The train to college
By Dorothy Ciryak Clark Leonard ’76, ’84

id a little girl’s ride on a train lead to a teaching career years later? Maybe. At least, the trip ignited a hunger to attend college. I hadn't thought about it in years until someone mentioned train rides and then I smiled. In those days, trains brought our mail and for a little girl, the promise of something beyond.

Near Glassboro there is a small town named Woodbury Heights. In the late forties, when I was in third grade, my path to and from school each day was down Lake Avenue, with its large trees that formed a canopy of leaves overhead, across Glassboro Road and one block more.

I loved school and I was in heaven the day we learned we had been invited to visit Glassboro State Teacher’s College. On that morning, Miss Wilkerson announced we would take a trip to the college and that we would take the train. The class was so excited! Now I didn’t know anything about the college, but I couldn’t wait to ride that train. I had never been on one.

Maybe we looked on a map to find Glassboro, maybe we studied trains, perhaps we even learned a little about the college; I don’t remember. I do remember that our excitement was nearly unbearable. When the day came, we boarded the train at the little station right up the rise behind the school. It was the same place we picked up our mail each day.

The train ride was ecstasy for a child-like sitting in a little room on rails watching a kaleidoscope of colors and visions outside. When we arrived, a group of people met us at the Glassboro Train Station. A woman with short black hair wearing a suit introduced herself to me. Her name was Miss Minute (Min-oo-tee) and she would be my guide for the day. She was a student learning to be a teacher because she loved children, she told me. I thought she was like a fairy godmother.
She took me across the lovely grounds to the big main building (Bunce Hall).

We would see the buildings and the cafeteria, she explained and then we would have lunch. I would be allowed to walk with a tray and pick the table where we would eat. The cafeteria seemed the ultimate in sophistication to a third grader. Everyone smiled. People sat around at small tables, some eating, some studying. It was so glamorous. After lunch, we met the rest of the class and their guides. We sat on the grass and the college students answered all our questions.
We probably dragged our feet walking back to the train station. I know I didn’t want to leave this happy, magical place. The ride home was a blur.

Our class settled back into our routine until one day when Miss Wilkerson said we all had mail. Mail for children was unheard of but there they were: letters with real stamps, sealed and all. Mine was from Miss Minute—I can still picture that beautiful block printing. I read it and reread it. Unbelievably, she was thanking me for visiting her when it had been my joy, my pleasure. I saved that note for years.

The train ride to the college is one of my happiest childhood memories. It introduced me to college life and convinced me that teachers are a very special breed. I often tell my students (yes, I became a teacher) about my school days such as the plays we put on, funny classmates or Miss Wilkerson’s giant yam plant. Now, I wonder if that trip was the seed planted all those years ago that led me to Glassboro State College to begin the ride to my own career.

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Dorothy Ciryak-Clark Leonard ’76, ’84, who is celebrating 20 years as a teacher this year, teaches first grade at Mary F. Janvier Elementary School in Franklin Township.