Ella Staunton- everyone knew her

My Favorite Teacher was Ella F. Staunton

Her home was in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and she went home every weekend during the school year.
Miss Staunton’s first school was in Amenia Union, one-room schoolhouse, District #2. She boarded during the week with the Collin Smiths who ran the local general store.
She not only taught the basic studies but also oral hygiene, the appreciation of music, and banking. We each had an account in a Poughkeepsie saving bank and she took our few cents every week to deposit.
Ella Staunton wanted us to see the outside world and took the four of us who were graduating to Albany to the (New York State) Museum and the Government Building. I can remember sitting in the Governor’s chair. My last year of school there she drove four of us to Washington, D.C. to see the sights. It was a thrill for me to be able to take a snap shot of President and Mrs. Hoover. We also went to Mt. Vernon.

While teaching in Amenia Union, Ella organized a 4H Club for us. I was secretary. We made items and exhibited them at the Dutchess County Fair – also canned vegetables, etc. I have many ribbons but did not keep them.
Later Miss Staunton taught at Sinpatch school and then at the “brick school” in Amenia. She taught my daughter, Celeste Monahan, in the first grade and when the school finally added a kindergarten, she was the teacher. I believe this is what she really trained for.
Miss Staunton is buried in Union Cemetery in Amenia Union along with her parents.

Amenia Union schoolhouse student body in 1931: from left, Peter Prendergast, Mildred Moyer, Paul MacDonald, Doris Wheeler, Virginia guiden, Elsie MacDonald, Ester Gourlay, Evelyn Murphy, Geraldine Whitney, and Carloyn Murphy (small child in front)

Ester Gourlay Pollard is a member of the Amenia Historical Society and long-time member of the Indian Rock Schoolhouse Association. Having lived in the area for many years, she is a great source of historical information. She will be a lecturer at St. Thomas church in Amenia Union this spring, recounting her memories of the Grange in Amenia Union.

Gertrude Foley and Marion Kinney- My Favorite Teachers

Mrs. Foley

My favorite teacher when I was an elementary student at the Amenia High School was Mrs. Gertrude Foley. She taught grades 3 and 4 which were in the same room. This was in the years 1934 and 1935 and I had just transferred from the Waterbury Conn. school system to the New York system. Prior to that I had begun Kindergarten in Detroit, Mich. This was my third school in as many years. It was the Depression era. I now lived just north of the school on the Roland Palmer farm, being managed by William McEnroe. I walked along Route 22 to get to school. Sometimes I roller skated.

I was 8 year’s old when Mrs. Foley welcomed me to her classroom which was a really comfortable place. She made me feel good about myself and my ability to learn. I always looked forward to going to school. I remember, especially, the cursive writing exercises and the times table drills, among others. I also remember that she and her family lived across the street from the school and that made me feel good that she was always near-by.

Marion Kinney
On entering High School, which was in the same building, I had to choose a major. I chose a Business curriculum. A newly graduated Business teacher had just joined the faculty, Marion McDonald. She was petite, soft-spoken, knew her subjects well, and made you feel you belonged in her classroom. As most of her classes were Regents finals, we could feel very confident of being successful when we got to that test, as long as we had done our part. “Miss McDonald” was my favorite teacher while I was in high school and enabled me to successfully achieve my Regents Diploma and my High School Diploma, copies of which I have kept to this day. She married local farmer George Kinney, had 2 children, and later taught Kindergarten in the Webutuck Central School system. As a South Street neighbor our families were friends over the years; and, she was godmother to one of my children.

Both ladies, in their quiet, positive ways of teaching made me like to be in school, and enjoy learning. And in those years, New York State was ranked #1 in the country for its educational system. These ladies were two of the reasons why.

Arlene Iuliano served as Amenia Town Supervisor and is currently the Amenia Town Historian. She had a successful career in management at the Taconic D.D.S.O., and is the mother of five, grandmother of ten and has four great -grandchildren.

Violet Hope Simmons: 1911 - 2001- A Remembrance

Vi Simmons was the best teacher I ever had.

She was tough, challenging, opinionated and intimidating.

On my first day in ninth grade, after everyone had been seated, she stalked to the front of the room and informed us that we were “the rudest class I’ve ever seen,” because only two of us had greeted her as we entered the room. I am sure none of us ever failed to say “good morning” to her from then on.

As a student, I regarded her with awe. The breadth of her knowledge was amazing and her enthusiasm for history was contagious. She expected us to read the New York Times, which was difficult for me because my parents wouldn’t have it in the house. We compromised on the Herald Tribune, since the Daily News, in her opinion was only good for wrapping fish.
Practically every day, I carried home an arm load of books so I could complete the reading since we did not use a textbook. I first learned to analyze primary sources and understood that historians often disagreed about their interpretations. Class discussions were lively and frequent.
My relationship with her changed to one of friendship when I was in college and she underwent eye surgery in Boston. She was candid about the difficulties her lack of vision posed. It often seemed to us, as students, that she knew everything that went on in class, though we weren’t sure how. Now I understood how important that “good morning” was from each person. It was her context, her way of taking attendance and sensing our mood.

When I became a history teacher, Vi Simmons was my inspiration and my mentor. She believed that every child is capable of learning and every child must be challenged to think. Every now and then, when my students are engaged in an effective discussion, I remember Miss Simmons standing in front of our class with a little smile on her face and I understand.

Janet M. Reagon
Janet Reagon began teaching Social Studies in 1981 – the year Miss Simmons retired.

article originally published in The Millerton News 3.8.01

“Legacy of Excellence”…The Violet H. Simmons Scholarships

When Miss Simmons retired in 1981 after 48 years of teaching at Webutuck, her former students, colleagues and community members established The Violet H. Simmons Scholarship Fund to award a scholarship to outstanding graduates who demonstrated academic excellence and leadership potential. This year the 33rd Simmons Scholar will be named at the Webutuck Awards Ceremony.

More recently, due to the generosity of the late Barbara Thorlichen Riefle, a former student of Miss Simmons and a Webutuck graduate, VHSSF has been able to offer a Summer Enrichment Grant to deserving college students to study abroad, travel, or participate in a program they could not otherwise afford. Students have studied photography and filmmaking, traveled to Cuba, China, Brazil, and Africa, and worked with the children of incarcerated women.

“This gift to music students at Webutuck represents a great benefit because it targets younger students,” said Janet Reagon. “Now VHSSF can assist people when they are still in high school, as they graduate, and while they are in college. This certainly helps continue the legacy of excellence that Miss Simmons inspired.”

A Catalyst for Community Giving
The Webutuck High School Summer Enrichment Music Fund has been established by a gift of Dan and Nancy Brown of Amenia to the Violet H. Simmons Scholarship Fund to provide music students at Webutuck with the opportunity to attend summer music programs or obtain private lessons. As with all VHSSF funds, the money will be administered by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Inc., a regional community fund with offices in Great Barrington, MA.
For more information call Berkshire Taconic at 413-528-8039 or go to http://www.berkshiretaconic.org/

Please share your memories of Violet H. Simmons! Go to comments below.

John Quinn: I Remember Grade School

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John Quinn has been a staunch supporter

of Indian Rock Schoolhouse from the very beginning

My elementary education took place in Edgewater, New Jersey, a 15 minute ferry ride from New York City. It was in Public School No. 2, a small but modern two-story brick building between fittingly named Undercliff Avenue and River Road. Public School No. 1 was three miles down the pike at the other end of town.
Of the eight teachers I had, I really only remember Miss Beck in the first grade and Mrs. Warren our eighth grade teacher and also the school principal.
There was no preparatory program like nursery school or kindergarten so starting school was an abrupt change from my sheltered life at home.

The day started with the high-pitched noise and bustle of youngsters in the schoolyard.
Then suddenly a quiet and order signaled by the electric school bell and the appearance of our teacher, Miss Beck standing by the school door. Miss Beck appeared to us seemingly the same every day: a dark wool skirt that hung down to the high-laced boots; generally a cardigan sweater over a plain blouse and her grey hair gathered in a bun behind. The tone was set – we were going to learn. We sat up straight in ordered rows, hands clasped on our desk tops, eyes following Miss Beck at the front of the room.
Besides introducing us to the building blocks of the “three R’s”, we were learning the simple social skills of discipline and getting along with others.

The Day at P.S. 2
We came to find an excited pleasure in raising our hand with the answer and realizing the rewards of a good performance. If the week had gone well, Friday afternoon Miss Beck would take out a book well known and loved by the pupils and read a story or two to the class.
Another of our extra-curricular joys were the classroom chores parceled out through the week - raising or lowering the window shades, cleaning the blackboard erasers, watering the plants, passing out things to the class.

Miss Beck was always there
Miss Beck was always there before we got to school and was gone only after we had left. But we seemed to know that she lived alone in a house part way up the Palisades. There was a rugged path through the woods to her house that looked down on the road.
Miss Beck was still teaching fortunate Edgewater youngsters when the Quinn family moved from the town.

Mrs. Warren and the Blue Grotto
My first recollections of Mrs. Warren are as principal conducting the school assembly of all the grades. Held in the gym, assemblies involved a prayer, salute to the flag, several songs and a reading or talk about current happenings. I remember one assembly when Mrs. Warren told us about her summer vacation trip to Europe, and about her visit to the Blue Grotto – an island cave in Italy. She described how you had to crouch over in the boat to enter and then how the grotto opened. She told us how the boatmen sang Italian melodies and demonstrated by singing and teaching the song “Santa Lucia”. It became one of the favorite of our assemblies.

Another of her innovations was having us gather in the gym for the weekly radio broadcast of Walter Damrosh and the WEAF Symphony Orchestra in a program aimed at introducing school children to classical music. We learned to identify the sounds of the orchestra instruments and got to know the story behind a number of various compositions.
Our eighth grade class of several dozen boys and girls never seemed to faze Mrs. Warren. The rote and routine of normal school subjects were enlivened by a spirited give and take between pupils and teacher. And this informal rapport went beyond the classroom. She had introduced Manual Training or Shop for the boys and Home Economics – sewing and cooking – for the girls

Class for the Flat-footed

One year, after the school doctor’s physical check-up of the children, a flat feet class was inaugurated and a shoeless Mrs. Warren led a group of us similarly affected in a pigeon-toed parade around the room and then in an exercise picking up marbles with our toes. I’m not sure it did any of us any good but through it all, Miss Warren lost none of her high sense of dignity.

George's birthday
It was in 1932, the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth when we graduated. The George Washington Bridge was opened over the Hudson and at the same time Public School No. 2 was renamed for our nation’s first president.

Mrs. Warren had readied part of the Greatest Generation for the world out there, even for a rather dispirited game of Spin the Bottle at a party of ice cream and cake after our commencement exercises.

John Quinn is a Trustee Emeritus of the Schoolhouse Association. He has written articles, press releases and even a book about schoolhouses (“Memories from a Country Schoolhouse”). He lives in Leedsville with his wife the irrepressible Margaret Duffy Erskine Quinn.