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Friday, April 06, 2001 Dear Folks,
As a further note on my Mother's teaching career, my Mother resumed teaching school three years after my birth, at the white, three room, two story frame school in Cedar City. She was first thru third grade teacher and principal, and her co-teachers were Mrs. Vivian McClure of Cedar City (4th thru 6th), and Mrs. Helen Brakke of Jefferson City (7th thru 8th). My Mother remained there from 1948 until I started in the 2nd grade, which was 1952, where she started teaching and was principal at the three room school at Holt's Summit, Missouri. I distinctly remember entering the Old Cedar City School across the street and diagonally across the street from the churches in Cedar City before school started after the flood of 1951 (I was almost 6 years old). The thing that strikes me most about it was the deep bed of slimy mud and the high water mark on the large potbellied coal stove in the first floor classroom was about eight feet, even though the floor was about 4 foot above ground level. During the evacuation of Cedar City I remember my Mother on the slopes of the 600 block of Broadway Street meeting boat loads of people evacuated from Cedar City and she worked most of the night finding them housing in the Jefferson City area. In 1957 she started teaching in the Jefferson City Public Schools, starting one year at Southwest School and sixteen years at Moreau Heights School. In all, I think that she had a total of 41 years of teaching and only gained her B.S. Degree in Education in approximately 1965. If there is anyone in the family that I would really want to document, it would be both my Mother and Father for their contributions to the community in the area of Education. Sincerely yours, Wayne E. Johnson |
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The attached photo was taken at Guthrie School, Guthrie, Missouri, sometime between 1934 and 1945. My Mother, Margaret Romaine Foster Johnson started her teaching career at age 17 on a Teaching Certificate at Guthrie School. She taught there continuously until just before my birth in 1945. During that period of time she had a number of children start and graduate eighth grade under her tutelage. This picture is of my Mother, Betty Yancey(?), and Donald Mirts, and was probably taken about 1938 on the occasion of their graduation from eighth grade at Guthrie School. Donald Mirts was honored at Kingdom Days in the early 1980's and he in turn recognized my Mother, called her forward (though she was severely handicapped) and presented her with a framed copy of this picture. I can remember my Mother recounting the days during the Great Depression when she was the only person in a family of five that was fortunate enough to have a job and that her teaching job at Guthrie supported them for over a year until her Father obtained work.