Jeffery Lee Cureton

Jeffery Lee Cureton grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. She joined First Baptist Church as a teenager and was a lifelong member, taking great joy in singing with the choir.

She worked her way through Miles College doing hair with the assistance of her sister Juanita.  She taught in the Bessemer school system teaching for 34 years, at Dunbar and MacAdory, retiring from Charles F. Hard Elementary where she taught 1st and 2nd grade.

She received her Master’s degree from Alabama A&M University. She later obtained her AA certificate and completed further coursework at Alabama State.

She was an inspired teacher who treated her students as if they were her own.  If she saw a child who needed shoes, she measured the child’s feet. If a child’s pants were too short. If a child didn’t come to school because it was raining.  She bought shoes, pants, raincoats. Later, meeting former students, she could always remember something about them.  She delighted in learning what direction they lives had taken.  Perhaps the highest praise, many of her former students made sure their own children had her as a teacher.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Sidney Cox, of Birmingham; her parents, Jerome Stevenson Cureton and Jannie Beatrice Cureton, both of Birmingham; three brothers James Cureton of Irondale, Jerome Cureton of Birmingham, and Jefferson (Debra) Cureton of Birmingham; and her sister Johnnie Deborah Jackson of Birmingham.

She is survived by her sister, Juanita Ramsey of Birmingham; her brothers, John Cureton of Pacoima, CA, and Joseph (Pat) Cureton of Buffalo, New York; and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.

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