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DEATH ANNOUNCEMENT

ODESSA PETTWAY THORNTON

“Dr. T”

16 September 1934 – 6 January 2023

Atlanta

Spelman College chemistry professor who sent two hundred women into medicine and science

In September 1951, a seventeen-year-old from Selma, Alabama, boarded a train for Washington, D.C., with one trunk, a scholarship letter from Howard University and her mother's instruction to “show your work.” Odessa Pettway took the advice literally for the next seventy years.

She earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry at Howard in 1955 and a doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1960, one of very few Black women in her cohort, remembered by her lab partners as the one who never lost a notebook, a pipette or an argument. In 1962 she joined the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, and she did not leave for forty years.

At Spelman, Dr. T, as her students called her, taught general and organic chemistry, chaired the department for twelve years, and quietly built one of the country's strongest pipelines of Black women into medicine and the sciences. She had a red pen she called “the truth,” a habit of grading lab reports on the bus, and a rule that nobody left her office hungry: there was always pound cake in the bottom drawer. As a young instructor during the Atlanta movement of the early sixties she kept sandwiches and bail money in the same desk. More than two hundred of her former students became physicians, pharmacists and PhDs, and she knew every one of their birthdays.

At home in Collier Heights she was a different kind of professor, hosting Sunday dinner for any student far from home, singing alto at Mount Calvary Baptist Church for fifty-seven years, and completing the Sunday crossword in pen. She married Dr. Leroy Thornton, a dentist, in 1963, and they were partners for forty-six years until his death in 2009.

Dr. Thornton died peacefully at home in Atlanta on 6 January 2023, aged eighty-eight. She is survived by her daughter Camille, her son Leroy Jr., her sister Beulah, and the many “academic daughters” who still telephone on her birthday.

“Show your work. In the lab and in life, nobody believes an answer without the steps.”

Funeral arrangements

Service
Homegoing Celebration
Date & time
East Africa Time (Nairobi)
Venue
Mount Calvary Baptist Church
Address
Cascade Road SW, Atlanta, Georgia
Resting place
South-View Cemetery, Atlanta, Georgia
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Funeral committees

Family committee

Coordinating the arrangements and supporting Odessa's family.

  • chair: Camille Thornton-Reed
  • secretary: Yolanda Pierce
  • treasurer: Dr. Danielle Hargrove

Contact: Camille Thornton-Reed

Meetings: Daily at the family home, Atlanta, 5pm

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Survived by

  • Daughter: Camille Thornton-Reed
  • Son: Leroy Thornton Jr.
  • Sister: Beulah Pettway Dukes
  • Friend: Dr. Danielle Hargrove

Life journey

  1. 1951–1955B.S. in Chemistry · Howard University · Washington, D.C.

    Graduated magna cum laude and was the first in her family to attend college.

  2. 1955–1960Ph.D. in Chemistry · University of Chicago · Chicago

    Studied reaction kinetics in a cohort with very few women and fewer Black scholars.

  3. 1962–2002Professor of Chemistry · Spelman College · Atlanta

    Forty years of general and organic chemistry, with the red pen always at hand.

  4. 1963–2009Married Dr. Leroy Thornton · Atlanta

    Forty-six years of marriage, Sunday dinners and shared crosswords.

  5. 1978–1990Chair, Department of Chemistry · Spelman College · Atlanta

    Doubled the number of chemistry majors and sent most of them to graduate or medical school.

  6. 1991Outstanding Teaching Award · Spelman College · Atlanta

    Chosen by a student vote that, she said, she had not campaigned for.

Condolence messages (6)

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Keisha Brooks

Lab assistant, Spelman class of 2004

She once found a decimal error in a lab report I'd turned in at 2 a.m. and returned it covered in red with one word: “Better.” I have never been prouder of a grade. Thank you for believing the work could always be better, and so could I.

Dr. Esi Mensah

Former student from Accra

I arrived in Atlanta at nineteen, with no family within five thousand miles. Dr. Thornton fed me every Sunday for four years and wrote the recommendation that got me into my doctoral program. I now run a research lab at the University of Ghana, and I keep a red pen on my desk.

Rev. Dr. Alvin Mathis

Pastor, Mount Calvary Baptist Church

Sister Thornton taught our youth Sunday school with a periodic table taped to the chalkboard and a cake in her bag. She said the God who made the elements surely loved a well-balanced equation. I believe she is balancing something wonderful right now.

Yolanda Pierce

Church friend and choir sister

Fifty-seven years in the alto section at Mount Calvary and not one wrong note that I can remember, except the time she laughed in the middle of the anthem because the pastor's hat fell off. We are going to sing for you, Odessa, and we will get it right.

Prof. Nathan Greer

Colleague in the chemistry department

For twenty years I shared a hallway with Odessa Thornton. She had the highest standards and the softest heart of anyone I have known. A student who cried in her office left with a plan, a snack and a firm instruction to come back Thursday.

Dr. Danielle Hargrove

Former student, now a pediatrician

I walked into Dr. T's office in 1998 certain I would fail organic chemistry. She handed me a slice of pound cake and a practice exam and said, “We'll start with the cake.” I am a pediatrician today. Every white coat I put on, I hear her voice: show your work.