Dr. Sarah Bowen Kidd Grant

Dr. Sarah Bowen Kidd Grant, a trailblazing educator, died Friday, May 15, at age 98. As society struggled through the civil rights and women’s movements, she rose from grade school teacher to division head in the Norfolk Public School District. Though born in Elizabethtown, NC, on June 28, 1928, Sarah lived her entire life in Tidewater, VA. After graduation from I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, she was a beautician for two years while waiting her turn for an associate’s degree from Norfolk Division of Virginia State College after her older sister finished. She married Thomas C. Kidd in 1942 and later went to Petersburg for a bachelor’s degree from Virginia State, where she joined Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. After graduation she began teaching in Norfolk. Sarah earned her master’s at New York University in 1966 and was promoted to principal and then elementary education coordinator. She and Kidd moved to Chesapeake in 1960. After his death in 1969, Sarah went on a yearlong fellowship at the University of Connecticut and returned the next year pursue a doctorate. She finished it in 1972 and, in 1980, married UConn professor Joseph N. Grant. Norfolk schools then promoted the new PhD to director of media services, the job she retired from in 1987. In the community, Sarah was a driving force that helped put the Portsmouth chapter of Delta Sigma Theta on the map. She raised scholarship funds by recruiting two members to join her in personally underwriting a concert by the legendary Count Basie Orchestra. She served two terms as chapter president and remained an active member until her death. Sarah was a lifelong member of Brighton Rock AME Zion Church and a longstanding member of the Epicureans. Meticulous in her appearance and her home, she was well known for outstanding style and distinguished taste. In addition to her first and second husbands, she was predeceased by her parents, Mark and Serena Bowen; sisters Helen Hampton and Mildred DeLoatch; brother William Bowen; nieces Helen Hampton Jones and Sarah Linda Scales; and nephew William Bowen Jr. Survivors include her brother, Bernard Bowen; her godchildren, niece Cheryl Hampton, great-niece Jewell Jones, and Lenbert Shropshire; nieces and nephews, Mildred Gaines, George Hampton, Reginald Davis Jr., Connie Fountain, and Mark Bowen; numerous great- and great-great-nieces and even one great-great-great nephew; cousins, and other family members.

Dr. Sarah Bowen Kidd Grant

June 28, 1921 - May 15, 2020