Zeola Lorraine Cohen Jones, a one-time teacher of the year and a member of the family that founded Overtown's historic A.M. Cohen Temple Church of God In Christ, died Aug. 7. She was 83.

The cause was lung cancer, according to her daughter, Stephanie Renee Bromfield-Warnell of Pembroke Pines, although she ``never, ever smoked.'' Doctors found an inoperable tumor six weeks ago.

Jones, a Miami native, taught for 42 years before retiring in 1995. She was Miami-Dade County's Teacher of the Year in 1979.

She was the daughter of railroad worker Paul Cohen and ``Mother'' Nancy Cohen-Miles, a pioneer of A.M. Cohen Temple -- a domestic worker with a ninth-grade education who insisted that her daughter and son go to college.

Jones attended Phyllis Wheatley Elementary and Booker T. Washington High schools before winning a scholarship to Bethune-Cookman College.

She graduated summa cum laude in 1948 and the following New Year's Eve wed Arthur Jones in the basement of Cohen Temple.

She earned advanced degrees from Barry University and Florida International University.

After Arthur Jones died in 2000, Zeola Jones moved from Miami to her daughter's home, where she died.

A reading specialist, Jones began her teaching career at what was then Liberty City Primary School. She went on to teach at Frederick Douglas Elementary, and was handpicked to join Charles R. Drew's inaugural staff. The elementary school opened in 1968 with an integrated faculty -- though all the students were black.

White students came in the 1980s, when Drew became an arts magnet school.

Retired principal Fred Morley said parents ``from all over Dade County'' clamored to get their children into her class.

``You've heard of magnet schools? She was a magnet teacher,'' he said. ``She didn't use corporal punishment, but she talked with the students just like a mother would. They knew what to expect when they got there.''

She'd close every school year with a musical production in which every student had a role, Morley said.

``The parents really looked forward to that.''

He'd always send new teachers to observe her class, he said, to see how it should be done.

Her daughter -- a former broadcaster who runs a public-relations firm -- took her fourth-grade reading class, in which ``you could hear a pin drop.''

Acutely aware that many of her students came from impoverished households, ``Mom used to bring her students home and wash their hair and their clothes,'' her daughter said. ``She'd buy extra cereal and milk for the students because she knew they didn't have breakfast.''

While trying to shield her from the insults of segregation, Warnell said, her mother instilled the attitude that ``you never judge people by what you see.''

And she continued to educate at the church after she left school.

``She encouraged the computer program at the church to bridge the digital divide. Most of these kids don't have computers at home.''

In addition to her daughter, Jones is survived by son Arthur Stephen Jones, an Atlanta filmmaker, and brother Ernest Lee Oliver of Tacoma, Wash.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church of Carol City with burial at Dade Memorial Park.

She'll be wearing pink and green, her daughter said, the colors of her sorority: Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Endowed Scholarship for Zeola Cohen Jones at Bethune-Cookman University.