By Elizabeth Cook
Salisbury Post
Friends and family surrounded W.O.T. Fleming Saturday as he celebrated his 90th birthday.
This Friday they will gather again, for his funeral.
Fleming, a longtime educator and community leader, died Sunday at the Laurels, where he had been staying recently to receive physical therapy.
“Saturday he had a wonderful day,” stepdaughter Phoebe Shoates said Monday. As the festivities drew to a close, Fleming said he wanted to rest.
She received a call Saturday night around 10, telling her he was ill. He died around 1 a.m. Sunday morning, she said.
Shoates said Fleming had been treated for colon and prostate cancer for about 17 years and had other health problems that all contributed to his death.
“He was a great advisor ó just a really wonderful dad and stepdad,” Shoates said.
Fleming grew up in Salisbury, graduating from J.C. Price High School and Livingstone College. In the Army during World War II, he served as an infantryman in the European theater and was honorably discharged with the rank of staff sergeant.
He returned to his home town to serve as an educator and community volunteer. Through the years, he was a leader in Calvary Baptist Church, head of the Salisbury Housing Authority Board and an active member of the Democratic Party, the NAACP and other organizations.
Before his 1983 retirement from Salisbury City Schools, Fleming served as principal of Monroe Street School, Lincoln Grammar School and Overton Elementary School where his photograph is on the wall of leaders.
Fleming was fond of saying he had “the most loved legs” in the county, for his students couldn’t reach up to hug his neck, so they got his legs.
In 2004, when the Housing Authority opened a new 32-unit facility for seniors opened its doors off Lash Drive, the city named it for him ó Fleming Heights Apartments.
Mayor Susan Kluttz presented him with the key to the city.
Fleming started serving on the Salisbury Housing Authority Board in 1982, and was chairman for 14 years.
He also worked in the community to improve race relations. He said something he learned outside of his considerable educational experiences was that “getting along is one of the most important things.”
“You have to give up something to get something, and it has worked for me over the years,” he once said.
Daughter Gail Rosetta Fleming was born to his first marriage, which later dissolved.
Then he met and married Jolene Pryor, a fellow educator who he said “sang like a bird.” Her daughter, Phoebe, then 15, joined them as they established their family on Monroe Street.
A generous donor to Livingstone College, Fleming was a member of the President’s Club in recognition of giving of more than $20,000 to the college, as well as recipient of the college’s Life-Time Presidential Service Award and many other honors.
Hood Theological Seminary presented him with an honorary doctorate in 2005.
Fleming also volunteered with the Rowan County Council on Aging, the West End Community Organization, the J.F. Hurley YMCA Young Black Achievers mentors, J. C. Price American Legion Post and many other organizations.
He was a life member of Veterans of Foreign Wars and a 50-year member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity and the Livingstone College Alumni Association.
He was inducted into the J. C. Price High School Athletic Hall of Fame and had received a Elizabeth Duncan Koontz Salisbury-Rowan Human Relations Council’s Humanitarian Award.
And there is a W.O.T. Fleming Head Start Center in Salisbury.
Fleming’s wife, Jolene, is living at an assisted living center.
Survivors, in addition to his wife, include daughters Gail Rosetta Fleming of Roosevelt, N.Y., and Phoebe Pryor Shoates of Newport News, Va.; brother Robert Lee Fleming, Jr. of Salisbury, and a number of other siblings, nieces and nephews.
Visitation will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Noble & Kelsey Funeral Home. The funeral will be held 11:30 a.m. Friday at Varick Auditorium on the Livingstone College campus.