Eve Balfour, a world languages teacher in Maryland, helped save a Jewish woman’s life when the Nazis occupied Poland during World War II. Photo credit: US Holocaust Memorial

Throughout history, there are many remarkable educators who have performed deeds of heroism. One of these Chalkboard Champions is Eve Kristine Vetulani Balfour, a world languages teacher in Baltimore, Maryland. During World War II, she helped save a Jewish woman’s life from the Nazis when they occupied Poland.

Born a Catholic in Krakow, Poland. Her father was a professor at Jagiellonian University and her mother was a homemaker. As a young girl, before the outbreak of WWII, Eve studied several foreign languages in gymnasium, the European equivalent of high school.

Eve was born into a family that abhorred the Nazi regime. During the war, the Vetulanis adopted a Jewish woman, thereby saving her from the Nazis. In 1942, after the Germans invaded and occupied Poland, Eve was captured and forced to work in Nazi slave labor camps. Although her life there was difficult, her knowledge of languages saved her life, because she was more valuable to the Germans as a translator and interpreter than as a slave laborer. Fortunately, she was liberated from the Nordhausen labor camp by the Allies in 1945.

After the war, Eve became a displaced person. She was able to secure a position as a translator for US Army intelligence and was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. She also enrolled in classes at  Frankfurt University. In 1950, she immigrated to the United States. Upon her arrival, she first enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. After moving to Maryland, she graduated from Frostburg State Teachers College in 1962, and in 1966 she earned her Master’s degree in French from Middlebury College, Vermont.

For over 25 years Eve worked as an instructor of French, German, and Spanish at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland. She retired from the teaching profession in 1988. Able to speak Polish, Russian, German, Spanish, French, and Italian, Eve translated historical documents for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, after her retirement. She also worked for the Red Cross at their Tracing Bureau, assisting efforts to re-unite Holocaust survivors with their families.

Eve Balfour passed away in 2004 at the age of 79, but she will always be remembered as a true Chalkboard Champion. To read more about her, see this article about her published by the United States Holocaust Memorial.

Former  high school World Languages teacher Heather Webb has become an award-winning novelist. Photo credit: Heather Webb

Many excellent educators have also earned acclaim as novelists. One of these is Heather Webb, a former World Languages teacher who has become an award-winning author.

Heather earned her Bachelor’s degree in French and Education, and she earned her Master’s degree in Cultural Geography. Then she taught French and Spanish at the high school level for nearly ten years. By her account, shelved her job as a teacher, but left the classroom to become a stay-at-home mother for her two small children. Shortly after that, Heather decided to try her hand at writing, and that is how her career as an author of historical fiction was launched.

The former teacher is not shy about declaring her appreciation of history. “What’s not to love about history?” she asks. “I think it gets a bad rap from our grade school and high school days where many teachers force-fed us timelines and names to memorize, as opposed to teaching us to explore movements and larger concepts–never mind all of those juicy stories,” she says. “This is what history, and historical fiction, really is: juicy stories,” she reveals. And she credits her early interest in history on her father. “I blame my initial love of history on my dad, a retired military colonel, lover of history, museums, and old movies, and geography nut,” Heather concludes.

Heather has written nine novels in the historical fiction genre. Her first, Becoming Josephine, was published in 2014. She also published Rodin’s Lover (2015), a Goodread’s Top Pick. Her next novel, Last Christmas in Paris (2018), garnered the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award. She also published The Phantom’s Apprentice in 2018. Her novel Meet Me in Monaco (2020), earned Heather a 2019 Digital Book World’s Fiction prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Goldsboro RNA Award in Great Britain. She published The Next Ship Home in 2022 and Strangers in the Night in 2023. Her next novel, Queens of London, is set for release in 2024. She has also contributed to the historical fiction work Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution’s Women (2019), and published “Hour of the Bells: A Short Story” from Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War (2016). She collaborated with author Hazel Gaynor for the 2021 book Three Words for Goodbye. To date, Heather’s books have been translated to 17 languages.

Currently, Heather lives in New England. She instructs courses for the Master’s in Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Drexel University in Philadelphia and she also works as a freelance editor.