Unlikely Gifts with Diane M. Simard
Unlikely Gifts with Diane M. Simard
EP 7 My Memorable Kindergarten Teacher, Mrs. Fernley
Do you have a favorite teacher? Host Diane M. Simard's most memorable teacher was actually her kindergarten teacher back in 1971, Mrs. Nettie Fernley, who taught all seven grades at Cotesfield Dist. #14 in Cotesfield, Nebraska.
For starters, Mrs. Fernley was born in 1896 and her first husband served in World War I. She played piano during the silent movies in the early 1900s, and her experience as a performer definitely influenced her teaching style! Diane will share some of Mrs. Fernley's antics, including what happened during the school's Christmas program when Diane was in first grade that shocked everyone!
Personal website: https://www.dianemsimard.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DianeMSimard1965
LinkedIn (Personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-moravec-simard/
LinkedIn (Unlikely Gift Productions): https://www.linkedin.com/company/81847025/admin/
Diane's book: https://www.dianemsimard.com/book/
Larry's Sorta Fun Stories podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/larrys-sorta-fun-stories/id1612127522
Hi, and welcome to the inaugural episode of the Unlikely Gifts Podcast. I'm your host, Diane M. Sabard, and I'm here with my sidekick, Larry King. And yes, Larry King is his actual name.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, that was my name. You know, my parents gave it to me. I had to I have to live with it. It's I've been in radio and television most of my life, but yet I've gone by other names, but finally I'm back to my real name. So, you know, I used to have radio names like Jack Kennedy and Bill Schwartz and things like that. Now my name is Larry King. So here we are. We're on the Unlikely Gifts podcast.
Diane M. Simard:Well, Larry and I have joined forces to share humorous, entertaining, and inspirational stories from our most memorable life experiences. You know, those experiences we call unlikely gifts. This podcast is just one of my avenues for storytelling, as I'm also an author and a blogger. You can find out more about me, my book titled The Unlikely Gift of Breast Cancer, and sign up for my free monthly blog and newsletter at my website, DianeMSummar.com.
SPEAKER_01:I always wanted to know does it hurt to be a blogger?
Diane M. Simard:No, not at all.
SPEAKER_01:No? No. Blogger is easy? Okay.
Diane M. Simard:Blogging is easy. Super easy. As long as you have lots of stories, it's super easy. Well, speaking of stories, Larry, you're also a stok storyteller with a podcast of your own. Why don't you share a bit about that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, I think it's important to go through life and tell people stories because it's important. It makes an impact on them. They may have an issue in their life that they could re relate to. And so if they're hearing it from the first person, it might be a good thing to hear about. Because sharing your wisdom is what podcasts can be all about.
Diane M. Simard:I agree. That's fantastic. That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:So before we start today's story, uh, Diane, tell us a little more of your background.
Diane M. Simard:Well, since you asked, um, get this. I grew up in a town of only 80 people, eight zero people. Wow. Called Coatesfield in central Nebraska. And then after completing my journalism degree, I went to work in corporate America, where I was focused on business writing. And then about 25 years ago, I moved to Colorado, where I eventually dabbled in angel investing and learned many expensive and profitable lessons. But then I was thrown a curveball, diagnosed with a bout of late stage three breast cancer in 2015, that was barely detectable. And ultimately the lack of attention paid to what I call the emotional scars of cancer prompted me to become the founder of a specialty at the University of Denver called the Center for Oncology Psychology Excellence, or COPE, to bring attention to the long-term psychological trauma that cancer often causes. And so today I'm a psycho-oncology influencer, a blogger, as we mentioned, a patient advisor, a business mentor and coach, an award-winning author, and a motivational speaker. And the theme in all I do is unlikely gifts, because I believe there's an unlikely gift in every circumstance.
SPEAKER_01:Boy, I agree. I like the fact that you're bringing up unlikely gifts. And we're going to be talking about, I think, several of those as we go along. The fact that you grew up in a town with only 80 people in Nebraska, seriously?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, it's it's true. It's all true. And that little town still exists today. Uh, it's a lot smaller even than when I grew up. And it was very, as I always say, Norman Rockwell-esque. And everybody knew everybody else's business. And and uh we had what we needed to get by, and of course, that's in the heart of corn and cattle country, and so lots of farmers and ag-based businesses around uh life evolved around the weather and farm chores, and it just was a very different way of life.
SPEAKER_01:So you grew up on a farm?
Diane M. Simard:I actually no, I grew up in the city.
SPEAKER_01:City of 80 people.
Diane M. Simard:I actually got teased um in elementary school about being a city girl, and I pleaded with my father, could we please move to the country? Because I hate being bullied about living in the city.
SPEAKER_01:So, so in my definition of 80 people, that means if there were like 3.4 people in a house, that must have meant you had like 20 houses in the whole town in your whole city.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, and and a lot of these small towns, of course, emerged across America pre-World War. Um, and and Coatesfield was actually founded, I want to say, in the late 1800s.
SPEAKER_01:Were you on the railroad?
Diane M. Simard:Uh yeah, of course. And and there was a big river that flowed by as well.
SPEAKER_01:Was the grain bin there as well?
Diane M. Simard:Oh, yeah, the big, huge, tall elevator. It's no longer there. But yeah, that's it's all it's all based around agriculture. Everything, everything that, you know, these small towns across America. And so back when farms were much smaller, uh, today they're so big that that uh and and they're so efficiently farmed that a lot of the population numbers in these areas have gone down tremendously.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah. But back in the day we were at the tail end of the Coatesfield's Haiti is so I'm told was before World War II. And it actually had a much higher population. And then as generations moved away and went off to war, the boys went off to war and never came back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
Diane M. Simard:Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, do you you're gonna tell us a story today about w one person, right? The person the first person that influenced you?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, so um oh my goodness. Uh today's story is about the first person I ever met who lived life on her own terms. She was bold and adventurous with just enough crazy thrown in to make her perpetually memorable.
SPEAKER_01:Well, who are you talking about?
Diane M. Simard:So I'm talking about my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Nettie Fernley, who was born in uh Gethus in 1895.
SPEAKER_01:Whoa, that was a long time ago.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, seriously. When I started kindergarten in 1970, sh I was five years old and and she was 75 years old.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Yeah, and still teaching.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, and um she had taught a course school her whole life, but she taught for two years at my school. We had a little elementary school there in Coatesfield, it was Coatesfield School District number 14.
SPEAKER_01:A country school. Yeah, you'd call it a country school.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, yeah. You'd call it a country school. We had it wasn't like one house, little house on the prairie kind of stuff, but it was close to that.
SPEAKER_01:So how many rooms were in it?
Diane M. Simard:So we had three rooms and three classrooms, and we had a kitchen and of course restrooms, and but we had one teacher, Mrs. Fernley, and she taught all seven grades.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
Diane M. Simard:She bounced around the different rooms during the there were three different classrooms, but we were all in one room. So the other the other classrooms were used for like indoor recess because god-awful Nebraska winters, you can't go outside and play. So we were all in one room. So that meant that in kindergarten I got to hear sixth grade math. And so that was it was so interesting to hear all the other classes because you're literally trying to do your homework there while other classes are going on.
SPEAKER_01:So was that an advantage, you think?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, I'm sure it was, but it just wasn't uh we didn't have much time for each class because to give a math lesson to all seven grades, yeah. You know, five to ten minutes. It that's how she did it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, my new five-year-olds learned this. Exactly.
Diane M. Simard:So so anyway, there was um I want to say on average about 15 students in the whole school. And so that meant my kindergarten class had there were three of us in kindergarten. And so in some classes, one had one student, and it just depended. But we all seemed to have cousins who went to the same school.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, no, I noticed I have a question because you were three of you in kindergarten. When I went to kindergarten, I had a little blanket. I had to lay down and take a nap. Did you take naps?
Diane M. Simard:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And then how did you how did you take naps when the rest of the school was going on?
Diane M. Simard:I know. No, they just they just put us in another room.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
Diane M. Simard:But yeah, we we kindergartners got to have nap time. That was the best. Okay. That was the best. But so anyway, back to Mrs. Fernley. Um, she actually started teaching school when she was 14. Wow. That meant she grew up in the early 1900s, and in fact, she not only did she teach school starting at age 14, she actually played piano for the old silent movies.
SPEAKER_01:Remember hearing about back in the early days of of movies before there was audio, they had um each theater had a piano player playing to create the the emotion of what was going on on the screen.
Diane M. Simard:Exactly. And so she did that. And so as a result, she was quite a performer.
SPEAKER_01:She sounds like a very memorable person.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, she was. She was a certainly a prolific piano player, but also um a a a school teacher.
SPEAKER_01:And so of course at the age 75, what did she look like at this time?
Diane M. Simard:So she was very short, she was less than five feet tall, and she just wore this caked on pancake makeup. And she wore she had white hair, so she wore a black wig and bright red lipstick and and um a lot of eyeshadow. And she would wear knee highs, she would wear dresses, but she would wear knee highs, and just this very colorful character. And as I mentioned, she was always uh performing. She wore um this perfume that reminds me now of what would smell like stale Chanel number five perfume. It's very strong, so you could always smell her coming. And and she just was fascinating to me. She scared me, she frightened me. Um, and in fact, um, a few of the things that I remember about her is we of course didn't have a lot of money, and and we had a paper a cabinet that was full of special lined paper for writing class. And so she would hand out one sheet of paper every day, and mine always managed to get a drop of her drool on it, and she would lay it on my desk. And then she had this um zeter, it's a it's called a zeter blowser pen. And it had um red ink on one side and then blue ink on the other side. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and and she was so when she corrected papers, she would flip it around like a drum twirler, yeah. The red side. And she would sit there and she'd twirl the pen like a drummer. I mean, you know, kindergartner, I was just so uh enamored with with who she was.
SPEAKER_01:So in in your kindergarten, were you the kindergartners up front and the big kids in the back? Is that how what is that how it went?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, she kept us pretty close to her. I remember I remember that. And it was a lot to absorb and and I was just always like I am now, infatuated with people and intrigued by people and always asking questions.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you said she kind of scared you, but what was she really like?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, no, she was always smiling and happy and jolly and very generous and um loved to talk, and uh she, as I mentioned, scared me because she had such a big personality for such a small person. She dressed so weird. But I was intrigued by her boldness. And um, so for example, we would have music class, which she taught, of course, because we had one teacher for seven grades, and so that music class consisted of us singing, the whole school singing, and so she'd sit down at the old upright, you know, the brown piano with the ivory keys, and she'd start playing um, I don't know, home on the range. And so we would sing home on the range until we ran out of verses, and then she would transition into like ragtime swing, and she'd start playing like she did in the old, in the old um silent movies, and we were just and she just would go on and on and on and on, and she just was such a performer, she was always performing, even at the chalkboard, the way that she wrote cursively on the chalkboard.
SPEAKER_02:It was always, you know, her hands were anyway.
Diane M. Simard:Quite uh, but the the most memorable experience I remember with her was our Christmas program in 1971. So I I would have been in first grade by then. Every December we'd always have the Christmas program, and all the parents and aunts and uncles and grandmothers and grandparents and cousins would come to our little school and watch, we'd put on plays and give recitations, and some of us that played a musical instrument would give a solo, and then our little five-piece band would play. But uh that particular year after we finished the program, uh we were having cookies and Kool-Aid, probably, and there were little gifts for all of us school kids to open. And so we just opened our gifts, and of course, since we lived in the heart of a lot of Germans and Polish people and Czech people like me, someone always brought an accordion and they would play polka music. And so uh Elmer Lett brought his accordion, he was an accordionist, and he was playing polkas, and then Mrs. Fernley just got like punch-drunk, she got into the moment, and we were all out in this big space where everyone was sitting, and she started doing a jig to the polka music. She was doing her jig around, and we're like, Okay, well, that's kind of weird. And then she took her wig off and she started twirling it around her head, and then she threw it in the audience, and that's gonna scare the kids, yeah. And then um, and then it got worse. She started taking her clothes off. Wow, so then at that point, women started shrieking and babies started screaming, and I was just my mouth was open. I was in awe watching this woman like start to do a burlesque show. I thought, oh my gosh. So then someone escorted her off and calmed her down.
SPEAKER_01:I would hope she just I I would think that you lose her job at that point.
Diane M. Simard:I know. Oh god, it was so it was so hilarious. People were just so shocked, and they're like, She's crazy. So anyway, she was not our teacher the next year, but um I I just she was like I said, this first woman that I met that lived life on her own terms, and I was so intrigued by that.
SPEAKER_01:So, what prompted you to want to tell the story about your kindergarten teacher?
Diane M. Simard:So I had always wanted to share Mrs. Fernley's story on my blog, and which I I finally did that a couple of years ago. And as I was doing research on her, I I actually there was a lot of information available on the internet about her. And I found out that, of course, she lived during this century of the 1900s, which was such a transformative century. I mean, so much happened in the last century, and she lived through all of that. She actually um was married twice, and her first husband served in World War I. His last name was Fernley, and so he was in the National Guard and um was actually a part of the rain, what was called the Rainbow Coalition. And so the Rainbow Coalition was um made up of all of these National Guard units from all across the country. And and they served as their own, I guess, battalion or you know, whatever, and in trench warfare in World War I. And the concept for the Rainbow Coalition came from of all people, Douglas MacArthur, who is likely better remembered by most of us as a somewhat controversial general from World War II that smoked the corncob pipe and everything.
SPEAKER_01:And then he said, I shall return.
Diane M. Simard:Exactly. And but in World War I, he was a major, an army major, and it was his idea to bring this rainbow coalition together. So uh, just and I'm such a history buff, and uh especially about the world wars, but in um her first husband actually survived World War I, but then died when he came home from the war. He died from his war injuries, and she remarried, but she always kept Fernley as her last name uh because that was her teaching name. And so anyway, she in 1934 she was named to Ripley's Believe It or Not for having been a school teacher the longest in the whole entire country. Oh my goodness. She she had started teaching when she was 14. So anyway, um, that was fascinating. But she lived to the age of 101, and she died, she played piano at um it sounded like up until she died, and was just this fascinating, fascinating woman.
SPEAKER_01:So, what impact did she have on you? Was it important to you?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, it it really wasn't, and especially now that I'm in middle age and reflecting on my mentors and influencers. Of course, in central Nebraska, our town of 80 people was very conservative. And I just had never met anyone like Mrs. Fernley who was so driven to live life on her terms. I thought that was great, even at the young, ripe age of five. Like I said, she was bold and brave and bizarre, and she was just unforgettable. But yet she was so impactful, and she was the first person I ever met who really celebrated her um differences, you know. She was her own person, and I just had not seen, of course, we didn't know what to think of her at the time, but she was a trailblazer, quite honestly. And she literally helped influence me to become the person that I am today, especially now.
SPEAKER_01:Do you think she was crazy?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, I uh I don't I don't think so. Some people possibly thought so. She taught school well into her 80s, so she literally taught thousands of school kids all across the Midwest. But to me, she'll always be a memorable influencer and truly an unlikely gift in my life and and to the lives of those she touched.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Thank you very much for this trip back in time through this unlikely gift that you've brought us to. Uh, where can the listeners read more about more of your stories?
Diane M. Simard:Oh, thank you. I would be so honored by that. Uh, there's actually a couple of ways. The first of all, my monthly blog, which is titled Middle Age Moxie, focuses on my observations of life and the unique lessons I have learned. And then in my monthly newsletter, The Unlikely Gifts Insider, I share information and resources that are available to help those impacted by cancer address their emotional scars. And if you'd like to sign up to receive both of those, just go to my website, DianeMsimR.com, to sign up, or you can reach out to me personally through the contact page on my website, and that will send me an email and I'll help you get signed up. Didn't you signed up?
SPEAKER_01:Didn't you also write a book about your cancer experience?
Diane M. Simard:Yeah, uh, I did. And you can learn even more about me in that memoir style book that I wrote called The Unlikely Gift of Breast Cancer. And it's based on my year with breast cancer. And it's won several awards. And it's available for purchase on my website, which again is Diane M. Samard. Or you can purchase it on Amazon or other book, major book retailers.
SPEAKER_01:And false got the podcast. And as I understand it, we're going to be releasing the podcast one a month to go along with your blogs. Is that correct?
Diane M. Simard:Yep. So they'll likely uh be released mid-month. And so be happy to um regularly follow us and leave your thoughts on or suggestions, uh, feedback about our podcast. You can do that in the review section of wherever our podcast page on wherever you listen to your podcasts.
SPEAKER_01:And we'd like everybody to tell their friends about the unlikely gifts podcast as well. And I think that's a wrap for this our inaugural. Inaugural?
Diane M. Simard:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:I can't say that word. Inaugural.
Diane M. Simard:Yeah. Well, we got through it. That's that's an accomplishment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
Diane M. Simard:But I would be remiss before we go if I didn't thank you, Larry, for all that you're doing to generously share your production and editing capability to make this podcast possible. And I want to encourage you to be sure to listen to Larry's Sort of Fun Stories podcast, a podcast that he also has uh about his own stories. And I also highly recommend uh a free what's called virtual vacation radio station that you can stream online. And it's called Collage Travel Radio.
SPEAKER_01:May I say it's collagelradio.com.
Diane M. Simard:And and just type that in, it'll take you there. It's just it's wonderful snippets about um travel tips and some great music. And I I just I really enjoy it. Well, thank you. Yeah, Larry's involved with that as well.
SPEAKER_01:Well, uh life is all about giving back. So do you got any final thoughts?
Diane M. Simard:Well, I certainly do. Um please remember and reflect on those in your life who encouraged you, who challenged you, who taught you, or who impacted you in a memorable way. Those who are, in essence, your unlikely gifts. Thank you for listening. Please share our link with your friends and join us next time. I'm Diane M. Simard, and this is the Unlikely Gifts Podcast.
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