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Photos courtesy of the Russell family.
Alongside the love she showed her students, Maggie Russell was even more devoted to her family. Her two sons, Cannon and Gray, were one of the things that made her happiest in life, said her friend, Lori Lancaster.
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A college fund has been set up to support Cannon and Gray Russell in the future, and the community continues to send cards and food, Blake Russell said.
Maggie Russell’s memorial ceremony was standing room only.
A mother of two and teacher who had dedicated her whole career to Oak Mountain Elementary School, the nearly 800 attendees at the service were a testament to all the lives she touched.
“That was a good day,” said Blake Russell, Maggie Russell’s husband of 13 years. “What I told everybody and what I still told people: She didn’t have a funeral; she had a celebration of life.”
Maggie Russell’s friend and coworker Lori Lancaster said she told Blake Russell to keep large numbers in mind when making plans for his wife’s funeral service.
“When she passed away and he [Blake] started making funeral plans, I just had to stop and look at him and say, ‘You do understand this is not going to be 50 people,’” Lancaster said. “He didn’t know the influence that she had and the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who were going to reach out to him.”
Maggie Russell died unexpectedly Sept. 7 of a heart problem at 39. In the months since her death, Blake Russell said he has heard countless stories of how Maggie Russell influenced the lives of those around her — ones he had never heard.
“She had a way of doing those things without even me knowing,” Blake Russell said of his wife’s kind actions. “She would just take the extra time. She gave so much to her job. She loved her summers, but when it got to be about a week before, two weeks before [school started], she started putting pressure on herself to get everything perfect because she wanted every kid to have that experience of being in Mrs. Russell’s room.”
A way with kids
Maggie Russell began teaching at Oak Mountain Elementary School in 2001, her first teaching position after graduating college. She was named OMES Teacher of the Year in 2010, and she was known for her habit of helping students rise to their highest potential.
“She was big on focusing on the positive behaviors, which is what I in turn have done as well,” said OMES teacher Ferris Smith, who was Maggie’s mentee. “She loves to focus on the loving, happy praises, and that makes all the kids rise to the top.”
Her longevity at OMES was one of the things that made her so well known, Lancaster said, and each family left her classroom loving Maggie Russell as a teacher.
“I think the parents sometimes were intimidated by her, by her height and her beauty and her directness … but every year, they would just end up loving, loving, loving her and not wanting to be out of her class,” Lancaster said. “She had a way with so many kids who just kept coming back to see her.”
Blake and Maggie Russell did not talk much about work at home, Blake Russell said, but he would always hear stories about kids who needed a little extra love at school.
“The ones she loved on the hardest were the ones who needed it the most,” Blake Russell said. “She took a special pride in the kids she knew had a rough time.”
With those students, Maggie Russell would take the extra time to focus on their needs and encourage them in their work, according to several coworkers.
“I hear so many stories from other people, that they have shared, and I think of all the times we’ve talked and all the things we’ve done with each other, there’s so many things I didn’t know about,” said Kimberly Hall, the Russells’ neighbor and a teacher at OMES.
Cammie Eanes, a fellow teacher whose daughter was in Maggie Russell’s class years ago, said Maggie Russell helped bring her daughter out of her shell.
“Even in seventh grade, my child was still coming back, and they would go get a coffee together, or they would go do special things together,” Eanes said.
“Even her next-door neighbor who practically team taught with her, I had no idea,” Hall said. “She was very humble and didn’t brag or boast.”
