Covid-19 claims the life of Texas teacher Elisa Creacy
With great sadness we report the passing of Elisa Creacy, a math teacher from Corpus Christi, Texas, who succumbed to Covid -19 on July 30, 2021. Photo credit: Sawyer George Funeral Home, Inc.
With great sadness we report that Covid-19 has claimed the life of yet another beloved educator. Elisa Creacy, a high school math teacher from Texas, succumbed to the disease on July 30, 2021. She was just 35 years old.
Elisa was a teacher at Robstown Early Collegiate High School located in Corpus Christ, Texas. Her career there spanned 14 years. “She had a great impact on her students lives, her family, friends,” remembered her father-in-law Mike Creacy. “She was just a wonderful person. To me, she wasn’t my daughter-in-law. She was my second daughter,” he continued. At the high school where Elisa taught, colleagues and students are showing their respect for the beloved educator by planting a tree and holding an assembly in her honor.
Elisa passed away just three weeks after giving birth to her first child, a son she named Elijah, who was born on July 14. Her passing devastates her family, who was already overcoming many challenges. Her husband is disabled, having suffered severe combat injuries while serving in the US military. Elisa’s father is a chaplain for the Corpus Christi Police Department, and her mother is recovering from an organ transplant.
Elisa was born on February 25, 1986, in Huntington Beach, California. She is a graduate of Charleston Southern University in South Carolina. To read more about her, see this obituary published by Sawyer George Funeral Home, Inc.
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Arizona’s Ruth Woolf Jordan: Rural teacher and businesswoman
Arizona’s Ruth Woolf Jordan was a rural schoolteacher and a successful businesswoman.
There are many examples of school teachers who became pioneers in the American Southwest. One of these was Ruth Woolf Jordan, a young teacher who taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Beaver Creek, Arizona.
Ruth Woolf was born in Crittendon County, Kentucky, on November 7, 1902. When she was ten years old, her family settled in Tempe, Arizona. As a young woman, Ruth attended Tempe Normal School, now known as Arizona State University, where she graduated in 1922.
Following her graduation, Ruth accepted a teaching position in a one-room schoolhouse in the Beaver Creek School, about 25 miles south of Sedona. As a rural school teacher, Ruth was responsible for firing up the wood stove on cold days, cutting her students’ hair, checking in on them when they were absent, ridding trails of rattlesnakes, and playing field games such as softball. To get back and forth to school every day, the young teacher rode her horse.
While teaching at Beaver Creek, Ruth was introduced to a young rancher named Walter Jordan. The pair fell in love, and were married in 1930. After their marriage, the couple settled into a one-room cabin on his land in nearby Sedona. Because local policy did not allow married women to teach school, Ruth gave up teaching and became a farmer’s wife. Eventually Ruth and Walter had three children.
During the 1930s and early 1940s, the Jordans expanded their farm to a total of 65 acres. There they planted an orchard of nearly 1,500 apple and peach trees. At the height of their orchard business, during the 1950s and 1960s, the couple was the largest private employers in Sedona. Ruth worked on the farm and marketed the produce in Phoenix, and in later years she returned to teaching school in Sedona and Red Rock when teachers were desperately needed.
By the 1970s, Ruth and Walter were ready for retirement. They sold their last commercial crop in 1973. After Walter’s passing in 1987, Ruth negotiated with the City of Sedona and the Sedona Historical Society (SHS) to reach an agreement to donate a portion of her remaining property to the city, and to sell the remaining four acres and her home to the city. The agreement granted her a life estate and SHS access to operate a museum in the Jordan farm buildings. After Ruth passed away on January 7, 1996, the city developed the land into a public park, and in 1998 the SHS opened the Sedona Heritage Museum. The museum offers exhibits on local history, cowboys, movie-making, orcharding, and local pioneers, including early women settlers, and their contributions to the community of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. The historic Jordan buildings were the first in Sedona to be named to the National Register of Historic Places.
You can learn more about the Jordan Historic Park at the website for the Sedona Historical Society at Sedona Museum. Read more about chalkboard pioneer Ruth Woolf Jordan at the Arizona Memory Project.
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Former foster child Anthony Swann named 2021 VA Teacher of the Year
Former foster child Anthony Swann has been named the 2021 Virginia State Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: wsls.com.
I always enjoy sharing stories about dedicated educators who have earned recognition for their work in the classroom. One of these is Anthony Swann, who has been named the 2021 Virginia State Teacher of the Year.
Anthony overcame many obstacles on his journey to becoming a teacher. As a youngster, he lived the life of a foster child, remaining part of the system until he was 21 years old. He was 11 years old when he decided to become a teacher.
Despite his obstacles, in 2007 Anthony earned his Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Averett University, a private university located in Danville, Virginia. In 2014, he earned his Master’s degree in Educational Leadership at Regent University, a private university located in Virginia Beach.
Currently, Anthony teaches fifth grade mathematics and reading at Rocky Mount Elementary School. He says his philosophy of teaching is to be emotionally open with his students. “I get on their level. I have never raised my voice at my children,” he said. “I don’t just care for them in the classroom, I care for them outside as well,” he continued. “They find my room a safe haven and they have an open line of communication with me,” he concluded.
In addition to his work in the classroom, Anthony mentors students and serves as a life-skills coach for fifth-grade boys through a program he inaugurated in 2019 called Guys with Ties. Every other week, the students dress to impress and participate in activities to learn the importance of integrity, honesty, and respect. Anthony also helped develop Rocky Mount Elementary’s Cooperative Culture Initiative, a program that rewards students for their positive behavior. The program has not only improved overall school culture, but it has reduced disciplinary referrals.
To read more about Chalkboard Champion Anthony Swann, see this article published in Virginia Black Lifestyle Magazine.
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Rose Sommerfield: Teacher and community activist
Many dedicated educators work diligently on humanitarian projects to improve conditions for others in their community. One who did this was Rose Sommerfield, a teacher from Baltimore, Maryland, who was an activist and social worker for the Jewish community in her city.
Rose was born into a middle-class German Jewish family in Baltimore in 1874. From 1889 to 1899 she taught in public schools in Baltimore. During those years, Rose became interested in the First Grade Teachers’ Association, and greatly influenced the organization’s policies. In addition, she established the first Mothers’ Meetings held in a Baltimore public school.
Rose was instrumental in the organization of her city’s Daughters of Israel and the Baltimore Section of the Council of Jewish Women. In fact, she was the first secretary of both organizations. She was also involved in a day nursery, the First Jewish Working Girls Club, and the Maccabeans, an association of men who did volunteer work with Jewish boys. In addition, Rose authored many published articles on educational and philanthropic subjects.
In 1899, Rose relocated to New York, where she organized the vocational course for the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls. She was instrumental in the development of the Home, where she served as Resident Director from 1899 to 1926. In addition to this work, Rose also organized the Clara de Hirsch Home for Immigrant Girls, the Welcome House Settlement house, and the Model Employment Bureau. And, as if all this were not enough, she helped to reorganize the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society and the Virginia, a non-sectarian hotel for working girls.
The indefatigable teacher and activist passed away on August 5, 1952. She was 78 years old. To read more about her, see this article published by Women of America.
