Remembering Miss Rumery

To the editor:
    Rachel Rumery, my third grade teacher at Fair Street school, visits my kitchen most mornings — in spirit, anyhow. I place my hands on the sink and look out at the backyard, as I rise up on my toes, hold to a count of 10, go back down with feet flat, and repeat three more times. This simulates the leg presses I did on a machine in physical therapy.
    Miss Rumery keeps me company as I recall how she did the rises while reading aloud to the class. Needing relief, she did the little exercise a few times. No explanation needed: standing so much must be tiring.
    She wore heels typical in the 1940s, not clunky Oxfords, but not too high, either, just practical pumps. Blouses with straight skirts covering the knee completed the picture. No frills, no nonsense, like her approach to teaching. Structure and control of the class were reassuring.
    The visiting music teacher, Miss Gray, I could have done without, however. Attractive and pleasant, she could sing, of course. I thought I could, too. The pitch pipe proved otherwise, I guess. How to match a sound from that little round gadget remained a mystery. I would sing along with the group, but don’t single me out.
    I got A’s for reading notes and copying them onto the staffs, but a C messed up my report card full of A’s. Miss Rumery quickly told me not to worry about it.
    The following week, Ina came to school to argue with Miss Gray about grading me on talent. But her standards required pitch in her formula for grading. At home the C would be ignored and Porter would still pay me for good grades — in the “important subjects.”
    Years later Miss Rumery would leave to teach in Bangor, and in my sophomore year I arranged to visit her. She welcomed me at her classroom door, introduced me to the class and gave me a chair.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines.” Perhaps, but I find consistency comforting. Sitting in that classroom, I liked watching my former teacher as she nodded at a hand raised to give an answer, rewarded the student if correct, called another up to write on the board — all just as before. And when, tired of standing, she rocked up onto her toes and then back down, I smiled … and she smiled back.
Byrna Porter Weir
Rochester, N.Y