Tai Solarin’s Widow, Sheila, Dies at 88

Sheila Solarin

 Sheila Solarin, Humanist and co-founder of Mayflower School in Ikenne, Ogun State, and widow of the late renowned social critic, Dr. Tai Solarin, is dead.
She died at about 4.30pm Sunday afternoon at the age of 88.

The wife of the late educationist and activist, Dr. Tai Solarin, passed on at the Babcock University Teaching Hospital (BUTH), Ilisan, Ogun State of osteoporosis (weak bone).
She co-founded the famous school with her husband in 1956.

According to WIKIPEDIA,

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Sheila Mary Tuer (nee Shiela Solarin) is a Bristish woman married to the late Tai Solarin. She was recently an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 October 2007 for services to education in Nigeria. She currently runs Mayflower School on behalf of her late husband Tai Solarin

Nigeria.Sheila met her husband while both were in the forces following the World War II.

In 1952 they decided to move to his native Nigeria, and both worked in Molusi College ijebu Igbo

But they disagreed with the politics of the day and religious discrimination in schools, and decided to build their own in a town called Ikenne.

On 27 January 1956, Tai Solarin and his wife founded the first and only secular school in Nigeria, Mayflower School, Ikenne, Ogun State.

The Students' Second Home was established by Sheila and her husband in 1977, a boarding house which serves more than two thousand students of the three public high schools in Ikenne town. Also complementing the now state-owned Mayflower School, was the establishment of the privately owned Mayflower Junior School, the primary school arm of the Mayflower institution, a citadel of secular education for self-reliance and all round excellence.

Using breeze blocks made from clay they constructed two classrooms, each able to accommodate 36 pupils.The student also helped in construction of more class rooms .

"They had their bunks at the back of the class, and the desks at the front'" said Sheila who has been an English teacher for 50 years. "We didn't ask anybody what their ethnic background or religion was, we simply wanted to provide an education for all the children in the area."

Sheila and her husband had two children Corin and Tunde Solarin

The school became more popular, and Sheila and her husband were forced to extend, making it one of the biggest in the country.

They even made the furniture on site, much of it using wood from trees Sheila planted herself.

She currently runs Mayflower School on behalf of her late husband Tai Solarin. Sheila officially retired two years ago at 80 and passed much of the responsibility on to her children. She passed away on Sunday, 21st of October, 2012 at the age of 82.