I Can Relate To Beaver Cleaver

The prolific letter writer, Sister Emerita

In this classic clip from Leave It To Beaver, (The Beaver is 64 this year) the teacher sends the Beav home with a note to his parents, sealed in an envelope.  I don't remember this episode except of course that the note was for an innocent reason but the Beaver does not give it to his parents when his buddies tell him that the only reason a teacher would send a note home is if he were in big trouble.   I can sympathize with him because in the third grade I was at St. Joseph and St. Anne School in Chicago under the gentle care of Sister Emerita  Sister Emerita was old, I mean she had to be at least thirty five or forty!  Hey when you are in third grade everyone looks older to you.

At this time in my life I was having a problem.  I could not for the life of me get a handle on mathematics.  Therefore I decided to not do the homework.  Sister Emerita who allowed no free time for herself as when she was not teaching, she was writing letters for kids to take home to parents.  She did not discriminate as when she saw it as necessary she would send notes home even to the parents of children that she kept as teachers pets!  This was unheard of behavior for a teacher.  Usually the pets were exempt from being sent home clutching a missive from Sister Emerita.  For example, Mark Stefanic, a real nice guy and a super good student had notes sent home.  His mother once asked my mother what she thought of Sister Emerita's notes.  My mother said that she never received any.  My mother wasn't lying because when a note was given to me I carefully placed the envelope still sealed of course since it wasn't addressed to me; I had my scruples.

When parent teacher conference time came up, my parents were greeted rather coldly by the nun because she thought that they read her notes and thought nothing of them.  She would of course then tell them how I wasn't working up to my potential and tell them about the bad grades I was about to receive. BUT NEVER ONCE DID SHE MENTION THE LETTERS SHE HAD BEEN SENDING HOME!  My parents turned up the heat for a few weeks, but my grades did not improve so much because I could not understand the "New Math" that was being taught.

These letters I thought of as death warrants and thus destroyed them.  They were actually lifelines that Sister Emerita sent in her effort to help me.  I think back now that Beaver and me are preparing to enter our so called "Golden Years" Obamacare willing and wonder how my life would have been changed had even a fraction of those letter reached home?

Beaver, you are four years older and wiser than me but both of us had the same reaction to a letter from teacher and both of us did well for ourselves.  God bless you Sister Emerita for trying!

My autobiography has been published and you can learn more about growing up in Chicago during the Boomer Years -  Visit my website:

http://mjsglimpses.orgfree.com/index.html