Still Teaching
Mary Washington's oldest alumna continues to impart lessons
By William B. Crawley Jr.
In the course of my work as co-chair of the planning committee for Mary Washington’s Centennial Celebration, I thought it would be interesting to determine who the institution’s oldest living alumna was. It occurred to me it might be Pauline Cosby Clements, who was none other than my own sixth-grade teacher at Chatham (Va.) Elementary School. I knew that she had turned 100 several years ago and that she was a graduate of the then-Fredericksburg Normal School, Class of 1923.
Having heard nothing about Mrs. Clements for some time, I wondered if she was still living. A call to one of my long-ago classmates, state Sen. Charles Hawkins, answered that question. “Oh, yes,” he said, “she’s 105, but alive and kicking!” His assessment was corroborated by another former classmate, Betty Davenport, who had visited Mrs. Clements recently at the nursing home near Chatham where she was living. “You must go to see her,” she said. “You will be pleasantly surprised.”
I did, and I was.
On a Saturday afternoon in late October, my wife, Terrie (Class of 1977), and I called on her. Asleep when we arrived, she quickly awoke and moved eagerly, if unsteadily, to a chair near her bed. “When I heard that Billy Crawley was coming to see me I was just carried away,” she said. “I said, ‘I must look my best and try to think.’”
She need not have been concerned on either score. She looked pert and immaculate in a blouse, matching skirt, and white sweater. Surprisingly, her appearance remained much the same as it was a half-century ago, the main difference being that her once bright-red hair had turned white. Her voice was still strong and clear – the product of a career spent keeping order amid classes of rambunctious 12-year-olds.
Though rather frail of body, and though her hearing and vision were both greatly diminished, her mind was still quite sharp. In the course of our conversation, she not only recalled her time at the Normal School more than 80 years ago but also spoke knowledgeably about contemporary events.
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Pauline Cosby was 5 years old when the school was founded. At the time of her enrollment, World War I had just ended, and the institution had been open less than a decade. She traveled to Fredericksburg by train, usually returning only at Christmas to her home in rural Powhatan County, west of Richmond.
It was rare for Southern girls of that generation to attend college, but her family prized education. She felt, she said, “right fortunate to be able to go” to the Fredericksburg Normal School.
At that time the institution served both as a high school and a college, and her first two years were spent in the high school curriculum. During the last two, she received the “normal diploma.” The experience, she said, “prepared me wonderfully” for a teaching career.
She recalled with evident pleasure both the personalities and the events of those days. She knew President and Mrs. Chandler “really well,” she said. “I went to church on Sunday, and then I walked downtown with some other girls, and [the Chandlers] would pass us and wave. They were fine people.”
She also remembered the dean, Bunyan Tyner, who, in addition to his administrative duties, also taught education classes. She recalled one particular class in which he used her as an example of how “all people are not of the same temperament.” Pointing to her, he noted that redheads were often alleged to be mercurial, but, he said, “There is Miss Cosby, who has red hair, but she doesn’t have a hot temper.”
Then there was the legendary Nina Bushnell, who actually did not arrive until two years after Pauline had enrolled. The redoubtable dean of students made a quick (and permanent) impression. “The last year I was there,” Mrs. Clements remembered, “I roomed in Virginia Hall. That’s where Mrs. Bushnell was. … She dressed in long dresses and came to the dining room at night and taught us manners and courtesies.”
Clearly the etiquette lessons were retained. Mrs. Bushnell told her, she recalled, to “turn your spoon this way [motioning away from her], not towards you.”
A particular memory of Mrs. Bushnell stood out. “One time there was a friend of mine getting married,” Mrs. Clements said, “and right at that time somebody in the family had died, and I was to go to one of them [i.e., the wedding or the funeral]. So I asked Mrs. Bushnell, ‘Which one should I go to?’ She said, ‘Well, of course, Miss Cosby, you go to the wedding. You go to the living.’ Doesn’t that sound like Mrs. Bushnell?”
Mrs. Clements’ memories of student life were vivid and happy. When asked about her favorite extracurricular activities, she quickly and enthusiastically responded, “Tennis.” Her recollected joy was evident, as her eyes that could scarcely see still sparkled.
She was also involved in the Maury Literary Society, and especially the YWCA, which was the most popular organization on campus at the time. She served, she recalled, as “chairwoman of what they called at that time the World Fellowship Committee. …We met on Sunday nights in Frances Willard Hall.”
Those activities were indicative of two of her lifelong interests. One was religion – she was a devout Baptist – and the other was public affairs, a passion she still manifests. With state elections scheduled for a week or so after my visit with her, she informed me that she had already voted by absentee ballot, adding, “I hope I voted right.”
She proudly showed me two letters of felicitation she had recently received on the occasion of her birthday – one from President George W. Bush and the other from her congressman, Virgil Goode. As I started to read aloud from the President’s letter, she interjected, “Well, I’m not special about that one. I’m special about Virgil Goode. … Of course, I pray for our President, and pray for [all] our leaders.”
I could not help but recall the emphasis she had put on citizenship in her sixth-grade class – as well as her insistence upon proper decorum. In that regard, I mentioned to her that she had been the first teacher up to that point in my schooling ever to give me a grade below “A.” It was a “B” in conduct.
“I gave you what?” she asked incredulously. “‘B’ in conduct? Did I really?”
I assured her that she had, and that my parents were none too happy that I had apparently been misbehaving. “Well,” she said, “you behaved yourself, I think. I don’t remember anything you ever did wrong. I just gave them all ‘B’s.” This was perhaps not surprising, inasmuch as Mrs. Clements had been schooled, after all, in the draconian tradition of Mrs. Bushnell.
The topic led to a further exchange concerning her classroom manner. “You thought at the time I was mean,” she said. Not wanting to agree, I replied, “I wouldn’t say ‘mean,’ I would say….” And before I could find an appropriate adjective, she interjected, “strict” – which was accurate, if perhaps understated. “My students thought I was a mean old teacher,” she continued, “because I was so anxious to make them learn.”
In truth, most of her students considered her notable – if not notorious – for her high standards and stern manner. Many of them, I suspect, have since come to look upon her as one of their very best teachers; certainly I do.
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As Terrie and I prepared to leave, I congratulated Mrs. Clements on the distinction of being, in all probability, the institution’s oldest alumna. “I am?” she asked. “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. The Lord has let me live for some reason. I hope I’ve done some good.”
Obviously, Pauline Cosby Clements had done much good over her long career – and she was not finished teaching, even that day. She said there was something she wanted me to remember. It was not an original idea, she made clear – it was actually a slight paraphrase of a Gandhi aphorism – but was nonetheless worthy advice: “Learn as if you’re going to live forever,” she counseled, “but live as if you’re going to die tomorrow.”
With that, she bade us a heartfelt farewell. “It’s a wonderful honor for me to have you and your wife come to see me,” she said. “Goodbye, my dear one, goodbye.”
The honor was mine, actually. As I left my one-time (and still) teacher, it occurred to me that the grand lady who was probably the institution’s oldest graduate was surely one of its most remarkable.
William B. Crawley Jr., historian of the University of Mary Washington and distinguished professor of history, has written a comprehensive centennial history of the institution to be released later this year. During his nearly four decades at Mary Washington, he has earned not only an A in conduct, but an A+ in contributions.