Life After Howard
After graduating in 1909 with a Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts, Hedgeman moved to Eufaula, Oklahoma for her first job as a teacher. She taught music in Sumner Normal School between 1909 and 1910. She was the first African-American female college graduate to teach in a normal school in Oklahoma and the first to earn a Teacher's Life Certificate from the Oklahoma State Department of Education. In 1910, Hedgeman moved to Centralia, Illinois, where she also taught in public schools.
On June 21, 1911, Ethel Hedgeman married George Lyle, whom she had dated in high school and college. They moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Ethel gave birth to George, III, her only child. George Lyle also worked as a teacher, considered by both to be a critical profession for the future of African Americans.
Ethel continued her education career in Philadelphia by teaching English at the Thomas Purham School and Chester A. Arthur School. She retired in 1948, after almost forty years of teaching generations of students.
In addition to her work as an educator, Lyle was active in public life. She helped found civic institutions such as the West Philadelphia League of Women Voters and the Mother's Club of the city. In addition Lyle was a member of the Republican Women's Committee of Ward 40 and active in her church.
As national treasurer of Alpha Kappa Alpha from 1923 to 1946, Lyle helped lead the sorority through years of rapid social change, including the Great Migration of more than a million African Americans from the South to the North, the Depression and challenges of World War II. In Philadelphia, in 1926 she chartered and was the first president of Omega Omega, the first alumnae chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha in Philadelphia. (Eighty years old and with 400 members in the 21st century, the Omega Omega chapter continues to provide services to women and children in the city.)
Lyle's leadership skills were called on in 1937, when the Mayor of Philadelphia appointed her to chair the Committee of 100 Women, organized to plan the Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the Adoption of the U.S. Constitution.
Ethel Lyle also used private activities to keep her mind sharp: doing crossword puzzles, playing bridge and reading. On November 28, 1950, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Read more about this topic: Ethel Hedgeman Lyle
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