Our teacher, Miss Smeaton, got married! She was our fourth- grade teacher at Franklin School in East Orange. The kids all loved her, but none of them loved her more than I did.
One Monday morning she walked into our classroom a few minutes late. She looked so happy! She wrote a strange name on the blackboard: “Mrs. Niedenstein”. She told us she was married now, and that was her new name. She wrote it one more time up in a corner of the board so it wouldn’t get erased. She said some things about how nice her new husband was, and added that she was very happy, as if we couldn’t tell.
The class was quiet, and maybe a little confused at this change to their worldview. Speaking for myself, I think I was a bit jealous: would this interfere with my own relationship with Miss Smeaton? Actually, nothing changed for anyone – if anything, Miss Smeaton, I mean Mrs. Niedenstein, was nicer than ever. However, fourth grade came to an end, and we went on to fifth grade, with a teacher whose name I don’t recall, then on to sixth.
Part way through sixth grade, my family moved from East Orange to Orange, about a mile and a half between houses. Orange had different school days off than East Orange, and I used those extra days to visit Miss Smeaton in her classroom, where she found work for me tutoring a couple of the slower students. Those visits ended when the school year ended, and I never saw Miss Smeaton again.
Writing this 70 years later, I wondered how old she was when she married. Sadly, the way such research usually starts is with a look through the obituaries, and I found one for her husband and one for her. I also found something oddly affecting – I learned that her first name was Alice. I had never thought of Miss Smeaton as having a first name at all.
She and Norman were both about 40 when they married; probably his war service had put their lives on hold, like many others. Later, after they retired, they lived in Ocean Grove for 24 years. Norman died there at 85, then Alice moved to Florida to be near her relatives. She died there at 95.
Kids never think of their teachers as having a life outside teaching, and I guess I’m still a child in that respect: I was surprised, and happy, to read in her obituary that “she was an accomplished ballroom dancer and won numerous awards in dancing competitions.”
So here’s to you, Alice Smeaton Niedenstein, ballroom dancer, and in a way my first love. I hope your last days were peaceful and happy.
