By Mary Cristy
Despite my children’s firm conviction that I was a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, who trudged dirt roads and wooden sidewalks to arrive at a one-room schoolhouse with wooden benches and isinglass windows, presided over by a trapped spinster, I cherish a treasure chest of memories of my “golden rule days” and teachers who made a difference.
In grade school there was Miss Koch with the neat bob, trim figure and encouraging smile. From the moment she read “The Courtin,”a lyric poem of a handsome swain and the gingham-clad miss he yearned for through Sunday sermons when he obsessed over her “new meetin’ bonnet,” and the pretty face it framed, I was hooked.
On promotion day I cried. Miss Koch dried my parting tears and let me keep her fine lavender-scented handkerchief “for remembrance.” In my autograph book she wrote, “There are better fish in the sea, than those that are caught!”
I didn’t believe I’d ever find another fish like Miss Koch, with her flair for poetry that rhymed and sang in my heart every step of the long way home. (And left me with a lifelong fondness for the scent of lavender.)
“Loretto” (with an “O”) Houlihan was as different from dainty Miss Koch as a peacock from a hummingbird. I almost dropped my books the morning I walked into class to be stunned by a cumulus cloud of flaming red hair that framed blowsy red cheeks and mouth, in a broad face. Doubting my senses, I watched her large hands plunge into a makeup kit of brushes, blushers and powders and tame those rampant locks with a scarf. “Saves sleeping time,” she explained, “if I do myself after, instead of before, I arrive.”
Some, there were, who suspected Loretto enlivened the kit with a supply of spirits. Others attributed that rumor to mindless gossip. But no one ever saw her take a swig, and she was highly regarded by her peers.
When she brought Shakespeare to life, reading Shylock one day and Juliet the next, we saw a thespian who’d missed her calling, and we thanked whatever kindly Muse had brought her to us.
Miss Thrall, who, like my platinum-haired grandmother, stood 4-feet-10 in her stockinged feet, was more in keeping with our expectations as high school seniors. We had to behave with dignity and decorum for Miss Thrall, who sounded warnings about our fate in a depressed economy after graduation. In her class we would address each other as “Miss” and “Mister.” A confirmed and content spinster, she presided over us watchfully.
Ever alert to what she deemed our raging hormones, she taught us gently but firmly the value of our innocence.
In many ways Miss Thrall was as committed to the preservation of our virginity as Papa, with his three daughters.
When she intercepted a note from a boy to a girl she confiscated it as, with no hint of malice or triumph, she cautioned the offenders. “Miss Roberts, don’t be conscious of Mr. Seeper. Mr. Seeper, don’t be conscious of Miss Roberts.”
It was Miss Thrall who chose my entry for first prize in the senior class story writing contest and validated my dream of free-lance writing when, after reading my script aloud to the student body, she predicted happily, “Miss Ferrari will be a writer!”
Some years later, when my submissions began to appear in national magazines, I tried to find her, to tell her what that had meant to me. But she had moved on and left no forwarding address.
Still, she remains in my memory, with others who touched the lives of students with their special gifts and left a legacy of caring and wisdom, upon which those who followed could build.
