Former First Lady Abigail Fillmore: She was not only the wife of President Millard Fillmore, before she married him, she was his teacher!

Many of the Presidents and First Ladies in America’s past were former school educators. One of them was Abigail Fillmore, who actually taught the school her future husband, Millard Fillmore, attended.

Millard was 19 years old and largely illiterate when he decided he needed more education. He enrolled in a school in a nearby town in the state of New York. The 22-year-old teacher was Abigail Powers. Millard, the oldest student in her class, quickly fell in love with his teacher, but he was too poor and too shy to do anything about it. Seven years after he became her student, she became his wife.

When Abigail became Millard’s teacher, she had already established herself in her career. She had been teaching for six years. In 1814, she accepted a position as a part-time school teacher at the Sempronius Village School. In 1817, she became a full-time teacher, and in 1819 she took on another teaching job and began to teach at the private New Hope Academy. She was then asked to open up a private school in Broome County, she opened the school. In 1825, she returned to Sempronius to teach in her original position.

When Millard was elected president in 1850, Abigall became the nation’s First Lady. In fact, because she did not follow local custom and quit her job after her marriage, she was the first First Lady who came to her new position as a woman with a prior career.

As First Lady, Abigail Fillmore created a White House library for future residents of the People’s House. With her husband, she supported education and championed hospitalization for the mentally handicapped rather than imprisonment and punishment.

To rad more about this amazing First Lady, click on this link to History.com.

Joe Biden with the future First Lady and educator, Dr. Jill Biden, on Nov. 7, 2020, when the President-Elect reminded the nation of the importance of teachers.

As our country struggles to process the results of the November 3 election, both politically and emotionally, it appears that the Joe Biden has been elected to our nation’s highest office. On November 7, he delivered remarks to his supporters, and to the nation, in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware, for the first time as President-Elect. In his speech, Biden recognized the importance of his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, to his life and to his campaign, and gave teachers throughout the country a reason to celebrate.

“I would not be here without the love and tireless support of Jill, Hunter, Ashley, all of our grandchildren and their spouses, and all our family. They are my heart. Jill’s a mom — a military mom — and an educator,” Biden declared. “She has dedicated her life to education, but teaching isn’t just what she does — it’s who she is,” he continued. “For America’s educators, this is a great day: You’re going to have one of your own in the White House, and Jill is going to make a great First Lady,” he asserted.

Dr. Biden earned her Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Delaware in 1975. She earned two Master’s degrees, one in English from West Chester University in Pennsylvania and one in Education from Villanova University in Pennsylvania. She completed the requirements for her PhD in Education from the University of Delaware.

After earning her degrees, Dr. Biden accepted a position teaching English and reading in high school. She taught for three years at Claymont High School in Delaware, and then at Brandywine High School in Wilmington, Delaware (1991-1993). For five years she taught adolescents with emotional disabilities at Rockford Center  Psychiatric Hospital. From 1993 to 2008, she taught English and writing at Delaware Technical & Community College. Since 2009, she has worked as a professor of English at Northern Virginia community College.

When her husband was elected to serve as the Vice President under the Obama Administration, Dr. Biden continued to teach full time. She is believed to be the only Second Lady in history to hold down a full-time job while serving as Second Lady.

This indefatigable educator has declared she will continue to teach, even as she serves as First Lady. I don’t think anyone expects this of her, but those of us who are teachers understand. Once a teacher, always a teacher.

To read the full text of Biden’s remarks, click on this link: Biden Speech.

Minnesota’s Hannah Kempfer: The teacher and politician who championed the causes of children. (Photo credit: Minnesota Good Age)

Many teachers enter the profession because they experienced unhappy childhoods, and when they grow up, they want to do whatever they can to brighten the lives of other children. This could be said of Hannah Kempfer, a well-known educator from Minnesota.

When Hannah was only twelve years old, she took a train to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where she was taken in by the family of a local milkman. There Hannah attended Fergus Falls High School. Once she graduated, she enrolled at Park Region Luther College, where she graduated at the age of 17. After she earned her teaching certificate, Hannah taught from 1898 to 1908 at a small rural schoolhouse. She married farmer Charles Taylor Kempfer in 1903, and although the couple never had any children of their own, they fostered eleven orphans.

In 1923, Hannah was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives, where she served from 1923 to 1930 and 1933 to 1942. She was one of four women elected to the Minnesota House following the passage of women’s suffrage, and she was the first woman elected to office from rural Minnesota. She is best known for championing the causes of children, the conservation of natural resources, and the official selection of the Showy Ladies’ Slipper as  Minnesota’s state flower.  In 1923, Hannah and her fellow female legislators co-authored legislation that guaranteed children born out of wedlock would receive inheritance rights. The bill also required that fathers to give their children their last name.