Published: August 20, 2008 09:36 pm      

Celebrating a life of teaching

Herring celebrating 90th birthday with memories of CISD

Gladys Herring will celebrate a milestone Saturday, and hopes many of the students she taught in 26 years with Corsicana Independent School District will show up to help celebrate.

She will mark her 90th birthday Saturday with a party given by family and friends at First United Methodist Church, 320 N. 15th St. It will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday. All who know Mrs. Herring are invited.

Gladys Powell began life in Centerville Aug. 23, 1918. After graduating from Alto High School in 1937, she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in home economics and science and immediately got a teaching position.

“I went to work in Nacogdoches County, the little town of Etoile, on the lake,” Herring said. “The school only had 11 grades, and I taught them all, since it was a six-teacher school. I taught English, math, home economics and geography. I spent one year that deep in East Texas, where there was no electricity or running water...”

She then relocated to Concord, a small town near the county seat of Centerville in Leon County.

“They had one home ec teacher, and my grandparents lived there,” she said. “They told me they’d guarantee me a job, and jobs were scarce at that time. I also taught some in the lower grades.”

While in Concord, World War II broke out, and the ag teacher was drafted. All the boys from the ag class were placed in Herring’s home economics class.

And she had just met and began dating H.J. “Blondie” Herring, who earned his nickname playing baseball in Hillsboro, where he grew up. Blondie worked for Mobil Oil Company in Centerville. All the young men, including Herring, were drafted into the service and Blondie went overseas.

“Luckily I had parents and grandparents who helped me get along during the war, because we didn’t make much,” she said. “My salary was $97.50 per month, and I felt lucky to get that.

“Blondie was overseas 40 months in Patton’s Army,” she said. “I only saw him once during that 40 months, when I rode the train from Dallas to Los Angeles, three days and three nights, and stayed with three aunts I had who lived in Los Angeles. Blondie was in San Bernadino.”

When Blondie returned from the war, he and Gladys were married in 1946 and remained in Centerville 10 more years. By that time, Gladys was teaching in Centerville, as well.

“Mobil Oil transferred my husband to Corsicana, and by that time, we’d been married 10 years and hadn’t had any children,” she said. “I found out I was pregnant with Charla right before we moved to Corsicana.”

The year was 1955, and the young couple made their new home in Corsicana and welcomed baby daughter Charla. When she was about a year old, Gladys went to work teaching home economics in the “old” high school — which is now Drane Intermediate.

“I opened that new Collins Middle School, with Naomi Allen and Jim Compton... we all taught there, until they built the new high school on Highway 22.”

At the “new” high school, Herring taught home economics along with Martha Dunlap Washburn, Dorothy Vacek, Vivien Hicks, Florence Hodges and Fay Quinley.

Herring’s teaching career spanned a period of 51 years, 26 of which were spent teaching at Corsicana ISD. She also served CISD as a substitute for nine additional years.

While teaching she was an active member of the Vocational Homemaking Teachers of Texas, Texas State Teachers Association, Classroom Teachers and Alpha Delta Kappa Teachers Association.

These days, Herring lives at Heritage Oaks Retirement Village, and doesn’t get out as often as she’d like. Blondie passed away in 1999, but Herring enjoys visits from neighbors in her old neighborhood, and from daughter Charla Till, who lives in Athens and is a mortgage loan officer. Herring also has a granddaughter, Jennifer, who lives in Sanger, and three great-granddaughters, Brooke, Emily and Eden.

“I used to tell my students I wanted them to remember me after high school,” she said. “Because they were going to change a lot, and I may not recognize them — but I won’t change that much, so they’d better remember me!

“It was a great career. I taught a lot of kids.”

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Deanna Brown may be contacted via e-mail at deanna@corsicanadailysun.com