After a year of preschool and a year of kindergarten at the Meadowbrook Montessori School, I went to first grade at Elmwood Elementary School in the Avondale School District. The school was literally across the street from my house, so I was a "walker" instead of a "bus kid". My mom could watch me walk from our door to the school door - and probably did. My first public school teacher was Theresa Bauer, and she was wonderful.
Mrs. Bauer actually enjoyed teaching children and it showed. She wrote in my report card at the end of the school year: "Wendy reads at a 6th grade level. She has read numerous books this year besides completing level 15 in the MacMillan Reading Series. She has done beautifully in all areas." I remember watching her from the back of the classroom as she taught. One time I hadn't blinked in a while, and Mrs. Bauer started to look smaller and smaller, like she (and everything around her) was shrinking. My six-year old mind went right to "going blind," and I told Mrs. Bauer what was happening and, as I recall, she had no idea what to do with that information. She just told me what an amazing thing that was, and moved on. I was probably dehydrated (as I was for most of my school years) and it affected my vision. That was probably the event that made me start to realize that I was just not made to think like everyone else. I mostly tried to keep my weird idiosyncrasies to myself after that.
Mrs. Bauer missed one day the entire school year. I know this, 46 years later, because I was wholeheartedly devastated when I showed up for school and she didn't. The substitute, whose name I cannot remember but whose face is still clear to me today, had zero control of the classroom. The loss of control may have been contributed to by me, wailing and sobbing because my beautiful and understanding teacher was missing, and I had no idea what that meant. My Montessori teachers were never absent, there was never a substitute teacher in preschool or kindergarten. Mrs. Bauer had not warned us she would be absent - and why should she? I remembered my grandfather's funeral clearly and had also read "Miss Nelson is Missing" too many times to still not realize that Viola Swamp was Miss Nelson in disguise - and yet, I did not realize that Viola Swamp was Miss Nelson in disguise until I was quite a bit older than six years old. I was terrified that Mrs. Bauer had disappeared or died and left us with this "horrible" substitute and would never be back. The substitute, no doubt trying to get me to shut up so she could move on with the day and the rest of the first graders, promised me there would be a surprise for everyone if we were all good that day. At the end of the day, as we were lining up to go home, I asked the teacher what the surprise was. She (quite understandably surprised that I remembered what she said, as she clearly hadn't) said, "oh, that was if you were all good today, and not everyone was." I had also read "Ramona the Pest" a number of times, and so I had expected to be disappointed just as Ramona was when her teacher told her to "sit here for the present," and Ramona received no present. (The only reason I knew that the word "present" had multiple meanings was because Beverly Clearly took the time to explain it in that book.) So I guess the surprise was all for the substitute teacher, because I wasn't surprised at all that she never meant to keep that promise. I was thoroughly relieved when Mrs. Bauer came back the next school day.
All the first graders went on a field trip to a local farm. I'm sure this was meant to introduce young city children to the idea that food doesn't begin at the grocery store. Even though I was indeed a city kid, my parents were both farm kids and so I had a significant amount of exposure to farming when I was growing up. On the way to visit my grandparents, which we did on a frequent and very regular basis back then, we would pass by hundreds of farms - both crops and animals - and we were very familiar with the sight and smell of cattle and pig trucks on the way to the slaughterhouse. While none of my cousins grew up on farms, many of them were in very close proximity to farms, my grandma kept a few animals, and my cousin Debby often raised animals for 4-H. My parents were still buying and freezing a beef quarter every year, we had a huge garden with at least ten different varieties of vegetables that we harvested and preserved, and a large raspberry patch in which if you were willing to get scratched, you could pick and eat pounds of raspberries in one go. I was already familiar with where food comes from. But most of my classmates were not, so it was a valuable activity. All I really remember from the visit was that the farmer encouraged Mrs. Bauer to hold a piglet so the children could touch it, and when she finally acquiesced, she was rewarded with a big squirt of piglet poop that ruined her nice winter coat forever.
Theresa Evelyn Aquilina was born in Michigan in 1934, to Joseph Aquilina and Helen Parttinier. I could find no further conclusive information about her parents. In 1940, six-year-old Theresa and her younger sister Rita were living in the Sarah Fisher Home in Farmington Township, Oakland County, Michigan. "The Sarah Fisher family built the Center facility in Farmington Hills to house the children. Ten cottages, designed to house 24 children, a Chapel and a playroom. By 1934, there were 200 children enrolled (ages 2 to 6) and a nursery school was added." Theresa and Rita were still living at the Sarah Fisher Home in 1950, listed as wards of the institution. (It is possibly important to note that the Sarah Fisher Home was an offshoot of Providence Hospital, originally founded in 1869 as the House of Providence, housing programs for unwed mothers and their children.)
In 1950, Theresa was a sophomore class officer at Shrine of the Little Flower Catholic High School in Royal Oak, Michigan. She was still a student there in 1952, when she was pictured in the yearbook operating the "fluid duplicator" - which in the 1980s we would have called a ditto machine - on a page dedicated to showcasing Shrine's commercial department. Theresa was also pictured with the school choir in 1952. Next to her senior photograph in the 1952 yearbook, her accomplishments were detailed: she was on the honor roll all four years, she was a freshman and sophomore class officer, a member of the glee club her junior and senior years, played basketball her junior year, and belonged to the Letter Club her senior year. It also reads: "Flashing dark eyes...personality plus...sweet little giggle...and here comes Terry."
Theresa was married at the age of 18 years in December 1952 to John Lawrence Sadlier, also a graduate of the Shrine of the Little Flower Catholic High School. In 1956, 1958 and 1960, they were listed in the Royal Oak city directory; John was a salesman. They had at least one son, the namesake of his father. When John Jr. was married in 1982, the newspaper announcement referred to him as "John Lawrence Sadlier, son of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel J. Bauer of Royal Oak, Mich." Mrs. Bauer was my teacher in 1979-1980, and so John either died or they were divorced, and then she was married to Daniel between 1960 and 1979. I believe Daniel and Theresa are still living in Royal Oak, Michigan, where they are both about 90 years old.
After my second-grade year, Elmwood Elementary School closed, was sold, and became an American House retirement home. Avondale School District reshuffled their buildings, teachers, administrative staff and elementary students, and when I started third grade, I was bused to Stiles Elementary School. Our Elmwood principal, Mr. Maurice Anderson, and many of our teachers, including Mrs. Bauer, were transferred to Stiles and so it's possible that my brother and sister had her as their first-grade teacher, too. I don't know when she retired but it may have been while I was still in high school. She started out as an orphan, brought up in a children's home, and became responsible for teaching hundreds of small children to read, write, and believe in themselves. Thanks a million, Mrs. B. I still remember you.
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