My Senior-Year English Teacher

Mrs. Vivian McConnell (1920-2012)

When you go through your formative years in the school system, there are many instructors you encounter - some are boring, some are strict, and then there is that rare teacher that really impacts you in such a way that you remember them for many years after you walk the aisle and receive that piece of paper that says you are now "educated" to go out into the world.  In my senior year of high school, I had a special teacher like that, and this lady turned out to be a real gift from God.  Vivian McConnell, in her long and fruitful career as English teacher/choirmistress/part-time animal-rights activist, had many kids sit in her classrooms as she communicated in a practical way classic pieces of literature such as The Grapes of Wrath or even Aldous Huxley's controversial utopian/apocalyptic novel Brave New World, and surprisingly she made these otherwise cumbersome pieces of classic literature relevant.  That is why I want to dedicate this to her, as it tells the story as I remember her.

Young Vivian Thomas was born to humble beginnings in Grafton, WV, on August 28, 1920 to what she described to me as two devout Church of Christ parents.  However, despite humble beginnings, young Vivian managed to earn degrees in English and Education from Fairmont State University, and then she embarked on what would be a 40-year teaching career in which she helped an untold number of teenagers by giving them the tools to shape their worldviews and be successful in life.  At around the time she began this rewarding career, she married her late husband, B.F. (or "Mac") McConnell and had three children with him - her oldest daughter, Dawn Milne, was also one of my teachers as well, and one day she may warrant a story of her own here.  In addition to her teaching, Mrs. McConnell was also active in the local First Methodist Church in Terra Alta, WV, where she served for many years as organist and choirmistress - as a virtuoso organist, she was also in great demand for various community functions, from revivals to funerals, and high school graduations were not quite the same after she retired from my alma mater, East Preston High School, in 1989 (the same year ironically that I graduated), where for many years her rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance" was an integral part of every ceremony.   The community loved her, quite honestly, and she always gave back to Terra Alta in many ways, as she was probably one of the most civic-minded people I think I have ever met. 

After I graduated high school in 1989, I made it a special point to keep in touch with Mrs.  McConnell for many years, and we had a lot of really nice phone conversations as well as some visits when I was home on summer break from college.  Our conversations were about a little of everything - religion, politics, history, etc. - and although she was always well-read in so many areas, after her retirement she had a lot of catching up to do on leisure reading, and as I look back on that, it was like a sort of "bucket list" she maintained.   Although we remained close, we didn't always agree on everything - she was a little more left-of-center politically than I was - but we respected each other and learned a lot.  Which now leads to how I first got to know Mrs. McConnell.

Although I didn't have Mrs. McConnell as a teacher until my senior year of high school, I got to know her well as she was very well-versed in music, and knew composers well.  In my junior year, I began to develop an appreciation for Igor Stravinsky, in particular his controversial but hauntingly beautiful work Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring).  Anyone who knows what the inspiration behind that ballet was knows that is based on Stravinsky's interpretation of a pre-Christian Slavic pagan fertility ritual in which a virgin maid is sacrificed by dancing herself to death.  When this piece premiered around 1913, it was so volatile that it caused riots in places it was staged, but when I remember Le Sacre du Printemps I get a very different impression.  Any rate, knowing that Mrs. McConnell was well-versed in musical history, she was who I went to in order to inquire about how to find a recording of this Stravinsky masterpiece.  At that time, she kept a stack of LP records in her classroom in a large cabinet, and although she didn't have a recording of Le Sacre du Printemps, she highly recommended that I also sample his other great works, notably The Firebird, which she did have an LP of.  On the flip side of The Firebird was the other Stravinsky classic, Petroushka, which is in essence a Russian version of the "Pinocchio" story.  I was able later to get Le Sacre du Printemps, but thanks to Mrs. McConnell I also learned to appreciate Stravinsky's other works, and to this day I am still a big Stravinsky afficianado.  So, it was the controversial ballet about a pagan Russian sacrifice which Stravinsky composed that led me to first meet Mrs. McConnell. 

Mrs. McConnell as she was back when she was my high-school English teacher

The last time I had a conversation with Mrs. McConnell was sometime around 2005 or so, after which my work as an administrative assistant in a title company made time more constricted.  In the ensuing years, she became too advanced in age to live at her house by herself, and her son Tom, who lived nearby in Cranesville, took her in.  She lived a pretty full life though, and her final years at her son's house are by all accounts good ones, although her health had begun to decline as often happens with age to anyone.  I regret not being able to have more conversations with her though, as she was really a joy to talk to.  And, as mentioned, although she was a little left-of-center politically, she also was a very capable educator and her students learned many things that many of us still use today.  She comes from that generation of educator that took a more serious interest in their students rather than just seeing them as a potential paycheck, and the unfortunate thing today is that there are not more like her in the educational system today.  I have had many wonderful teachers over the years, but I would have to say that Vivian McConnell was one of the best, as I am sure many others of her former students would readily agree.  Rest eternal, Mrs. McConnell, and one day we will get to have those stimulating conversations again on the other side of history.