Jennie, the Teacher

1905 would be the last year Miss Jennie Pugh taught history at Lebanon High School before she married then attorney, Frank Hutchinson. The following are excerpts from the school's annual, the Lebanon Cedars.

from The Faculty

"With us the whole four years remained Miss Pugh, for a thing of beauty is a joy forever. She had always the law, or one of its exponents, on her side -- if driving or walking on her right side, if in the parlor, all the way around."

I love the thinly veiled description of their courtship from a teenagers point of view.

An Episode

Miss Pugh, the teacher with golden mane

In our High School ne'er raises cain,

Her sway is always sweet and mild

Hence oft by youthful pranks beguiled.

Three lads one day of mischief's crew

Had plotted a sinful deed to do.

They're Sophomores - now their names you know

Each to law a deadly foe.

One boy, a cruel, sinful, lout,

By artful ruse enticed her out.

The others then with crafty spite

Hung over the chair a parasite.

This plant was nothing bad, you know,

Only a spray of mistletoe,

But where it hung - ah! that was it,

Just over the place where she would sit.

Then back they stole to proper seats,

Trying to still their loud heart-beats:

In fear lest when she should return

She'd all their fiendish plot discern.

Soon back she came, with usual smile,

Not once suspecting of any guile

And looking not to left nor right

She took the seat - to their delight.

A moment then with silence fraught,

While "Little Perk," his nerve up-wrought

Then left his seat with trembling speed

Came to her side and - did the deed.

Of course she blushed and blustered, too,

At such a strange sensation, new,

But saw the joke as did the rest

And then her laugh outdid the best.

- Tom Harney