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Along Life’s Way
Josephine: My
Educator Mother
By Lois E. Wilson
My mother, Josephine, was born at Somerset, Indiana. She was the third
child and the oldest girl of eleven children. At age twelve, on
Saturdays, she worked for others doing a washboard laundry for 25
cents. Her high school years she worked for four families in the area.
She was determined to go to college. The sorority of one of her
employers loaned her $200 and she received a $165 scholarship. The rest
of her college money she borrowed from the bank. She completed a 2-year
teacher training program at Manchester College, Indiana. Twenty years
later, she earned a Bachelor Degree from the University of Dayton.
In 1926, because she was married, she was unable to get a teaching
position in Dayton, Ohio. She worked several years as a receptionist
for two different companies. She heard of a first-grade opening at
Drexel School near Dayton. She told the superintendent that she had
taught the kindergarten at college and had a great desire to make
teaching her career. She visited with his small children, and their
positive response to a story she told them convinced him to hire her.
She taught first grade for 33 years at Drexel and Dayton schools. Often
college students from U.D. and Central State University did their
practice teaching with her. She authored three books on methods of
teaching children to read. At different times, she served as President
of the Dayton Classroom Teachers’ Assn. and Vice President of the
Dayton School Board.
Going through her notes, I found her recollections:
A boy had come out of the restroom unzipped. She told him the problem.
He replied, “Teacher, I have a weak zipper!” One day she asked the
class, “Who knows what a tie is?” A boy answered, “It is a rag that you
put around your neck, and it is neat.”
She drew on the chalkboard a number of tails then asked the class,
“What animal does the tail belong to and how does the animal use it?”
She told how the mother deer holds her tail up to warn of danger. The
fawn sees the white side and stays quiet until the tail is down. She
explained the opossum puts its tail up over its back and the babies
lock their tails around it so that they don’t fall off. A boy
exclaimed, “My goodness! I didn’t know tails were so handy!”
During a Red Cross drive, she asked the students to help others by
giving to the organization even if they could only bring a penny. A boy
raised his hand, “Teacher, I can bring lots of money. My daddy has two
big cans full hidden in the attic.”
Mother never had to worry about her future security. One six-year-old
told her, “Mrs. Groff, I love you so much that I will never forget you.
And when I get to be a chemist, I am going to give you $3000 dollars!”
She didn’t collect on his offer, but she was easily reelected to the
Dayton School Board. I would guess many of those votes were from her
former students and those people whose lives she touched through the
years.
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