Adults who influenced our lives
Editor’s note: We asked Tribune readers to share their stories of adults (teachers, coaches, neighbors), other than their parents, who had a big impact their lives as children. Following are some of those stories.
A friendship with reading
In the mid 1960s, growing up in Skokie, my best friend at St. Joan of Arc School, Mary Eileen Kelly, had a mom who took me and my sister along on monthly visits to Skokie Public Library. I remember the early sense of well-being, pulling a “just right” book off the shelf, and the silent car rides home, three of us reading to ourselves.
Those trips fostered a friendship with reading that feeds a therapeutic sense of wonder and awe, not to mention knowledge, 45 years and counting.
One day, a well-meaning librarian reprimanded me for answering a question put to my kid sister, and Mrs. Kelly shot her a look that restored instant peace at the checkout counter.
Many years later, in one of many conversations with my own mother about our favorite books, Mom said, “Pat Kelly did the kindest thing anybody could ever do for any of my children by taking you to the library with her every month.”
Mary’s mom was patient and kind — always. We had the best sleepovers at her house. I got to go on long bike rides to Gillson Park in Wilmette for picnics with just the three of us. And back in their kitchen, her mom let us help her make batches of Mother Kelly’s Homemade Jellies.
Whether a trip to Santa’s Village, a performance at a nearby school or a swim at a country club, Mrs. Kelly’s sense of fun made life magical.
— Mary Jane O’Rourke Graff, Naperville
A favorite teacher and friend
Ron Smowton was my seventh-grade teacher and my friend. The school was Van Vlissingen Elementary School on Chicago’s South Side in 1968.
He was such an amazing teacher in a time of amazing change.
We were required to memorize a poem a week — half were his choice (long), half were our choice (short) — and recite it to him one-on-one before or after school started. To this day, four decades later, “Double, double, toil and trouble,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and more are etched into my brain.
Ron was physically fit with a great sense of humor. We thought we were tough kids, then Leonard Golucky said something and Ron picked up one of the toughest kids in the class by the shirt collar and put him into the blackboard. We all liked Ron the day before; we liked him even more after that.
His crazy science experiments that no one will forget, his desk piled high with stuff, our field trip to the Goodman Theatre simply due to the fact that he could not believe any of us had not been there. His constant nagging for us to tuck in our shirts. His famous quips (“feeding time at the zoo” when we scrambled out for lunch).
During high school Ron remained a friend and mentor to a smaller group of us. Famous taco parties at his house. Weekend trips to a cottage in Michigan. He sold me his 1964 Cutlass convertible for $1. Day trips here and there, and on and on.
We celebrated our 40th reunion with our first-ever get-together.
Many of you don’t know what it was like on the South Side of Chicago back then. People were moving out; people were moving in. Many of us didn’t attend the same high school or hadn’t seen each other in 40 years. I was able to find Ron out East and he was eager to come to the reunion. It was wonderful.
At one point Ron was standing in the corner of the room (the only adult in the room, as he put it). I was talking to a classmate who had not seemed to age a bit. She said Smowton was the best. I agreed and told her he was standing over in the corner. She looked over and began to cry.
— Mike Marggraf, Mokena
Inspirational teacher
I graduated from Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields in 1981, having studied French with the fascinating Madame Gertrude McCarthy. This woman literally helped me get through my agonizing years of high school with heartfelt concern, unwavering support and, most important, with the most divine and surreal sense of humor.
Maybe she was born in the same hospital as Coco Chanel; she wore lived-in but clearly well-made pantsuits, smoked like a chimney and kept a very stern look on her face. But she was the funniest and most inspirational teacher I ever had.
She embraced her French students and shared her life like no other.
I left high school with more than a working knowledge of French and can still converse respectably in French to this day, many decades later. I know she has passed away, but to her spirit, I say, “Merci, Madame.”
— Liisa Gary, Arlington Heights
Great advice
As an 11-year-old, I was very nervous. I had been teased and ridiculed from about age 5. I wore glasses and was chubby, lacking in self-confidence.
That summer, my eye doctor said I must have surgery on my left eye. No glasses, etc., would help it. After the surgery, I had to go to Dr. Rochte’s office twice a day to do special exercises to train my eyes to work together again instead of having double vision.
One summer morning, I walked into the doctor’s office. When he said, “How are you today Karen?” I burst into tears. I told him how my parents had fought all night and I heard them saying terrible things to each other.
He patted my hand and said something that has stayed with me for 70 years: “One of these days, Karen, you will look at your parents and think, ‘They are the children and I am the adult.'”
Thank you, Dr. Rochte. That phrase has stayed with me and gone on to all my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. No advice ever meant more.
— Karen Lewis, Elgin
Introduction to Christianity
Eighteen months after graduating from a public high school, I had a chance encounter with Mr. Clark, my old guidance counselor. In what might have been a fishing expedition, he asked me who my most influential teacher was.
“Mr. Eitmueller,” I replied.
He then asked if it had anything to do with Christianity. It did.
I was a teenager in the ’70s and had succumbed to many of its temptations. As a student of Mr. Eitmueller, he was well-aware of the resulting changes in me, and it seems, of my potential. When he told me I’d be receiving a failing grade in his class, I asked if there was anything that could be done (you know, to fix that).
There was. If I agreed to read the Gospel of John that summer, he would agree to elevate my failing grade to passing.
Certain I had just made a great deal, I walked away quite pleased with myself.
As agreed, he passed me.
As agreed, I read the Gospel of John. By summer’s end, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.
Thirty-seven years later, I can still point to Mr. Eitmueller as the most influential teacher in my life.
I can’t imagine that happening today.
But what I can imagine is how often it should happen but doesn’t.
— Ed Leighton, Chicago
