The gift of teachers: special mentors create a lasting impact on the lives of students
(The Criterion has invited our readers to share a special thank you with someone who has influenced their lives in a positive and powerful way. Here is the second part of a continuing series. See part one | See part three)
By John Shaughnessy
Looking back on his conversations with his favorite teacher in high school, Russ Jenkins still marvels that the man never mentioned the success he had in basketball at Indiana University.
Instead, the teacher kept the conversations focused on Jenkins and his life.
“His name was James Gridley,” notes Jenkins, a member of St. Mary Parish in Rushville and a graduate of Rushville Consolidated High School. “He was my physical science teacher during the early 1970s. We would speak about basketball and life in general every day. He also encouraged me and had positive things to say to me. He was a great mentor to me without me even knowing it.”
Jenkins also didn’t know about Gridley’s accomplishments in basketball, as he never shared them.
“It was years after my high school days that I found out that he was a triple letter earner for Indiana University basketball, played for Branch McCracken’s 1940 IU national championship team, and was a starter in 1941,” Jenkins notes. “He had played four years at Vevay High School in southern Indiana.”
In 1984, Gridley was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, three years after he died.
There was also another important point that Jenkins didn’t know about Gridley for a long time.
“His influence on my life continued after high school, and I was unaware of that for over 20 years,” Jenkins recalls.
“At the end of my summer in the year I graduated from high school, I applied for a job at our local REMC electric company. I put Mister Gridley down as a reference. Little did I know that he was friends with the CEO of the company. He gave me a great reference, and I was hired. After a 44-year career with the company, I retired.
“I just want to say thank you to my teacher and friend, the late Mister Jim Gridley.”
The art of making a thank-you special
Dennis Brake has a great sense of humor, but he also acknowledges that he tends to put things off far longer than he should—a combination that helps explain his very belated thank-you to the Sisters of Providence who taught him at St. Joan of Arc School in Indianapolis.
“If I followed Emily Post’s etiquette rules, this thank-you note I am finally writing would be about
seven decades past due,” notes Brake, who graduated from the school in 1961. “As one Sister told me repeatedly, I need to pray to St. Anthony de Padua. He will help me find my punctuality. Unfortunately, I did not even know what the word punctuality meant.”
Even though his thank-you is late, it exudes sincerity.
“I was most fortunate to attend St. Joan of Arc (SJA) Grade School all eight years. For seven of those eight years, I was privileged to be taught by Providence nuns. One piece of advice I recall hearing from all the sisters was to not be stingy with thank-yous. Make sure to acknowledge how much you appreciate people. And to make the thank-you extra special, always make it personal by using their names.”
At this point in his note, Brake shares the names of the Providence sisters who shaped his education at St. Joan: Sister Ann Veronica, Sister Mary Mildred, Sister Ann Carol, Sister Loretta Marie, Sister Mary Justina, Sister Gertrude Ann, Sister Laurine Marie, Sister Marcella and Sister Mary Leo.
“You have all ‘gone before us’ and are now enjoying the heavenly rewards you so rightly deserve,” Brake notes. “You ladies made indelible marks on your students’ souls, giving us wisdom and strength to meet the challenges we would encounter following our SJA tenure. We thank you sincerely from the bottom of our hearts. Please keep us in your prayers as we will remember you in ours.”
He also shared one stunning statistic about the Providence sisters from that era.
“To give you an illustrative example of how hard those nuns worked, the 1961 class contained 108 graduates, one of the largest graduating classes in the history of the Indianapolis Archdiocese. But there were only two classrooms. That’s 54 kids per classrooms. When people hear that, their first question is, ‘How did they do it!?!’
“The answer is very simple: Providence. They were Providence nuns.”
A powerful combination
The combination of faith-filled parents and dedicated Catholic school teachers who live their faith has long been the Church’s foundation of educating younger generations.
Nancy Hearne-Wesseler is ever grateful for that powerful combination in her life.
“I am child number eight of 10, and we were all raised at St. Philip Neri Parish in Indianapolis, and we all graduated from the school as well,” says Hearne-Wesseler, the daughter of Edward and Leona Hearne. “I feel so blessed to have had the parents I had.”
She feels the same way about her second-grade teacher, Demia Markey.
“She was a stern teacher, but tender-hearted at the same time. She had a great love for Jesus, and she taught that to us every day in class,” she says about that school year in 1967-68. “She always took time to explain Jesus’ ways.”
She remembers how Markey took her students into church during Lent to explain the Stations of the Cross and how she emphasized the importance of Christmas and Easter.
“I always get emotional on those days as she comes to mind the most,” Hearne-Wesseler says. “I often think back and thank God for putting her in the school and in my life. I miss her and my parents. I was so blessed.” †