Mama said, number three

The Job She Never Wanted

In my adult years there have been several times when friends since childhood have told me that my mother was the best teacher they ever had or their favorite teacher.  I thank them for their kind words and don’t tell them that she never wanted to be a teacher.

My mother was born in 1910.  As she grew up all she ever wanted to do was be a nurse.  Her mother, a minister’s wife, did not think that nursing was a suitable career for a lady and insisted that she become a teacher.  So she earned her bachelor’s degree and became a teacher, first in a one-room schoolhouse, then a couple of years later teaching fifth grade in a city school. 

During the summers she had a wide variety of jobs including selling taffy on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and driving a professor and his wife on a cross-country tour of the United States.  Her stories of the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns whetted my appetite for travel.

During the early years of her teaching career my mother took flying lessons, worked part time as a buyer for a department store, and got qualified as a beautician.

Finally, finally, after her mother died, my mother became able to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse.  She was accepted as a nursing student at Johns Hopkins.  She was 32 years old, tall blond, and beautiful and in her first year of nurse’s training when she met my father, a dashing Army Master Sergeant. 

They fell in love and got married and “pop” the nursing dream was over.  Married women were not allowed to study to be nurses.

Years passed.  Ten years and three children later, my father decided to become an independent contractor, meaning that the family income was not always predictable.  My mother went back to teaching – third and fourth graders at our small parochial school.  She was an amazing teacher and her students loved her.

When I became a teacher (I think she had secretly hoped I might become a nurse) I asked her for her secret of being such a good teacher.  Her answer “I find something to love about every student.”