Chester Jackson Family

Beulah's Extended Teaching Career

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Beulah graduated from Michigan Normal in June 1907, and, according to Richard Bates, set out for her duty in the wilderness, for her in Iron Mountain, Michigan.


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Beulah is the most enigmatic of family characters.  We know a bare outline of her life beyond Ovid.  My uncle, Richard Bates, puts it nicely:

Whenever I think of Beulah, I think of Carl Van Doren's observation that the more nearly one approaches sainthood, the more nearly he or she becomes invisible. Few knew of her existence, as you can see by the gaps in her chronology, but she was always pleasant, serene, deeply religious without trying to proselytize.  Like her sisters, she started teaching in a one-room school right after graduating from Ypsi -- for her it was Iron Mountain in 1907.  Some of the students were sewed into long underwear in the fall and didn't remove it until spring, she related.

I knew about the Pratt Institute degree which qualified her to teach "Home Economics", as it was called, but not about the return to Ypsi.  All these courses were required for maintenance of her teaching certificate -- I remember one summer when she commuted to MSU for a short course in making ice cream.

She taught in Grand Rapids as far back as I can remember, home economics -- cooking and sewing -- to freshmen girls at their main high school. In her latest years, she also had a few boys in her classes which amused her greatly.  Summers, she was home in Ovid and careful not to intrude on Myra and her mother who had their set ways in the kitchen.  Twice, she took tours, by ship, to Europe, the first time to the Olympics of 1936 when she saw Hitler humbled by Jesse Owens, once to the Passion Play at Oberammergau.  Two or three times she and Myra took train trips to their beloved West. 

She was the only one of the family to drive an automobile and to attend church regularly, a charter subscriber to Life Magazine and, perhaps, the National Geographic.  For years she sent money to the Aid society to finance missionaries in Africa. Like her sisters, she could play the piano; she was regarded as the best seamstress in the family.

In June 1911 Beulah received a diploma in "Household Science" from Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, yet we have no record of her living in Brooklyn, and research does not show that Pratt ever offered correspondence courses.  She then went to Kansas City to teach, where she remained until at least 1917.  We have several photos taken of her there,

Beulah & Friend - Kansas City - 6-1911-21 Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 2-21 Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 3-21 Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 4-21
Beulah & Friend - Kansas City - 6-1911-21.jpg Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 2-21.jpg Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 3-21.jpg Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 4-21.jpg
Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 5-21 Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 6-21 Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 7-21 Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 8-21
Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 5-21.jpg Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 6-21.jpg Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 7-21.jpg Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated - 8-21.jpg
Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated-21 Beulah - lake near Kansas City - 8-1913-21    
Beulah & Friends - Kansas City - undated-21.jpg Beulah - lake near Kansas City - 8-1913-21.jpg

including one that places her with a Bible Class at Westport High School in that city, 1916-17 (back row, third from right):



Those were different times -- Bible classes in a public high school!

Sometime between 1917 and 1927, Beulah returned to Michigan Normal to put in another two years' study, in the end achieving a four-year degree with diploma in "Bachelor of Science" in August 1927.

At some point thereafter Beulah took up a position teaching Home Economics at Ottawa High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from which position she retired (if I recall correctly) in 1945.

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