My Second-Grade Teacher

On Vina Krins and others

Thanksgiving at Plymouth, by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1925) (Wikimedia)

Last month, at Thanksgiving, my friend John Miller sent me an artifact. He and I went to the same elementary school: Pattengill Elementary, in Ann Arbor, Mich. His parents, Bing and Joyce, were wonderful figures in my life, but that’s another story.

The artifact? The program of our Thanksgiving play in second grade. On November 30, 1971, specifically.

I often say that my least favorite street is Memory Lane. That is a street, I find, that is often unwise to go down. I like eyes straight ahead. But I occasionally stroll down that street, as the “artifact” has caused me to do.

Here it is:

There are so many things to say—about the play, my classmates, and our teacher.

Our teacher, as the program tells you, was Mrs. Krins—Vina Krins. She was a southerner, one of the first such people I can remember encountering. She talked differently from the rest of us.

Mrs. Krins was an older woman—a grandmotherly type, we thought. The other day, I Googled her, just to see whether I could find some information on her. If a person’s name is “Betty Smith” (say), Googling can be futile—there are so many. But “Vina Krins” is rather distinctive.

In about a second, a Vina Krins came up—the obituary of someone who had died in 2017. I thought, “This can’t be my Vina Krins. She would have died long before.”

But, you know? It was. From her picture, I would have recognized her at 200 paces. She had died at 103.

When she was our teacher, in second grade, she was only 57.

I will return to Mrs. Krins in due course.

Our Thanksgiving Play was called “Squanto and the Pilgrims.” Could you do such a play today? “How Squanto becomes a brave” and all that? Pilgrims and Indians?

(You could not use the word “Indians.”)

It all seems pretty benign to me. And I smiled on seeing names such as “Governor Bradford” and “Myles Standish.”

As for the cast, my fellow students: oh, the mystic chords of memory. Almost each one of them, I remember distinctly. Let me touch on a few.

Sara Pollack, very bright, very dear. “Taken from us way too soon,” as people say. Regan Scott—practically a legendary figure, to some of us. (He, too, was “taken too soon,” though decades after Sara.)

(Regan, by the way, had nicknames for several of our classmates, and for Mrs. Krins. They came to mind instantly when I saw the program.)

Kellie Satterfield? My first crush, I blush to say—I mean, my first crush in person. My very first crush, I believe, was Marlo Thomas, in That Girl. She had a boyfriend, Donald. I experienced an emotion that I later learned is called “jealousy.”

Daniel Wang was an exceptional cellist, and his siblings, too, were excellent musicians, as I recall. And all-around smart cookies.

Cheryl McGill? I know this is odd to say about a seven-year-old (or whatever we were), but she was dignified. She had a quiet dignity about her, and you behaved better around her (or should have).

In a column for The Next Move last week, I wrote, “When I was growing up in Michigan, I knew many immigrants and refugees.”

Well, Paul Selenis was from a Lithuanian family. Peter Challis was from a Russian family. (His grandmother lived with them.) Aldo Ianelli was (obviously) from an Italian family.

Yorgo Poulos (in a different second-grade class at Pattengill, evidently) was from a Greek family.

In my columns, I often have a language note (or three). Why not here? The program says “Mrs. Krins’ Class.” Later—certainly in high school or college—we were taught to say and write “Mrs. Krins’s Class.” Each is acceptable, however.

Here is how that obit, from 2017, begins:

Vina R. Krins, age 103, a longtime resident of Windsor Park, Carol Stream, went peacefully to be with her Lord on April 15, 2017. She was born in 1914 in Ballplay, Tennessee in the Smokey Mountains to Banister T. and Sallie P (Kirkland) Bivens.

Ballplay, Tenn., is a dot on the map, an “unincorporated community” in Monroe County. The obit does not say what day Mrs. Krins was born, but World War I started on July 28. The United States would not enter the war until Mrs. Krins was about three.

Vina spent her childhood in TN. She graduated from Friendsville Academy in 1931 and Gilford College in NC in 1933 with a permanent teaching certificate. She taught at a one room school (grades 1-8) in her home community for two years.

Imagine that: a one-room schoolhouse, with all of those grades. That was probably the only education a lot of those kids would receive.

Walter Krins moved to TN after his parents died to live with his uncle who was the pastor of the church Vina’s family attended. Walter and Vina courted, became engaged and were married in 1935 in Ann Arbor Michigan. In 1954 she returned to teaching country school in MI. While teaching fulltime, Vina raised her family, attended college part-time, graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a BS in 1959 and a MS in 1964.

An accomplished lady.

The final 20 years of her 26 year teaching career, were spent as a 2nd grade teacher at Pattengill School in Ann Arbor. Walter and Vina lived the majority of their 54 years of married life in Ann Arbor and moved to Florida after retirement. After Walter’s death in 1989, Vina moved to Windsor Park.

“Windsor Park” refers to a retirement community in Carol Stream, Ill., a village near Wheaton.

Vina was a member of Wheaton Bible Church and the Hawthorn Garden Club, and was involved in many activities at Windsor. She loved and was active in Bible Studies, reading, traveling, gardening, genealogy and crafts, including, knitting, crocheting and quilting. Vina was a prayer warrior for her family, friends and missionaries around the world.

The obit cites two daughters, eight grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, and eight great-great-grandchildren. Also, “she was the adopted grandmother of the Mulu Haileab family and Tom Rinde family.”

She went far, that girl from Ballplay, born in 1914, and she did a lot of good, didn’t she?

To speak selfishly, I wish I had known to visit her, over the decades. And I would have loved to interview her.

At the end of the obit, there is a video, showing a series of photos of Mrs. Krins. The video ends with Bible verses, from Proverbs 3: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Thank you, dear readers, for taking this stroll with me.