This one was special
June 1, 2011 (Wednesday)
Last evening I got an email from Jo Ann Morgan that included an article about Mrs. Bertha Harper. It had been published many years ago when Mrs. Harper retired from teaching. Jo Ann said Mrs. Harper taught both her parents, her siblings and her as well, and would have taught their children had she not retired. Here’s part of the newspaper article about her:
To make the pupil her friend was of paramount importance to Mrs. Harper. Her success as a teacher has been because of an understanding and sympathetic attitude.
When asked what special spell she had cast over each child to make her a favorite teacher with each new group of students, she replied:
“My pupils love me because I make them mind and because I am interested in their problems which I endeavor to help them solve. When I promise a child something, I never break that promise. I love those pupils from “Way Back” down to last year’s third grade students and will always love them and be interested in them. I have always felt my responsibility to youth because a teacher deals with the minds and hearts from which the future of a world is made.”
Bertha Harper was an active member of First Baptist Church of Rockport and taught Sunday School there for many, many years. Her Sunday School classroom was at the top of the steeple of the old building at the corner of Main and South Live Oak Streets. She died in 1978.