Myrtle the Teacher in 1949
Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin in 1949 at Hathaway High School in Hathaway, Louisiana.
Here is a photo of my maternal grandmother Myrtle Sylvia Phenice Bucklin. The photo was taken in 1949 when Grandma was a schoolteacher at Hathaway High School during the 1949/1950 school year. Of course she wasn’t a grandmother back then. She was just a mom to her five children. I think her oldest daughter Sylvia had graduated high school the previous school year and was just beginning college at Lafayette. My mom Betty Lou was starting her junior year of high school. She would graduate in 1951 and that was the first year that students graduated with 12 years of school instead of 11.
So does that mean that there wasn’t a graduating class of 1950? I never really thought to ask about that before. And how long did my mom’s class know that they were going to have to attend 12 years of school instead of 11 before they were able to graduate? Did they have a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years before that? Whatever it was, it was not the year my mom graduated, even though she was a year behind her sister Sylvia. My mom would have to go through another school year before she was able to graduate.
By the time her younger sisters Alma and Loris graduated, they were probably used to the idea of graduating in 12 years of school. Austin was the youngest child and the only boy. He was around 7 years old at the time this photo was taken. His only scholarly concern at that time might have been wondering if he was going to have his mother as his teacher for the third grade. That was mainly what Myrtle taught. She wanted to get those kids in their formative years and make sure that they learned how to spell correctly!
She started teaching around 1928 after getting her Teaching Certificate. She stopped when she got married in 1930 to have children and raise a family. She resumed teaching in 1945 and continued to 23 years or so. My earliest memories of her were of her being a teacher. I don’t remember ever going to her classroom like my older sister Karen did. I might have, but we tend to forget things through the years. Especially if we don’t have a photo to reinforce the memory. So that’s why I’m sharing this photo and story today. So we’ll all remember Mrs. Myrtle Bucklin, the famed 3rd grade teacher from Hathaway High School.