Garfield Grade School, Third Grade:The Formative Years

I am in the first row, second from the left.

In two of the three photos I am next to Kathleen Wilcox, who emailed the pictures to me. The Moline High class of 66 is not well represented on Facebook, but that may change slowly.

All my teachers in the Moline system were excellent, devoted to their vocations and their students. Moline was rather small, with a population of 40,000, so people knew each other's families. The teachers were close-knit, so they all knew me. Spy cameras are pretty crude compared to a flock of watchful teachers all over town.

We enjoyed the perks of a private school without the cost. Discipline was swift and sure, so it was seldom needed. Here is one case.

A boy spit at another boy. My mother (his teacher) said, "Spit on my hand, Bob." He said, "Why?" She said, "Never mind. Spit on my hand." He spit. "Spit more." He did as he was told. "Spit more." He did, knowing something was up. She then smeared it all over his face. As my friend told me the story, he added, "Bob never spit again."

At our 40th reunion, the spitter, now a lawyer in a big city, said, "Greg. You should write a book about your mother. She was a remarkable teacher."

Garfield Grade School in Moline, Illinois

I am on the extreme right, first row. Do stripes make me look fat?

Miss Hallie Emory was our fifth grade teacher. I learned later that she never finished her college degree. In the early days, teachers went to the Normal School (in Normal Illinois) for a year and often taught in one-room country schools. My mother did that but slowly earned her degree at Augustana College in Rock Island, later a master's at the University of Illinois. She often talked about teaching all grades in a one-room country school.

Miss Emory loved kids and also made them behave. She was proud of how she looked at a student once and made me choke on the candy he was trying to eat furtively. One basilisk stare from Miss Emory was enough to turn all of us into jelly.