The Teacher Who Ate Her Pet
Author Biographies
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I grew up hearing my mother's history as my brothers and sisters and I sat around the potbelly stove on cold winter nights. My father's best stories were told after dessert at the end of Sunday dinner.
Both of my parents were raised in the South, and moved to farmland in the greater Detroit area. Our little farm with cows and chickens looked more out of place each year as people flocked out of the big city and bought up the land around us. Oblivious to the ever-encroaching suburban life, my parents retained their life style and values. I knew I was different when I started school with my plaited hair, biscuits in my lunch pail, and hand-worked buttonholes in my jumper.
I now live in Okemos, Michigan with my husband Chuck. With appreciation for my rich Appalachian heritage, I wrote several songs, including: Love's Legacy, Cumberland, Song of the Northern Winds, The Hill Spring, and Living Water. I play the mountain dulcimer and sing for school assemblies, historic villages, festivals, libraries, and retirement centers.
I grew up on a small farm in northern Michigan, graduated from high school at sixteen, taught thirty-six children in a one-room school when I was eighteen, graduated from college to teach elementary children, and eventually completed a PhD. in curriculum and instruction. I retired from a career as a college professor with thirty-two years teaching undergraduates and graduate students the methods of teaching science, mathematics, and environmental education. My teaching overseas included the British Isles, Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Nicarauga.
Music is a central interest in my life. I have played the trombone since I was twelve years old, most recently in local community bands. I began to write after I retired from university teaching. I owe my love of language first to my mother, who insisted that we speak correctly, and second to my junior class English teacher, Elizabeth Hartergrink, for her encouragement.
I was born in Marion, Ohio in 1915 to John and Aimee Conyers. I was educated in and graduated from Marion Public Schools.
I got a B.A. degree from Ohio State University and worked in a small family business until 1942 when I enlisted in the Navy. I was to spend nearly all my time in VR-1, a naval air transport system and was variously stationed in Norfolk, Houston, Corpus Christi, and Patwent River in Maryland. I was married in May 1944 in Washington D.C. to Mary Gracely, with whom I had attended high school.
When the war ended, I was in Honolulu waiting for a scheduled invasion of China that was supposed to precede an invasion of Japan. After the war we returned to Marion. I was disillusioned by my experience as a salesman and impressed by what I heard from Mary. After some summer education courses I was hired on a temporary certificate in Marion City Schools and enjoyed nearly every minute of my time in the classroom and as an administrator.
We both retired in the year we reached our sixty-ninth birthdays, but Mary continued to teach on a part-time basis at Ohio State University Marion, the local branch of OSU. We traveled quite a bit in our retirement years and did not spend another February in Ohio.
We had a daughter, who is now a senior faculty member of the Michigan State University College of Nursing. She has two daughters, both now married. I am now a great-grandfather, which shows what happens when you carry longevity too far.
I am an easterner, born in New York City, with many beloved relatives spread all the way up and down the east coast. My first job was teaching physical education majors at Cortland State Teachers College, some of whom were older than I was at the time. After three years, realizing that I needed advanced degrees to continue this wonderful work, I went back to New York University for a Masters Degree.
That accomplished, a restless friend and I decided to take a vacation trip to the midwest where my sister then lived. At her suggestion, we stopped at the Chicago Teacher's Agency to investigate the possibilities in the area. My friend was a secretary and could fit in anywhere. Michigan State had an opening. Where was that? We turned my plucky 1937 Ford coupe north and I took what I intended to be a short stop teaching in East Lansing, Michigan before going back to the east coast.
So what happened? A tall handsome tennis player arrived at MSU that year from Milwaukee, a veteran, and we got married. After five years I retired to be a homemaker and he coached and taught at MSU for thirty-two years.
To our dismay, not one of our three children decided to stay in East Lansing. All are happily dispersed across the country. One lives in Colorado, one in California, and one in South Carolina. Nice visiting, yes, but I have decided this country is toooo big.
My mother said I was born singing and asking "why." An avid desire for learning led to academic and business training and a teaching diploma from Sherwood Music School in Chicago. World War II caused some dark days but also opened up doors in business from clerk to consultant in public health and social services. There I met and married a wonderful man and became mother to his five children. It was happiness I had never known. His death from a sudden heart attack brought darkness into my world, but his wonderful children brightened the journey of my tomorrows. I lost my sight at the age of eighty but with electronic equipment I have found new joy in writing. My world is bright with ever-broadening horizons.
I was born and grew up in Lansing, Michigan. I am a retired school psychologist. A friend of mine told me about the Life Stories: Writing Your Memoirs class and I decided to try it. I liked the class immediately even though I thought my stories would not be as good as the other writers in the class. My mother wrote in her diary every day until she could not write anymore. Her diary was factual but proved very important when she needed to find specific dates for something in the past. I loved to write papers in school. A friend of mine loaned me his typewriter to use and I helped him organize and write his papers. I learned that when I think about the past for a story, other things come to mind that I hadn't thought about for years.
I grew up in Cadillac, Grand Rapids and Muskegon, Michigan. I attended seven different schools. Strong friendships came easily in each situation, and some of them remain to this day.
I knew early in life that I wanted to be a high school math teacher when I grew up. Two of my math teachers also coached the football team, and that inspired me even more.
One day, the results of a career preference test that I did with a high school guidance counselor showed that I had greater aptitude for a career in social work. I laughed off that idea, and continued to pursue a teaching career. I took all the math courses that I could find.
I recently retired after a nearly forty year career in social work.
I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a working class neighborhood with two older brother who ignored me. My grandparents lived upstairs and I loved to be with them. My grandfather used to scold me when I swung on the drapes that separated the living room from their bedroom. When Grandfather had a stroke, I would stand by his bed silently. Once when making a housecall, the doctor asked me to leave. I replied, "Oh, it's OK, because I'm going to be a nurse when I grow up."
Now I live in Michigan. I recently retired from my nursing career. I want to spend more time with my family and friends, do some traveling and enjoy my little Maltese, Comet!
I grew up in the town of Dumaguete, Negros Oriental, in the Philippines Islands. I was an accounting major at the University of Illinois and worked as a bookkeeper during World War II at a war plant that made batteries for tanks and planes. From 1970-1982, I worked as a librarian at Hope Borbas Library in Okemos.
Family has always been important to me and I want to pass on my memories to my children and their families. I have also shared my memories with my sisters. Memories are only important if they are shared -- preferably in the written form so they can be passed on to another generation.
When I was five, I watched a T.V. show about women in prison. At the end of the show one of the women prisoners turned out to be a cop. I was sitting next to my dad and quickly turned and asked him, "If she is a police officer, what is she doing in jail?" He explained that some police officers wear a uniform and get the bad guys that way and that some officers wear regular clothes, called "plainclothes" and get the bad guy that way. Before he even finished his sentence I knew that when I grew up I was going to be one of the police officers wearing plain clothes and getting the bad guys that way. Sixteen years later, I was doing exactly that.
My manuscript, Badge 3483: A Woman's Memoir, is based on the five years before I was a police officer when I volunteered to work undercover for the Roseville Police Department; the fourteen years I was on the Detroit Police Department, and five years after I retired from the force as I adjusted to being a suburban civilian again.
I currently reside in Royal Oak, Michigan with my beloved of twenty-seven years. We take care of our college daughter's three dogs, three cockatiels and cat.
Since 2001, I have been employed in the private security sector, in plainclothes, of course.
I am a retired social worker, having worked in the child welfare field for thirty-five years. My specialty was adoptions. I was raised in Michigan's upper peninsula.
My family moved to Lansing when I was a high school junior, but in my heart I am still a "Yooper." I earned BA and MSW degrees from Michigan State University. My husband and I have traveled throughout all the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Scandinavia, often accompanied by children and grandchildren.
My parents always encouraged me to write and I have enjoyed renewing this interest in my retirement. Getting stories to family members in the form of "books" has been my goal.
Writing for our high school newspaper, I decided I wanted to be a reporter, especially after participating in a press conference with high school journalists. We were invited to interview Eleanor Roosevelt. That was memorable!
I graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1945. After three years of reporting for two newspapers, it was time to start a family.
With three daughters to support, I gave up the reporting idea, and finally settled into a teaching position with DeWitt Middle School in Michigan, retiring in 1987.
Two years ago, celebrating my eightieth birthday, a longtime wish of mine was fulfilled: I had my first ride on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
I was born and raised in a small town called Young-Joo, Korea in a noble family.
In Korea, I was a chemist, forensic science instructor at a college of pharmacy, and a pharmacist with Bachelors of Pharmacy and Masters of Science degrees.
Coming to the United States as a student, I pursued advanced degrees and worked for the state of Michigan for twenty-seven years, until retirement.
Jobs I have really enjoyed were being a teacher, chemist, biochemist and senior scientist.
A natural-born U.S. citizen, my parents brought me to America from my Romanian birthplace as an infant. I grew up mostly in Kansas City, Mo., a place I thoroughly enjoyed. The public schools fostered a love of learning, which my parents encouraged.
I earned several degrees at the University of Kansas, culminating in a counseling psychology doctorate. It was a privilege to join the nationally recognized staff of the Michigan State University Counseling Center in 1959. My psychotherapy skills were further honed there, and over the years I taught psychology and education courses, too. Most rewarding were the opportunities to provide clinical supervision for advanced graduate students and interns.
After becoming a Professor Emeritus in 1982 I had a private psychotherapy practice in East Lansing. My final two years of professional work were as the clinical director of a private faith-based counseling clinic.
Now I have more time for extended travel with my wife, Linda. Considering blended families, we have five adult children, eleven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Some babies insist on rushing into life and continue rushing head on thereafter, as in the story of my life. I was born premature on a military base in 1947, delivered by a drunken doctor who had been out celebrating a little too much before being called in for an early morning delivery. It was one of the few times in my life when I could be described as "small." I went home in a shoe box used for a car seat. A small dresser drawer was my bassinet.
I grew up refining the destiny of rushing into life's adventures while surviving numerous foolish adolescent escapades, many which provided the basis of my memoirs. Extensive travels as a military brat opened my world to acceptance for alternative views on the foundation of beliefs, ways of living, and people in general. My teenage years engulfed the rich experiences of living in Germany and Morocco during the 1960s.
Having never developed roots as a child, I continued traveling all my adult life, never living any one place for more than a few years. Being under the influence of Aquarius, I have peppered my travels with a spiritual searching and a deep sense of connection with God, attributing to Him the success of my survival today and the blessings of my daughter, Sara, and granddaughter, Dakota.
The combination of travel and the necessity of making a living produced a kaleidoscope of occupations including cleaning horse stalls and being a lifeguard, as well as working in property management, accounting, insurance, real estate, and financial counseling. Eventually, I climbed the corporate ladder of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate.
I was born in Bologna, Italy and grew up in a small farming community nearby during WWII. I attended the University in Bologna and graduated with a masters degree in Latin and Italian language and literature. I also trained as an opera singer and won a prestigious award the same year of my degree. Unfortunately I was not ready to take on the challenge the prize entailed. As a result I decided that that career was not for me, married an American studying in Italy, and landed in the U.S.A. I raised two children, Stefania and Gregory, taught Latin and French at East Lansing High School and Latin and Italian at M.S.U. I eventually returned to my singing for pleasure and sing periodically for family and friends. I love teaching and, after retiring from the high school, I now teach Italian to college students.
