REMEMBERING A STAR TEACHER AT CORPUS CHRISTI HIGH SCHOOL INGALESBURG, ILLINOIS

By Stephen M. Baylor, M.D., Merion Station, PA

Good teachers offer great benefits to students, so nearly everyone remembers and reveres

their good teachers.

Sister Helen Rose Newland was a master teacher. She lived and worked for many years in

Galesburg, IL, where she taught Latin and English to students at Corpus Christi High School

(CCHS), the local Catholic high school open to all denominations.

Sister Helen Rose was born in Indianapolis, IN, on April 9, 1911, one of eight children of

Arthur Newland and Mary Ann Donahue Newland. Sister’s given name at birth was Helen

Elizabeth Newland. In 1927, she joined The Sisters of Providence, a religious community

headquartered in St. Mary-of-the-Woods, IN. In 1935, Sister made her ‘perpetual vows’ to

this community, thus becoming a fully-professed nun. She died at St. Mary-of-the-Woods,

IN, on March 25, 1996.

Sister Helen Rose was a life-long student of the Classics, including the Latin and Greek

languages. During her formal years of education, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree

from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College and a Master of Arts degree from the University of

Notre Dame.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Sister Helen Rose lived in the convent house of The Sisters of Providence, which was located on S. Prairie Street in Galesburg, just across the street from CCHS. The Sisters provided the majority of the school’s teachers as well as its principal, and they designed and implemented most of its curriculum.

CCHS was housed in an architecturally-striking but somewhat antiquated four-story building

that was built in 1895 and stood at the corner of Prairie and Tomkins Streets in Galesburg.

From the outside, the building had a Victorian-era appearance (see picture). On the inside,

the building was divided in a logical way into hallways, stairwells, bathrooms, and various-

sized classrooms. In contrast to the norm for public schools of that era, the building had

separate entrances for boys and girls. In 1965 the building was judged to be outdated and

was torn down.

A large number of people from Galesburg and nearby communities, particularly those of the

Catholic faith, received their high-school education at CCHS (grades 9 through12). The

memories of these students are undoubtedly etched with recollections of the building that

housed the school, of their classmates, and of the teachers who labored to educate them. In

the case of Sister Helen Rose, her influence on many students was far-reaching, even

profound. During the years of Sister’s retirement, many of her former students made time for

multiple calls to, or visits with, her at the retirement home of The Sisters of Providence in St.

Mary-of-the-Woods.

Sister Helen Rose lived and breathed the subjects of Latin and English -- and did so at a high

level. She undoubtedly gained her extraordinary mastery of these subjects through her own

high-school and college studies, through the continuing-education courses that she took at

institutions such as the University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois, through her

wide reading and studious application, and through her own innate high intelligence. She

was also a scholar of the Greek language, although this was not a subject included in the

CCHS curriculum. One of her students recalls her saying that she was currently reading the

New Testament in the original Greek, finding it both challenging and spiritually rewarding.

Sister Helen Rose taught her subjects at both an introductory level (to freshmen and/or

sophomores) and at an advanced level (to juniors and/or seniors). The English classes Sister

taught included her analyses and chalkboard dissections of creative-writing essays written by

her students. Her advanced Latin class included poetic and other readings from sources such

as Virgil’s Aeneid. Based on her long teaching experience, Sister knew exactly how to lead a

novice student toward a useful understanding of the structure, grammar, and vocabulary of

English and toward a workable understanding of Latin.

Sister’s classroom teaching was characterized by two hallmarks. The first was ‘the handout.’

A new student, after attending a couple of Sister’s classes, realized that the next class would likely begin with Sister distributing a 1-2 page handout, prepared in mimeograph form, that contained vocabulary lists and/or other material that she would discuss in class that day and that the student was expected to learn by the next class period. In both English and Latin classes, but especially in Latin classes, these handouts emphasized the close connection between a great multitude of English words and their roots in the Latin language. For example, the words ‘docent’ and ‘doctor’ derive from the Latin verb ‘docere’ (meaning ‘to teach’) and the words ‘prince’ and ‘principal’ derive from the Latin adjective ‘princeps’ (meaning ‘first’ or ‘chief’). Similarly, ‘fabrication’ derives from ‘fabricare’ (to construct), ‘association’ from ‘associare’ (to unite), and ‘sonorous’ from ‘sonare’ (to sound). The word ‘sound’ itself of course derives from ‘sonare.’

Once a student had become aware of the many connections between English words and their

Latin counterparts, it often became second-nature for the student, upon encountering an

unfamiliar English word, to seek a dictionary and look up its ‘etymology,’ i.e., its linguistic

origin and history. Having such etymological knowledge helps in understanding new words

and recalling their meanings. Not surprisingly, Sister Helen Rose emphasized that it was both

useful and enjoyable to have available a dictionary that included, not just the currently-

accepted meaning(s) of a word, but something centrally-related to its linguistic history.

Sister’s second signature teaching method was her daily and energetic 45-minute class

presentation (formal lecture). This presentation relied heavily on the material in that day’s

handout. Any student who was unfamiliar with this material, or perhaps felt threatened by it,

could follow most of the day’s lecture by simply looking at the handout while listening to

Sister’s presentation. Sister often supplemented the material in the handout with clever

analytic explanations, which she would write on the chalkboard at relevant times during her

lectures. One of her favorite instructional devices was to write a sample word on the board

(usually a multi-syllable word), then break down the word into its component parts,

identifying its linguistic stem and root meaning, plus noting any relevant prefixes and

suffixes that modified its meaning in the particular case.

If Sister sensed that the class as a whole was becoming tired or had lost its focus (e.g., some

students were looking out the window), she would immediately stop her presentation and

instruct everyone to stand up and stretch – then to sit down again and renew their attention.

At the end of a class, in the absence of unanswered questions, Sister would sweep out of the

room in a decisive and dramatic fashion, similar to her mode of entry 50 minutes earlier.

Sister’s strong and highly-organized teaching style would undoubtedly be game for criticism

by some modern observers. For example, some critics might say that a teacher should avoid

the limelight (which Sister Helen Rose definitely did not do), thus allowing the students to

become more-active class participants. According to this reasoning, interactive discussions

among students will highlight the understandings of students of different backgrounds,

thereby making the class material more engaging and memorable.

In the case of this writer, however, I found Sister’s didactic approaches to be both highly

efficient and memorable. At the beginning of my high-school years, my knowledge of

English grammar, creative writing, and literature was rudimentary, and my knowledge of

Latin was negligible. I found it reassuring that a strong mind and clear thinker was in charge,

indeed, that someone with a plan who knew what she was talking about was forcefully

leading the class. Furthermore, neither I nor my classmates had any substantive knowledge

of most of the topics discussed in Sister’s classes. As time went by, it struck me as

remarkable, in fact thrilling, that a teacher might know her material so thoroughly that,

should the occasion arise, she could continue her class presentation without notes and without

missing a beat. Sister also encouraged, and was able to answer, all student questions in a

clear and helpful manner, either during or after class.

Another salient characteristic of Sister’s teaching was the example she set for the adoption of

useful life skills, such as being organized, prepared, and accountable. Sister was the ultimate

role model for these qualities, and she also expected her students to evidence these qualities.

For example, she was notorious for giving pop quizzes on the material in her handouts. It

was also obvious to her students that she herself never wasted a minute of her time and that

everyone was expected to give his or her best effort. For whatever reason, disciplinary

problems did not arise in her classes.

Sister sometimes revealed the playful and humorous sides of her personality -- but generally

not during class itself. One student recalled that, prior to the beginning of a class early in the

semester, she was summoned by Sister and was told, “Mary, please run up the window

shades.” This ‘running joke’ was then repeated to this student often during the semester.

Another student recalled that, when ‘prom night’ in springtime came around, it was

customary for students to stop by briefly at the front porch of the convent house so that the

nuns might greet the students and meet their dates. In one instance, a male student made his

appearance, unexpectedly and nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. The next day Sister was

heard to comment, “John stopped by last night exuding smoke and charm.”

Sister also had an instinctive awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of her individual

students. One student remembers being called at short notice to meet with Sister at the end of

a school day, which was an unsettling prospect. Sister proceeded to tell him in no uncertain

terms that he was not working up to his academic potential and challenged him to get serious

about his future. The student recalls that this was the first time a teacher had made such a

pointedly unenthusiastic evaluation of his academic performance. As a result, he began

reading books of his own choosing and thinking about what to do after high school. By his

senior year, he had applied to and been accepted for admission by a university of high

standing in a nearby state.

Sister Helen Rose continued to teach in her brilliant, dedicated manner year after year. A

colleague in her community noted that Sister gave herself to her students in a way that she

gave to no others, saying, “The energy and intensity and gift of self that she expended in her

classrooms was unparalleled.” Another community member noted that she was always eager

to recount new information about her family (brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, etc.) and to show the latest family photos. A third noted that Sister never held back her opinions,

saying of her, “If you didn’t want an honest answer, you shouldn’t ask.”

Near the end of her life, Sister Helen Rose offered a simple summary about her long teaching

career: “I honestly did the best I could.”

In the advanced Latin class that I took from Sister Helen Rose, one of her favorite sentences

(which she encouraged her students to memorize) was from the Aeneid: “Forsan et haec olim

meminisse juvabit.” [Translation: Perhaps someday it will help to remember even these

things.] I can still hear Sister saying these words and their English translation in her crisp,

clear manner, including the exact location and time of day when she said them, as if it were

yesterday. Role models of excellence, such as Sister Helen Rose, make an impression that

lasts a lifetime.

[Note: The author of this remembrance was born in 1943 in Galesburg, where he attended

public schools through grades 1-8, then CCHS for high school, graduating in 1961. He

thanks classmates Mary Vizard Barthel, Shirley Drasites Janus, and Jay Matson, and his

brother Michael G. Baylor (who graduated from CCHS in 1960), for contributions to the text,

including help in recalling memories of Sister Helen Rose. He thanks Sister Janice Gilligan,

the archivist for the Sisters of Providence, for providing documents with biographical

information about (and including photos of) Sister Helen Rose. The author’s email address

is: baylor@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.]