No Smile Until December

When I was in my first year at Gainesville Elementary, sixth-grade teacher Susan Ault gave me some advice.  " Don't let them see you smile until December." she said with a straight face.  Of course, she was talking about how one might teach kids who sometimes take advantage of a teacher's lax discipline.  "Wow", I thought.  "That's really a good way to get your bluff in on the first day!"  I tried it, but actually wasn't too successful.  I mainly used my loudest "teacher voice" to quell any disturbance in my class.

Susan, who passed away a few days ago, was a wonderful friend and mentor.  But more than that, she was talented, resourceful, and endlessly creative.  She could look at a mess on the library table at the Historium, which yours truly had created, and smile.  Giving me a gentle pat on the shoulder, she'd say, "That's okay Jane.  You'll figure it out."  And usually I did...with the help of some of the other workers that day.

When we were moving all the books into the Historium before it opened, Susan and her husband John were endlessly optimistic.  The boxes were piled around the tables.  Jean Allen and I were busy, trying to make order out of mayhem.  Keeping track of so many family histories and trying to decide where to file and arrange information so it would be usable seemed a daunting task.  Susan was right there with us through it all.  John gave his advice and then went off to load more stuff off the truck and in the back door.  What a job!  It took awhile, but finally we were able to have some semblance of a library when we opened.

In the short while since I learned of her passing, I've been trying to sum up Susan's secret charm and can-do attitude.  She was not a quitter.  If the mud got deeper, if the papers got higher, if the kids got louder...she would wade in and get it done.  No smiles until December.  No resting until you had a solution.  No short cuts.  No whining.

But we also know the gentle, wonderful friend she was to all of us.  So many remember her smile, her kind words, her unceasing efforts to make Ozark County a place where people felt at home.  It was her place.  She was born and raised here.  And there was no more fitting person to lead us to do our best...whether we were child or adult.  Always that quiet assurance that all would be well.

Thank you Susan.  God give you rest now.  You will always be remembered as one of the best...in anything you chose to do.