Transcription
Irene, - Note Miss Mitchell’s address on last page. I thought you, too, might want to write to her.
Bill
January 15, 1948
Dear Miss Mitchell:
I want you to know what a feeling of real satisfaction it is giving me to be writing you this letter. Except for a chance meeting with a niece of yours who gave me your address, I wouldn’t be writing this letter, for though I have often thought of you and would like to have written to you, I have not known of your whereabouts.
Last Saturday at the Cleveland Skating Club I met Mrs. Hollie Williams (Sarah Keating) when I was with Mr. & Mrs. Hayes Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins mentioned that I had been recently elected as a member of the Akron Board of Education, which started us talking on school matters, and Mrs. Williams asked me if I remembered Sarah Mitchell, one of the teachers down at Bowen School when I was a boy. My exclamation at the mention of your name and my remarks about my many fond memories of you showed Mrs. Williams how highly I have regarded you all of these years. I plied her with questions about you and was very pleased to hear everything she told me.
I think it’s wonderful that at your age you are still active in your profession and are doing tutoring work – and that you are in good health which permits you to lead an active life. Father, at 88 years of age, still comes down to the office every day. I am sorry that I can’t say that he is in good health, but at least he is aware of his physical limitations and leads a relatively quiet life, not participating in many social functions in the evening. Uncle Charlie, as you may know, came to the end of his very active life a year ago last September. Unlike Father, he refused to admit that he was getting old – refused to recognize any physical limitations – with the result that he was active in civic affairs and in social life right up to a few days before his death.
You will be interested to know that quite a few members of our family have gone into the teaching profession. My youngest brother Franklin is now head of the Fine Arts Department down at Ohio State. My oldest brother Fred has a daughter teaching English in a girls boarding school near Baltimore. Irene has a daughter who took a teaching course at Syracuse University and is now in her first year of teaching at a public school on Long Island. Virginia has a son who is taking post-graduate work at Harvard preparing to become a college professor in English. As for my own immediate family, our oldest daughter majored in teaching at Oberlin. Originally she intended to become a kindergarten teacher and then changed to first grade. She is teaching at the Westtown School, a Quaker school near Philadelphia, and is most enthusiastic over her work. Her first year of teaching has convinced her beyond a doubt that she would much prefer to be teaching little children rather than high school or college students. Later on we expect to have a college professor in the family in the person of our daughter’s husband. In her junior year at Oberlin she started going with John Shaw, the son of the Dean of the Music Conservatory. Throughout their senior year they were together almost daily and this last Christmas announced their engagement at the family Christmas celebration over at Father’s. For years I have been the one to dress up as Santa Claus and perform for the children at our big family gathering, so this year we used my Santa Claus act as the means of popping the surprise on the family. Attached is copy of the wire that Santa read to the gathering of over fifty relatives assembled at Stan Hywet.
Now to touch on how you have been in my thoughts all of these years: I have a copy of an address delivered by Dr. Park to some 6,000 school teachers at a convention in Boston. The following is quoted from that address:
“The real ends of teaching are brought about by exposing a student to the influence of a great teacher. I have never been in a group discussing education where somebody didn’t say something to the effect that he owed all he was to that wonderful teacher he had in the eighth grade or the second year of high school. The thing most of us remember best about our own education is the one or two really fine teachers we had. Unfortunately we remember very little about the courses we took.”
Naturally I remember very little about what was taught to me in the first grade or the third grade or the eighth grade. However, I do remember very distinctly that the high point of my years in the grade schools was my year in the sixth grade. I don’t remember particularly what I learned in the sixth grade except that I have a faint recollection that was when I had my introduction to the decimal system in arithmetic, but I do remember how my sixth grade teacher was my favorite teacher up until that time and how she has remained my favorite teacher ever since. I had several wonderful teachers at Lawrenceville and Princeton, who I know had a real influence upon me during my years in preparatory school and college. In the case of these professors I remember not only the personality of the professors but also the subjects they taught.
My biology, psychology, ethics and English were all favorite courses with me largely because of the personalities of the professors teaching these courses. But in your case I do not remember what you taught me in reading, writing and arithmetic. I just remember you. I know that you made me like to go to school. It is entirely possible that one of the reasons why I got so much out of my years away from home in preparatory school and college and why I still have a very strong attachment to Lawrenceville and Princeton and am a steady attendant at our Class Reunions is that when I was 11 and 12 years of age you helped me to discover how much a boy can get out of his school life. It may be that you planted seeds in my subconscious mind that are responsible now for my interest in the cause of the teaching profession, which has resulted in my becoming a member of our Board of Education.
I don’t know whether you have any friends or relatives in Akron whom you visit occasionally, but if you should be coming over to Akron, I wish you would phone me, for I would treasure the opportunity of having a visit with you.
It is my many happy memories of my year in room no. 6 at Bowen School that prompts me to sign this letter
Affectionately,
Willard Seiberling
w
Miss Sarah Mitchell
3019 3109 Volney Road
Youngstown, OhioTranscriber
Cindi RokeLanguage
English
