Diversions and Other Random Thoughts
We had an old friend, a school teacher from La Crosse, Wisconsin, who taught Junior High School and Senior High School for many year. Mrs. Spence passed away back in the 1980s, but she left behind quite a legacy.
You need to know that Mrs. Spence was a remarkable woman. She was the first licensed, female pilot in Wisconsin. Her travels literally took her around the world, even to a remarkable, if little known, city in Eritrea (more on this in a future post).
One of my favorite stories about her, and one that demonstrates what an amazing person she was, was the series of events that ended her career as an English teacher. Late one spring in the 1950s, she was presented with the opportunity to teach High School Spanish. There was, however, one problem: She did not speak Spanish.
That summer, she got books and recordings, and learned Spanish. Remember, this was in the days before multi-media and language technologies, so this was no easy feat, particularly in white-middle-class Wisconsin. She learned Spanish, and then traveled, unaccompanied, to both Spain and Mexico to ensure that she knew the language well enough to teach it. She did, and the rest is history.
I still enjoy going through parts of her library. A few weeks back, I stumbled across a book she owned, called Look! Here’s London. This book dates from Mrs. Spence’s Junior-High-English-Teacher days. It tells the story of a young girl named Sue, and her adventures in London. The wonderful thing about the book, however, is that the bulk of the story takes place in London before WWII, so the book describes a piece of cultural history that is long gone. The final third of the book recounts her return to London after the war, and the impact that the bombings had on that historic city.
Okay, I know, it’s a kids book. And it was probably written for young girls. But was a wonderful escape into a world that, by and large, no longer exists.
Libraries are dumping this kind of book because such literature is no longer relevant, whatever that means. Recently, I’ve managed to salvage a book by W.H Hudson, entitled The Green Mansions, as well as a historical essay on early New England Life. Frankly, these finds are good news for me, but not good news for the people who will never discover them. Our local library is full of popular paperbacks, pulp fiction, and light-as-a-feather non-fiction (How to Make Your Own Little Round Circles Using Only A Paper Punch and Paper and How to Get Rich By Making More Money Than Other People). The argument is that this is what people want. Maybe so, but a library with no Hemingway, Milton, or MacDonald?
And speaking of Hemingway, why, when I searched Amazon for “Farewell to Arms,” did it offer the Cliff’s Notes as the first choice? Sorry, Ernie, you’ve been downsized.
The upshot of all this. If you have a Mrs. Spence in your life, don’t wait until she’s gone to thank her for her influence. My Mrs. Spence always intimidated me. By the time I was in school, she was retired, but she still carried herself with an almost regal air about her. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized how much she loved our family and how great her devotion was to us. Her influence has made my life far richer.
I’m still reading her books, and remembering her fondly.
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