Emily G. Johns' teaching recalled by her daughter

Plano residents may wonder who Emily G. Johns was and why a Plano school on Mitchell Drive bears her name. Well, according to her daughter, Pat Clason, the late Johns was a legend in her time.

Born Emily Gladys Green in January 1909 in Central City, Illinois, the future educator started school in Pingree Grove and finished her grade school years in Lilly Lake.

“It was a big thing to graduate from eighth grade back then,” Clason said, adding that all her mother’s schools were one-room country schools. In those days, grades one to eight were taught together, so Emily often helped the teacher with the higher grades, which allowed her to skip two grades.

Clason said her mother started school early. When Emily was only 4, she followed her older brother and sister to school every day until the teacher finally got her a desk and added her as a student.

The family then moved to a farm in Plano, where Emily started high school, something few people did back then. She graduated when she was 16, but part of this was because she had skipped second and fifth grades.

“Because of these things she was able to enter college at 16,” Clason said.

When Emily was attending college, there was little money and dinner was usually a bowl of soup at a restaurant. The waitress knew her situation and kept her supplied with crackers to take back to her dorm room. “Mom often said she made it through college on crackers,” Clason said.

Upon completing one year in college, she began teaching, something that was done frequently back then.

“Some began teaching after eighth-grade graduation,” Clason said.

Later, after taking night and summer classes at Northern Teachers College (now NIU) and Aurora College (now Aurora University), she finally graduated from Northern.

“When she graduated, I was also attending classes with her. I used to stay up there during the summer in a room with some housemates,” Clason said. “Graduation was always a serious, quiet and peaceful event. But this one was an outdoor event and when Mother got up there, all of her housemates stood up and yelled, shouted and waved. I think Mother was pleasantly embarrassed with the racket we all made.”

Emily got her first teaching job at the Sears School, a one-room school with grades one through eight. It was on Sears Road, off AT&T Road in the country, and closed in 1956, Clason said.

It was heated by a round oak-burning stove in the center of the room and it had a library with about 50 books.

“She rode to school in a horse and buggy with a boy named Charles Renten. And sometimes Guy Smith also gave her rides,” Clason said.

She recalled her mother saying that mice often jumped out of her desk drawer when she opened it in the morning. And Mary with her little lamb had nothing on Emily.

“One morning someone left the door open and a goat came in. It started eating the kids’ lunches before they could get it back out,” Clason said.

Her next job was teaching in the Issac Anderson School, also called the Preston School and sometimes the Petty School. It was built in 1849 east of Sleezer Road on Hughes Road. It had three rooms, but had outhouses until it closed in 1945. Water was carried from a neighboring farm and stored in a crock.

Emily also taught at the Bertram School and the Little Rock School, and did some substitute teaching in Bristol before returning to Sears School in 1948.

Clason also began her teaching career at the Little Rock School.

“I was following in my mother’s footsteps,” she said.

Clason recalled that Little Rock was a two-story building when Emily taught there with the older students upstairs. Eventually the upper floor began rotting away, so all students were moved downstairs, she said.

The Bertram School, built in 1857, was at the northeast corner of Bertram and Baseline roads on the Kane County side of the road. It was once known as Perkins School. Emily taught here from 1943 to 1946. The school closed in 1949, and is still being used as a private home.

After this, P.H. (Pearl Henry) Miller, the Plano school superintendent, who was looking for good teachers, convinced Emily to teach in Plano. (A Plano school also has been named after Miller.)

Clason said this was the first time her mother would be teaching only one grade at a time. She had all eight grades in most of the country schools.

She taught second grade in Plano, then had a combination of first and second grade, and then became a combination teacher and principal at the North Side Grade School, becoming the first female principal in Plano.

After Centennial School was built, Emily served as principal of both schools until it became necessary to have a principal at each one. Grace Dillion was then appointed principal of Centennial.

The P.H. Miller School was built in about 1965. Emily oversaw the design and construction of the building and finished her teaching career at that school in 1970.

“I was a student at Miller School and mother was one of my teachers,” Clason said.

Unfortunately she did not live to see the Emily G. Johns School named in her honor. It opened in 2007, according to Tony Baker, who was then and still is principal.

When it was time to name the school, the school board asked for suggestions from the residents and Emily’s name was chosen.

“I don’t think it did any harm that Mr. Bill Woody, superintendent at the time, was one of Mother’s second-grade students,” Clason said.

When the school was dedicated in her honor, the auditorium was filled.

“We think her spirit is hovering over it, because it is always such a nice warm and welcoming atmosphere,” Clason said.

Clason was the only one of Emily’s children who became a teacher.

Pam Reilly, the instructional coach at Emily G. Johns school, is keeping the spirit of Emily alive at the school.

Because she knew so much about Emily, Reilly invited Clason to attend a special event at the school so she could tell the story of the woman for whom their school was named.

“Now everyone in the building knows the story of Emily G. Johns,” Reilly said.