Mrs. DG, the Legend

The rumors preceded her: mean, short-tempered, rude, and liked to paddle. She was a third-grade teacher in my school and I tried to avoid her at all costs. I didn’t really have contact with her since the classrooms were self-contained and I was in first grade. Running an errand for a teacher, going to the bathroom, or being on the playground when she had playground duty were the only times I glimpsed her. Until that traumatic day.

I had been sick the previous days and stayed home. When I went back to school my mother had written a note to keep me in at recess because of the chilly weather. Mothers sending notes to school and teachers sending notes home was the quickest and most high tech way in the 60s to communicate between home and teacher. Phone calls were more complicated since there were no phones in the classroom. Unless a parent wanted to talk to the school secretary, the note was most effective. I handed the note to my teacher and was directed to stay in the classroom during recesses. Bathroom breaks were okay when necessary.

I either needed to go to the bathroom or needed a change of scenery, which would have ended up in the bathroom anyway, so I headed out the classroom door. The freedom felt incredible. It was odd to be the only one in the hallway in that silent school. I could hear voices and screams and laughter through the glass door to the playground, but I was happy to be inside. My happiness didn’t last long. I don’t know where she came from, but there she was, Mrs. DG, not 10 feet past my classroom door.

“Just where do you think you are going?”

“To . . . the . . . bathroom.”

“You are supposed to be outside on the playground.”

I tried to explain how I had a “sick” note to stay inside at recess, but the words wouldn’t crawl themselves up my convulsing throat. Mrs. DG did not wait for an answer because she didn’t think there was one. She didn’t see the fear in my six-year-old eyes. She hulked over me, her shadow over-taking my minuscule form, making me feel even smaller. I felt her eyes pierce through me and I knew she thought I was bad even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.

She demanded I bend over so she could paddle me and sent me outside. I tried to hide the hot tears streaming down my cheeks from Mrs. DG and the other kids on the playground. Thank goodness the remaining recess was short. I learned life is not fair. I learned Mrs. DG neither cared about me nor the truth. I never received an apology for receiving a spanking doing exactly as I was told to do. She was every bit as mean as the older kids had said. And worse. I avoided that witch for another year and a half like a plague. Until I couldn’t avoid her any longer.

Third grade was beginning and I was hoping and praying, along with my friends, we would get the teacher with the reputation of being kind, fun, and caring. As my mother and I went into the school for registration the day before classes were to begin, I excitedly went to Mrs. Nice’s classroom door to read the names of her students. I was devastated. Later that night, I cried and begged my mother not to make me go to school. I tossed and turned and woke with the same tangle of emotions in the pit of my stomach. I really felt sick. My mother calmly tried to talk me down. She told me to go and see how Mrs. DG was as my classroom teacher. All my friends would be in there, too.

I reluctantly went. I knew I would hate it and my mother was going to have to get me in Mrs. Nice’s class somehow, or we would have to move. To my utter astonishment, I had a fabulous day. Mrs. DG wasn’t anything like I thought. She told us about the exciting things we would be doing for the year and she said it all in a comforting, kind way. I can’t remember if she made a point to be extra nice to me specifically or not, but she treated everyone the same way. That was the year I fell in love with reading. Mrs. DG had a bookshelf full of books we could check out and I read about Annie Oakley over and over again. That was when I learned how to make fake fingernails by pouring glue into the indention in the middle of my ruler, letting them dry, cutting them into the perfect shape, and licking and sticking them on my own fingernails. It was when art became magic and I even loved math. That was the year our eight-year-old classmate climbed out onto a limb to reach a bird’s nest and fell into the strip pit and drowned and his best friend, another classmate, couldn’t save him. That was the year our hearts were broken as we walked as a class to the funeral home and it was the year Mrs. DG showed us how big her heart was and how much she loved us all as she cried and cried at her desk for Mike Randolph.

I never knew if my mother went to talk to Mrs. DG before I went to school that first day of third grade or not, but I’ll never forget when that first day was over and I went home.

“How was school?”

“Good.”

“How was Mrs. DG?”

“I LOVE her!”

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I hope Mrs. Eutha DiGiacinto knew she made a positive difference in many children’s lives. Despite her gruff, strict exterior, she was loved.

Photo by Andrew Ebrahim on Unsplash