Myrtle Phenice Bucklin in 1945

I’ve used this photo of my maternal grandmother before, but that was 10 years ago.  I’ve decided that I can reuse some of those old photos from before if it has been a while.  This one qualifies.  Besides, it’s a wonderful photo of her.  I’ve acquired a few more photos of her in the time I’ve been collecting old family photos, but this one is still a favorite.  So, I decided to give it a fresh upgrade with the updated photo software that has developed in that time.  I didn’t really change it that much, but I did get rid of a few distracting errors on it.  It’s the new and improved Myrtle.  I hope you like it, Grandma!

And this time around I’ll write a bit more than before.  That first post using this photo was only as long as that first paragraph.  So now you get more of everything!  And the price has not gone up during the past ten years!  How many things can you say that about?  

My grandmother’s name was Myrtle Sylvia Phenice when she was born on December 19, 1906, in Hathaway, Louisiana.  Her parents were Harry Clifton Phenice (1874-1955), and Daisy Henrietta Martha Keys (1876-1952).   She graduated from Jennings High School in 1925.  She went to Southwestern Louisiana Institute (SLI) after that and received her teaching certificate (good for life) in 1928.  She taught for two years, got married to Fred Bucklin, and then stopped teaching when she started having children in 1931.

She and Fred had five children together: Syvia in 1931, Betty Lou (my wonderful mom) in 1933, Alma in 1935, Loris in 1937, and Austin in 1942.  When Austin was a few years old, she went back to teaching.  Or so the story goes!  When I posted this photo before, Aunt Loris agreed that the photo was from 1945.  It was supposedly the first year that Grandma went back to teaching.  Aunt Loris even sent me a photo of her own class in 1945 when Grandma was her teacher.  It looked like the same age as this photo.  The photo shows that they were in the 3rd grade, which is the grade that she always seemed to be associated with.  In Grandma’s history from her memorial, it showed that she returned to teaching in 1946.  Ok.

But then I was looking at something my mom wrote on the posts that I put together for Mom’s Memories.  On page 19 she said that Grandma was her teacher in the 6th grade.  She said it was a trying year and that it was “not fun at all!”  I’ve always felt the same way about having my dad for a teacher.  Everyone else says how wonderful he was – “He was a legend.” – but I didn’t experience it that way.  Anyway, when I was looking at this other piece of information tonight, I was wondering when Mama was actually in the 6th grade. 

So, I did some ciphering.  If she was in 12th grade in 1950-1951, that would put her in the 6th grade from 1944 to 1945.   I wonder if that was correct.  If so, Grandma’s first year back wasn’t in 1945 or 1946.  When I was trying to clear it up, I looked at the 1951 Hathaway Hornet yearbook.  It was mom’s senior year, and Grandma was a teacher that year.  But she wasn’t teaching third grade, she was teaching fourth grade.  Maybe it was because Austin was in the third grade.  Or maybe it was before she settled into teaching third grade regularly.

I’d still like to know for sure if my mom had her mother as her teacher in the 6th grade in 1944.  If you have a Hathaway Hornet yearbook from that year, send me a shot of my mom in her class.  That would be an amazing thing to see.  I have some of her later class photos, but I’m always interested in seeing more.