Our situations change overnight sometimes. This article was orginally published in Teachers of Vision in the Spring 2010 issue. At that time I thought I would be teaching at least through 2015. That forward thinking is reflected in this article. I resisted the impulse to edit the article to reflect my retirement following Dad's stroke. Instead the article appears below as it was originally published. It serves as a reminder of how quickly and completely our goals in life can be refocused, but the timeless principles of our ancestors remain changeless and provide stability and direction no matter where we find ourselves.
A Legacy Worth Continuing
Almost
a decade is a lengthy time, especially to the young. That is the age difference
between my colleague, Dawn Thompson, and me. I first remember Dawn when she
began kindergarten at our small, rural school where I was a freshman in high
school. We had very little in common at that time, but how maturity has a way
of diminishing those age gaps. Now as we completed our fourth year of teaching
together, we comment frequently about the similarity of our teaching styles and
work ethic. We thank God daily for allowing us to be in such a mutually
affirming teaching relationship. Yet one of
our strongest threads of connection stretched
back to the distant past to the summer of 1919.
In
1919, less than a year after the end of World War I, our grandmothers had just completed a juncture of
their education. Lucy McCollough, Dawn’s grandmother, had made history in our
hometown of Ralston by earning the distinction of being the first high school
graduate of a relatively young town. My grandmother, Gladys Rainey, had completed
as she said “four years in the eighth grade.” I was baffled by that statement
as a child. Now with a better understanding of the “custom-fit” approach by
many top-notch educators teaching in those one-room schools of yesteryear, I
know she was progressing each year even though the country school was only
graded up to the eighth grade. During that time she earned the distinction of
being the county spelling bee champion.
The paths of our grandmothers crossed that summer of
1919 as they began a summer teachers training at Oklahoma A&M College in Stillwater, Oklahoma. (Its name
has since been changed to Oklahoma
State University, and coincidentally, Dawn and
I earned our degrees in education at Oklahoma State University.)
At that point in time, Oklahoma
had been a state in the Union just eleven years.
The fledgling state’s teacher training requirements allowed a prospective teacher to
attend only a three-month session as Lucy and Gladys did, pass a test, and earn
certification to teach first grade through eighth grade in the numerous
one-room schools that dotted the Oklahoma landscape in that era.
Ironically,
these two farm girls were roommates for that hot summer session. Apparently,
from stories told by Gladys, my daredevil grandmother, only the older students
living in the dormitory were entitled to ice in the evenings. Gladys, with
determination and grit, told Lucy she was going to get some ice to sustain them
through the sweltering Oklahoma heat. As Lucy, who respected rules and
authority, waited with trepidation and worry, her defiant roommate scaled a
partition and procured ice to make their evening (and many more after that)
tolerable in their dormitory room, which predated the air conditioning that we
enjoy today.
That
fall, Lucy secured a job teaching in a one-room country school. She went on to
teach at several more country schools. Dawn cherishes her deceased father’s
eighth grade diploma with her grandmother’s signature on it as his teacher.
Lucy McCollough Summy was a career woman when it was not the norm. She taught
school, was a wife in a very traditional role and reared five children. Her
marriage to Dawn’s grandfather lasted seventy-three years until her death.
On the
other hand, Gladys was offered a teaching position at a country school but was
strongly urged by her parents not to accept the job since a respected neighbor
familiar with that school’s reputation said the previous teachers “had been
beaten up and run off.” She rejected that teaching job and then began nursing
training. She married my grandfather before completing the nursing training.
Gladys Rainey Smith served tirelessly during the Great Depression providing
free of charge nursing care to those in her community. She was often away from
her home, my grandfather and my mother for days at a time. Some credited her
nursing skill with saving the lives of their children and loved ones. Although
Grandmother never used her teacher’s training professionally, she taught many
years in Sunday School and in Vacation Bible School. She quite capably balanced
her service in the Lord’s work, extensive commitment in the community and her
home with a marriage of fifty-nine years.
Dawn and I know the lives of these two women
profoundly impact us personally and professionally. Lucy’s
stamina and determination to be a
successful teacher, wife and mother provide inspiration
to Dawn who also balances these three roles. Snippets of memories such as her grandmother using a horse-drawn
wagon to manage the commute to school or
always having home cooked meals even after teaching all day strengthens Dawn in her
daily endeavors. When laundry becomes a drudgery
for Dawn, she recalls the separate wash
house behind her grandparents’ home which housed the archaic wringer-type washing machine which had been used by
her grandmother and symbolized the
laboriousness of laundry in that day and
time.
My
grandmother’s creativity in teaching is paramount in my memory. She always put
whatever effort was needed into her preparation to capture the interest and
positively impact her students in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School.
Memories of Grandmother’s determination and
persistence often drive me, in spite of fatigue, to complete one more task in
order to be prepared for the next day. Grandmother always thrived on the challenge
of reaching the most difficult child. She believed every child could learn and
achieve before it became a common philosophy in education.
The
power of these influences, dating back to 1919, propels Dawn and me to weather
the onslaught of the constantly
increasing standards by which we educate our third graders as well as the
demands to teach an insurmountable number of subjects. When called on to
implement new programs or asked to address myriad topics in limited class time,
we hearken back to the voices of wisdom and experience
from Lucy and Gladys. Whether responding to the ever-changing face of
technology in our instruction or the formidable situations in the lives of some
students, we draw strength and courage to daily live out the legacy our
grandmothers began so long ago. We each pray daily to teach, as well as live
our lives, with the purpose and fervor of two of the best teachers we ever knew.
With the bequest inherited from these two illustrious women, Dawn and I, as
twenty-first century teachers, proudly carry on this legacy of educational
excellence.
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| Photo of my grandma, Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith in her dorm room at Oklahoma A and M in 1919. |
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