[Magdalen] Gap year (or more)

[Jay Weigel]

My mother came from a family in which education was prized on both sides.
Her father was a lawyer, and the son of a schoolteacher. I don't know a
great deal about his father, who suffered from depression and was
prescribed travel as therapy, but I do know that he was educated. Education
in the Mills family had been a priority from their arrival in the colonies.
Her mother was the youngest of nine children of a country doctor, and all
those children received what, in that time, must have been a pretty stellar
education. I think three of the children became doctors, including one of
the girls, who became a surgeon and was evidently pretty good because other
doctors in Cincinnati sent their families to her. Other sons became
lawyers, one daughter became a nurse, and the two younger girls, my
grandmother and her sister Elizabeth, were teachers, at least until they
married. My mother, who was an honors graduate of the University of
Missouri, taught high school English and had started graduate school to
earn a degree in speech pathology when war broke out. After she married my
dad she went to work and never did finish that degree. We kids encouraged
her to go back when we were in junior high and high school, but she never
did. Pity, that, She'd have been good.

My other grandmother was (and I didn't know this until recently, because
she never spoke of it) a brilliant student who finished high school early
and had begun studies at the University of Chicago at the age of 16 when
she contracted meningitis. She nearly died, and as a result of the disease
she lost an eye. I don't know what other effects it may have had on her,
but she did not go back to school after that. I don't know why. I believe
she was working as a secretary when she met my grandfather, who was
introduced to her by her older brother. Grandpa had graduated from Michigan
with a degree in physics. I don't remember what he was doing in Chicago
that summer, but they liked each other right off. They married in 1910.
Grandma prized education and saw to it that her boys (my dad and his
brother) had access to books, music lessons, and the best that their
university town had to offer. She also contributed whatever she could to
the grandchildren's educational efforts and celebrated all educational
attainments. I never knew until very recently about her U. of Chicago
adventure, or that she had wanted to be a doctor. It must have been
terrible for her to see that dream smashed.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> Re:  Women and careers:
>
> My mother, daughter of Norwegian immigrants, was the first in that  family
> to graduate from college (from what is now UW-Superior).  However  every
> one of the ten children (5 boys, 5 girls) had some sort of  vocational
> training ranging from practical nursing through master machinist.
>
> Mother had one of those old "general" Wisconsin Teacher's Licenses  that
> was open ended.  She was eligible to teach ANY high school  course.
> Her real major was mathematics, which she taught from 1928 - l936
> at which time she married my father.
>
> Upon his death in 1958, she was able to snare a job at the local high
> school teaching biology, about which she knew little.  She spent a  rough
> year keeping herself just ahead of her class, and then did the summer
> school thing which filled in many of the gaps.  From all I can tell,  she
> was
> simply a great teacher, no matter what the subject, and apparently  did
> a great job in biology 1958 - 1966, at which time she retired for the
> second
> time.
>
>
> David Strang.
>