Michigan, in the Continuing Education Department, as a Conference Director. There she won several state and national awards in conference design. Her Professional Achievements at Oakland University, Rochester, MI, in Adult Education were Conference Coordinator, then Director of Conferences, and Designer Director of the Continuum Center for Women and Asst. Dean of Continuing Ed for Developmental Programs. Supported by Oakland University's President, Provost and Continuing Education Dean, Priscilla won 3 Kellogg Foundation Grants for the "Continuum Center for Women". These were women home-makers about age 42, who were mostly stay-at-home moms with so called at the time "empty nests". The Continuum Center offered discussion groups, interest testing, and interviews with a psychologist, specialists in Education and Volunteer Work, and Employment Opportunities for 2000 women. The Continuum Center, one of the first in 1965, was the most comprehensive center for continuing education for women. She was Co-Author of The Continuum Center for Women, a book published by the Kellogg Foundation in 1970. In this period Priscilla was appointed to the Oakland County Welfare Commission, received a M.A. from Michigan State University in adult education and was a review editor for Adult Education Journal.

A move to the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business Administration, to design a Women in Management Program, came next. Thirty Grant Proposals were written by Priscilla during 1963-1973. She consulted with 14 universities and community colleges on their woman's centers, started a Women Professionals Program at Wayne State's Rackham Center and became a popular speaker for the "Eight Stages in a Woman's Life".

During her life Priscilla attended Writer's Workshops, wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, gave speeches and talks and wrote a number or books. Speeches and talks were given on numerous occasions on the changing role of women, Chinese history, the historical novel, job search intensive, and adult education, to women's organizations, such as AAUW, seven Denominations of Church Women, Women's City Clubs, Junior Leagues, Professional Organizations, such as those of community college presidents, school principals, educators, dietitians, secretaries and Rotary Clubs. "The Eight Stages of a Woman's Life" was given to state and national conventions, spouse's programs. Priscilla was a very popular and entertaining speaker! She was listed in Who's Who in American Women in the Midwest, 2000 Women of Achievement and the International Scholar's Directory. Priscilla wrote Five novels, one of which is an historical novel, A Gryphon Year, China 1911-12, an American Surgeon in Old Canton, which was published in 2012 by Author House of Bloomington, IN, ISBN: 978-4678-7313-0(sc), ISBN: 978-1-4678-7312-3(hc), ISBN: 978-1-4678-7311-6 (e) and can be purchased on Amazon.

Summers in Vermont involved improvements on the barn being turned into a house and developing gardens, now 17. Winters were spent in Florida, first in Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove and then in an apartment in Coral Gables on the Riviera Golf Course. Priscilla moved to Chapel Hill, NC in 2003 for her winter residence, to be close to her son, grandchildren and then daughter and son-in- law. Priscilla was 96 when she died in the Rutland Regional Medical Center on September 6, 2018 and she was buried Saturday September 8 in the Evergreen Cemetery in Pittsford, VT beside her beloved husband, Walter. A Memorial Service for Priscilla is planned for 2019 at the Pittsford Congregational Church and at the family home in North Chittenden. Memorial gifts should be sent to the Pittsford Congregational Church, Pittsford, Vt. Priscilla was predeceased by husband Walter Neale Jackson, M.Div. She is survived by brother George Thomson, Ph.D.; also surviving are her three children Jennifer Agnes Jackson Runquist, Ph.D., with husband Alfonse W. Runquist, Ph.D., daughter Lillian Avis Jackson, M.S.W., M.P.A., and son Nathan Oscar Jackson, M.D.