Viola Marie Wyman

Viola M. Wyman, 95, of South Kingstown, died on November 4, 2019 in South Kingstown. She was a retired elementary school teacher and the widow of James V. Wyman, the former vice president and executive editor of the Providence Journal. During her 36-year teaching career, she touched the lives of more than a thousand first and second-graders. Wyman was born in Woonsocket, R.I., the daughter of Lela (Ladouceur) and Philias Bousquet. She graduated from Woonsocket High School and Rhode Island College, graduating with a bachelors in education in 1945. She started her teaching career in Mansfield, Mass., then also taught briefly in Woonsocket, Needham, Mass. and Swansea, Mass. before becoming a first-grade teacher at Ashton School in Cumberland, R.I. in 1961. She lived in Cumberland and taught at Ashton for almost 30 years. After her 1990 retirement, Wyman and her husband moved from Cumberland to South Kingstown, where she manned the suicide hotline for Samaritans for a time. She also helped evaluate judges as a citizen member of the Judicial Evaluation Committee for the Rhode Island Supreme Court in Providence from 1991 to 1992, and served on the Rhode Island Supreme Court Disciplinary Council from 1996 to 1999, including one year as the councils citizen chairperson. She was a Congressional Senior intern for Senator Jack Reed in 1998. She trained a seeing eye dog for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Wyman enjoyed photography, tennis, and summering on Cape Cod and the Vineyard. Wyman was predeceased by her husband in 2014. She is survived by three children: J. Vernon Wyman of South Kingstown, Douglas P. Wyman of Los Angeles, Calif., and Carolyn Wyman of Philadelphia, Pa; two grandchildren: Elizabeth Wyman of Saugus, Mass., and James M. Wyman, of South Kingstown; and eight nieces and nephews. Visiting hours will be held on Tues., November 12, 2019, from 9-10:30 a.m. in the Avery-Storti Funeral Home, 88 Columbia St., Wakefield. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11 a.m. that same day in St. Mary Star of the Sea Church, 864 Pt. Judith Rd, Narragansett. Burial will follow in the Rhode Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Exeter. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Guiding Eyes for the Blind, 611 Granite Springs Rd., Yorktown Heights, N.Y. 10598.