Thank You, Mrs. Quinn

I will be turning fifty in just a few months. I find myself looking forward to this milestone in a way I did not expect even ten years ago as I look back and see how blessed my life has been. With the passage of years, even the difficult times from childhood seem like blessings in disguise.

Growing up, my family was always poor, but the larger our family became, the worse things got. By the time I started sixth grade, we were a family of nine. My parents had already split up and reconciled more than once. That year it was becoming clear that there wouldn't be a lasting reconciliation. It was not a happy time in my life.

Back then, Holton, Kansas had three elementary schools, including a small school out in the country just for the sixth-graders (lower left in photo above). Sixth grade had three classes of twenty or so students. Mrs. Quinn's classroom, my homeroom, was located in a trailer outside the main building.

Innie Me helping Mrs. Tolin serve lunch

Mrs. Quinn was the Language Arts teacher. I remember writing short stories for her using ideas from some note cards. One of my stories was a tall tale about Cactus Cathy, who was like a gunslinger from the wild west, but she used her cactus spines to fight crime. Mrs. Quinn liked my stories and suggested that we send a few of them to Highlights magazine. So we sent off the stories and in due course I got a rejection letter saying thanks, but your stories are the wrong length for our magazine. I threw my stories away, believing they would have been rejected even if they were the right length. I accepted that I was not destined to be the next John Boy Walton.

When I was sixteen, we moved to another small town and I never saw Mrs. Quinn again, though I follow her posts on Facebook now. I have never forgotten that at a time in life when circumstances made me feel like I wasn't good enough, I had a teacher who thought I was good at something. Good enough to dream big.

The Rose lyrics (Bette Middler)

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose.

Mrs. Quinn didn't just teach me sixth grade English or Math, she planted a seed that grew and blossomed into self confidence.

Mrs. Quinn, thank you for the role you played in my life story!