An inspiring real-life account about a wonderful substitute teacher and a little girl’s views on her first days of school, during the upsetting times of 1939. May many more school children have influences like Miss McDowell. Thank you, Margaret for sharing.
On Sunday, September 3, 1939 Germany defied a British ultimatum to withdraw its troops from Poland and World War II broke out
Next morning Father sat glued to the radio at our breakfast table in Toronto and solemnly told us, “This is the darkest day in the history of the British Empire.” Outside the window the sun shone brightly, daring to differ.
I danced, not walked, with my sisters up the quarter-mile cinder path along Dufferin Street to Briar Hill Public School for my first day of school on Tuesday, September 5.
Grade One teacher Jeannie McDowell had shoulder-length, loose, wavy black hair and was a little preoccupied, plump and lopsided. She wore a black sweater coat and brightly flowered dress with a white background. She was colorful and dramatic compared to the housewife mothers I knew.
At first I was seated near the front which was particularly good on the day we…
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