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Hall is reunited with students she taught 50 years ago
By Lynn Hotaling
Last month Mary Hall of Greens Creek was reunited with several students who were members of a class she taught more than a half-century ago.
Mary Hall of Greens Creek looks through a scrapbook that has pictures and mementos from her years in the classroom. ~ Herald photo by Lynn Hotaling
Hall’s first teaching job at Balsam Grove began only three months after she graduated from high school in Rosman, and her initial assignment would have stymied many experienced educators: Hall, 18, was placed in charge of a combination class that included all of the first-, second- and third-graders.
Born in Hayesville, Hall moved to Transylvania County with her parents when she was 9, and she started third grade at the school were she would begin teaching nine years later.
Mary Hall of Sylva, left, shown here in 1950 with her first-, second- and third-grade students at Transylvania County’s Balsam Grove, began teaching just three months after her high school graduation on an emergency certificate granted due to the difficulty of finding teachers for such small, rural schools. Her first teaching career ended with her 1954 marriage, but she later worked for 20 years as a teacher’s aide at Jackson County’s Scotts Creek School. Hall, inset, turned 18 May 25, 1950, and graduated from high school three days later. She recently attended a reunion and became reacquainted with some of the students she taught more than 50 years ago.
“I loved school,” said Hall. “I always wanted to be a teacher.”
After graduating from seventh grade at Balsam Grove, Hall and her six fellow graduates traveled to Rosman for the remainder of their public school education.
“There weren’t enough students in the upper grades to have a teacher at Balsam Grove,” she said. “So the parents in the community got a bus to take the high school students to Rosman.”
Balsam Grove parents elected Hall to teach the school’s 40 youngest pupils, she said. For a salary of $104 per month, Hall not only taught the state-mandated subjects, she also served as janitor and built fires in the wood stove to provide heat.
Though Transylvania County’s superintendent praised her teaching and took her to visit Western Carolina Teachers College (now Western Carolina University), Hall opted for marriage rather than a degree and certificate.
Hall’s teaching career ended after three years – two at Balsam Grove and one at nearby Silversteen.
Looking back five decades, Hall remembers her students as being eager to learn. The April 29 reunion, “brought back a lot of memories,” she said. The event was held at Balsam Grove Community Center, which is located in the school where Hall taught long ago. One of her former students recently retired from the Balsam Grove Post Office, and another was a candidate for Transylvania County Sheriff, she said.
Hall, who turns 74 today (Thursday), also worked for 20 years as a teacher’s assistant at Scotts Creek School. She was named Jackson County’s teacher assistant of the year in 1997.
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