Miss Gertrude Johnson, Latin teacher at Logansport High School for 36 years, just missed living in three different centuries by twenty-nine hours. She reached 101 years of age this past October and was still welcoming visitors at that time at Wellesy Manor in Frankfort where she had resided since 1975.
Miss Johnson, affectionately known to students as Gertie, helped mold many LHS graduates throughout her career, prodding them on with her wisdom and challenging them in her own special ways. Can anyone who was a Latin student of hers ever forget some of the Latin phrases she implanted in our brains? Veni, Vedi, Vici! (I came, I saw, I conquered); Tempus Fugit! (Time Flies); Festina Lente! (Make Haste Slowly). So many Latin phrases rattle around in our brains, the sounds still clear, but the spelling a bit foggy after all these years. And when the phrases are said, the image of the woman appears who insisted that we study hard, pronounce the words correctly, and memorize, memorize, memorize. And when a student was doing it all right Miss Johnson just beamed, a smile from ear to ear, so proud of the student at the moment.
She traveled extensively to Rome and enjoyed those trips as much as life itself, always returning with new pictures and stories to help her young charges get a sense of the Roman Empire she so dearly loved. How many teachers provided Christmas cards to their students? I can only remember one, Miss Johnson. And the card had a photograph of something from ancient Rome with a handwritten comment for each student. The pictures and the comments especially chosen for individual students.
She cared! And yet most of us laughed at her during those years, unable to comprehend her need and desire to help us learn, to help us be better students, and to show us how to be better people. She was an easy target for teasing. A spinster, old to us (goodness, she was in her late 50's), glasses, and saggy boobs; just the person for us to make fun of during and after class. But yet we wanted to please her and so we tried hard, studying, struggling, and memorizing. And when we did it right and got her special big smile, it all seemed worth it to us. It was hard to tell who was more proud, Miss Johnson or her student who had excelled.
So, we bid her farewell. We are each a better person for having known her, for having had her prod us and push us along the way. How sweet hindsight is to us at this age; had we only known then and been able to thank her appropriately. Yet, somehow, I think she knew; and that kept her doing what she loved and knew best, sharing her vast knowledge and love with her students.
Her obituary follows as printed in the Frankfort Times Newspaper:
Thursday, January 06, 2000
