Harriet C. Baker

Harriet C. Baker taught Latin to Billerica high school students for thirty-eight years. A graduate of Wellesley College, she had taught for six years in Brattleboro, Vermont, and Putnam, Connecticut, and was at the Franklin, Massachusetts, high school when the Billerica School Committee hired her in 1926 to teach Latin at Howe High School. She kept up her own studies, taking professional courses at Boston University in 1931, and later earned a master's degree from Tufts.

As a teacher at Howe High School she taught Latin, from first-year Latin through Latin IV, and ancient history, and her classroom was Room 21. The yearbooks show a teacher the students liked to tease. Seniors left her boxing gloves "to use in fighting with any unruly seniors" (1938) and a badge "to collect a fine from every senior who violates her traffic rules in Room 21" (1940), and later classes remembered "Miss Baker's stories." On the wartime faculty page of 1945 her pet peeve was "Visiting the rationing board," her ambition "To get the class of '45 graduated," and her favorite memory "Plenty of sugar." A member of the class of 1949 left her a line of Virgil: "Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit."

In 1952, the centennial of secondary education in Billerica, the senior class dedicated its yearbook to her together with Principal Cyril D. Locke, Doris G. Bergner and E. Ruth Belcher, who had "given unstintingly of their time and effort."

When the class of 1955 graduated and the high school moved to the new Billerica Memorial High School, she went with it, teaching Latin and algebra. The staff list of January 1962 shows her teaching Latin I through IV, in Billerica service since 1926, and she is listed among the teachers who resigned in 1964.

References

1. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1926 (Miss Harriet C. Baker hired from Franklin High School to teach Latin; Wellesley graduate)
2. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1931 (Harriet C. Baker among teachers taking courses at Boston University)
3. Howe High School yearbook 1942, faculty (Miss Harriet C. Baker, Wellesley A.B., Latin, Ancient History)
4. Howe High School yearbook 1945, faculty page (Miss Harriet Baker: pet peeve, ambition, favorite memory)
5. Howe High School yearbook 1940, class will (Miss Baker's traffic rules in Room 21)
6. Howe High School yearbook 1952, dedication to Mr. Locke, Mrs. Bergner, Miss Baker and Miss Belcher
7. Howe High School yearbook 1952, class history (class night "Memories" directed by Mrs. Bergner and Miss Baker)
8. School staff list, January 1962 (Harriet C. Baker, Latin I to IV, Wellesley A.B., Tufts M.A., began service 1926)
9. School Department, 1964 (Harriet C. Baker among resignations)