Let me tell you about Mrs. Stulting (part 2)

This photo may be from the UK in 1945, and they’re not holding hands, but this is pretty much Wharton Elementary’s Maypole! A Picture of a Southern Town: Life in Wartime Reading, Berkshire, England, UK, 1945. Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Let me tell you about Mrs. Stulting (part 1).

I hope that yesterday’s post gave you a general idea of the neighborhood that Wharton Elementary School in Houston, Texas inhabited. And the rapid, almost turbulent demographic changes the school and its teachers experienced.

Now picture a tiny 47-year-old woman, maybe 5’ tall, 100 pounds soaking wet. That would be Mrs. Elsa Stulting, principal of Wharton Elementary from September 1945 through either 1972 or 1973. Either way, a long time. I wish I had a photograph of her. Even the pictures in the newspapers are too grainy to be of much use.

Let me go back to her beginnings, if you don’t mind.

ELSA MARIE EMILIE STULTNG NEE GOHLKE

She was born Elsa Marie Emilie Gohlke in Yorktown, Texas in April 1898. The Tauf-Register or baptismal registry for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in that town duly notes her birth, with baptism shortly thereafter.

Her grandparents emigrated to Texas from the German part of Poland, east of Berlin. Her mother’s maiden name was Sasse. I think I’ll die if she turns out to be related to Christoph Probst’s stepfamily, which I’ve mentioned in Why This Matters. I’ve written about Dieter Sasse there.

Like many Germans in Texas, the Gohlkes and Sasses came over in 1853, which begs another question: Were her grandparents Forty-Eighters? She certainly shared the values of those revolutionary immigrants, who brought their love of human rights and constitutional government, wrapped up in the arts, to frontier Texas.

Since newspapers dot com has not yet digitized Yorktown’s newspaper, there’s a big hole in Mrs. Stulting’s life as seen on the pages of Texas papers. I know relatively little about her from 1898-1926.

From 1926-1928, Miss Elsa Gohlke taught elementary school in Beaumont, Texas. In 1928, age 30, she moved to Houston and taught third grade in the Heights, at Helms Elementary. While simultaneously finishing up her B.A. from Southwest Texas State in San Marcos.

By 1931, she moved in the right circles in Houston’s pedagogical society. Not high society, mind you. But those who shared her passions. Her donations to Red Cross rescue efforts and Emergency Relief Funds stood out, as she was one of the few women, and assuredly one of the few teachers, to contribute to those funds.

And she traveled! Not just to Galveston. But to Carlsbad, New Mexico. California. Catalina Island. The Pacific Northwest. Sometimes she went with a sister, but not always. She struck out, a single middle-aged woman, and toured America. In those days, local newspapers served as social media. Reporters dutifully documented her adventures.

Around 1935, she made another good move: She joined Houston’s First Methodist Church. That put her in contact with even more people who shared her interests, who didn’t think she was crazy to be a single woman with a career. Who traveled.

A year later, she was hired as principal of Looscan Elementary, a small Houston school with significant problems. Using funds from the Public Works Administration of FDR’s New Deal, she got the necessary repairs completed.

But Miss Elsa Gohlke didn’t stop with fixing things that were broken. No! While she was at it, why not a new cafeteria? And hey, a few more classrooms would be nice. Her kids deserved it, and PWA money was there.

When everything was shipshape, Houston’s newspapers advertised her audacious invitation to any and everyone in the city who wanted a tour of the facilities. Open House!

At age forty, Houston School District asked her to join the committee that was tasked with creating a brand new summer school program. This would not be for children who needed to make up material they didn’t understand. This program instead focused on high-achieving students, what we call “gifted” (a term I really don’t like).

There had not been any such “special” curriculum before 1938, when Elsa Gohlke and a dozen or more teachers and administrators put their heads together to fashion something new.

She must have been one of those people who couldn’t turn down an offer to take on meaningful assignments. That same year, the Houston superintendent tapped her to develop a curriculum promoted by the U.S. Department of Education. The year’s topic was Education for Tomorrow’s America. Every school district was granted wide latitude in how they implemented the subject matter.

Houston opted for a narrower theme, Achieving the Golden Rule. It was not treated from a religious perspective, or better said, it embraced Houston’s colorful religious tapestry. Elsa Gohlke added that to her to-do list.

In 1941, the school district asked her to serve on a small committee as vice president: Houston Principals and Supervisors Association. It helped teachers and principals find resources and brainstorm ideas for their classrooms. This was the umbrella organization for elementary, junior high, and high schools, which each had their own separate association.

All of this wasn’t enough for Elsa Marie Emilie Gohlke. In 1942, she graduated from University of Houston with her Masters. UH had only been a university for eight years! When the Houston Post interviewed her shortly thereafter, she told the reporter her goal in life was to become a General in the W.A.A.C. (Women’s Army Corps). I’m quite surprised that she did not achieve that goal. Wasn’t for lack of trying, I’m sure.

She apparently took a deep breath between 1942-1945, because during those years, she “only” continued with her school district work, as well as remaining principal of Looscan Elementary.

Her life must have become too boring those three years, because in 1945, she did two pretty big things. First, she married Leslie Claude Stulting. Then she became principal of Wharton Elementary. At 47 years of age.

I’m puzzled by her marriage, but I won’t speculate about Leslie. I found some disturbing things about him that made me wonder why. For the rest of her life, she continued to be Mrs. Elsa Stulting, although she and Leslie apparently never lived together. Leslie didn’t seem to live in one place for more than a few months at most. The opposite of the Mrs. Stulting I knew.

Her becoming principal of Wharton Elementary was a big deal. Her life picked up its pace again, at least for a while. She volunteered with Houston’s YMCA, sat on its board. It looks like she did some fundraising as well. (And now I have to wonder if she knew my great-aunt Lelia aka WeeWee and my grandmother outside of Wharton, because both were heavily involved with Houston’s Y. Like Elsa, Lelia was a single career woman, and she served on the board of Houston's YWCA.)

Sometime in the late 1940s, that all changed. She seems to have given Wharton Elementary and its teachers and students her mostly-full attention.

She fought the school district when they cut the bus route from San Felipe Courts to Wharton as part of their austerity program. Nope. They were not going to do that to HER kids. She took her battle to friendly reporters and got bus service restored.

Mrs. Elsa Stulting worked those connections to get Wharton music resources even the better-heeled elementary schools didn’t have. She chaired the music committee for a district-wide teacher training conference. Not for her own social connections or professional benefit. So Wharton Elementary could gain resources not budgeted by her bosses.

I’ve long credited our music teacher Mrs. Webb with the phenomenal resources we enjoyed. That teacher’s husband George Webb founded the Houston Youth Symphony and moved in rarefied circles. I’m seeing that Mrs. Stulting probably hired Mrs. Webb so she and Mrs. Webb could provide us access to music that inner city kids normally only dream of.

If you’re a Kenny Rogers fan, you should probably thank Mrs. Stulting. Kenny went to Wharton and won his first big talent show at the Texan Theater with a “garage band” of sorts when he was eleven. At Wharton. In 1949. (He lived in San Felipe Courts.) I would have loved to have seen eleven-year-old Kenny Rogers perform on the stage in our cafe-gym-atorium.

Her advocacy for students and teachers did not stop with the fine arts, although it’s clear she believed that music and art could solve just about any problems.

Since Wharton included very low-income students, sometimes Mrs. Stulting was called on to rescue “her” kids whose family life was nightmarish.

In 1952, Mrs. Stulting asked for a first grader named Gary Williams to be brought to the principal’s office. She only knew that he had unexcused absences. She needed to ask Gary for an explanation. Gary told her that his father Wilmer Moore Williams—may his name live in infamy—had gotten angry at him for throwing out a spoiled can of fruit cocktail.

But before Gary got to the “reason,” Mrs. Stulting was already working to get Gary and his sister removed from their father’s custody. Because Gary’s eyes were swollen shut and his face was puffy and bruised. Police took Wilmer Moore Williams downtown for questioning, and child protective services removed both children from his home. Good old boy Wilmer claimed he had just slapped the kid a couple of times. His handiwork was too visible to be denied.

I kept looking for more about Wilmer Williams. Checked all of Texas, not just Houston, and the only Wilmer Williams (not Wilmer Moore Williams) was for a Pentecostal preacher in Houston. Which might track. I was surprised I did not see that Mrs. Stulting testified against him in court. Have I already said, no one messed with Mrs. Stulting’s teachers or students?

She even convinced reporters to write about her complaint that drivers were speeding down West Gray, ignoring the school zone. They were endangering the lives of her children! She wanted that law enforced! (Our safety patrols were quite proactive after that.)

Those sorts of events were nothing compared to her backbone of steel when it came to matters of justice.

As described in part 1, the neighborhood around Wharton Elementary had changed dramatically by the time I was enrolled in kindergarten in September 1960. It was a regular Tower of Babel, with languages and foods and dances and… And Brown v. Board of Education had been in full force for six years by then. Add to immigrant children, Black children whose parents wanted them at Wharton.

It was settled law, so it was fine by Mrs. Stulting. If anyone messed with her Black students, they met her full wrath same as if they messed with her Greek or Jewish or German kids. Or her kids from almost-River Oaks.

Dance around the Maypole? Sure! We did it a little differently so everyone in the school could dance together. We would hold hands. When I say heads exploded, it’s only a tiny exaggeration. By the time I was at Wharton, the school’s water fountains were no longer segregated. They were still segregated at Henke & Pillot, the local grocery store, because of the River Oaks families nearby. But not at Wharton.

We ate in the same cafe-gym-atorium. We played on the same playground. We sang together. We put on musicals together. We went to the Houston Symphony together, thanks to the Webbs.

The Webbs even rubbed racists’ nose in it. When George Webb included very young children like us in Houston Youth Symphony, he scheduled rehearsals and music theory lessons for MacGregor Park. The statue of Martin Luther King Junior wasn’t there yet, but it may as well have been. George Webb knew exactly what he was doing. And so did his partner in crime, Elsa Stulting.

Of course, there was a hue and cry from parents who wanted Elsa Stulting fired. Fired, you hear me, fired! Now! They were so vocal, so nasty. Ironically, she was Republican (I think, because she never talked politics). She was simply doing what was right. For her teachers. For her students.

Her support for her teachers was legendary. First, she hired creatives to teach. Bobbye Burke, the kindergarten teacher Mrs. Stulting hired in 1959, was also one for song and dance and art. Bobbye Burke taught at Wharton for forty-four (44) years. The running joke for her entire tenure: You could tell who’d had her for kindergarten, because we walked the Bobbye Burke walk, a sassy sashay full of self-confidence and joy. I will write more about Bobbye Burke later.

Mrs. Stulting hired one teacher after another, all the same. Personalities may have been different. My first grade teacher was stern, but oh-so fair and wise.

While I was at Wharton, the fourth-grade teachers complained to Mrs. Stulting that the Texas geography textbook was boring. Mrs. Techmann, a very loud, very happy Czech Yankee from New York, protested loudest. Mrs. Stulting: You think it’s boring, write a better one. You didn’t dare complain to Mrs. Stulting unless you were prepared to act.

So Mrs. Techmann held a confab with her fellow fourth-grade teachers. And whaddya know, they wrote one. Mrs. Technmann, non-native to Texas, set out on weekend trips to see things for herself. Put it in writing. Got an artist to do black-and-white sketches.

Not only did Wharton adopt the “new” geography textbook, but Mrs. Stulting took it first to Houston School District and got it adopted by all elementary schools in Houston. And then, cherry on top, procured funding so they could rewrite for the state level. Which they did, and it was adopted by the whole state.

Start to finish, a year. Yes, you should be impressed. But that was the can-do attitude at that school. Hey, Bobbye, you want a schoolwide Halloween party? This year? All grades? With food and decorations and scary stuff? Have at it! And she did and we did.

When the principal makes dreams happen and removes bureaucratic obstacles, anything is possible.

But it wasn’t just Birchers who wanted Mrs. Stulting fired. A teacher donated a plaque to the school to go right outside the cafe-gym-atorium, under a portrait of President Lincoln. It was a series of quotes. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves. This was 1963.

The plaque attributed the quotes to no one in particular, but it was under that portrait of Abraham Lincoln that hung next to that cafe-gym-atorium. Whereas before it had been self-proclaimed conservatives who had called for her dismissal or censure, now it was self-proclaimed liberals. Especially Mr. and Mrs. Howard Barnstone (I told you Wharton had a complex mix of students). For non-Houstonians: Howard Barnstone was the architect who worked with Mark Rothko to create the Rothko Chapel on the campus of the University of Saint Thomas in Houston.

The Barnstones expended enormous political and social capital in seven years of attacks on Elsa Stulting. They accused her of promoting a political agenda (some of the quotes were used by Barry Goldwater in his failed 1964 presidential campaign). No matter how much she protested, they insisted the plaque come down. And persuaded the editor of the Houston Post to pen an editorial attacking her. Yes, attacking sixty-six year old Elsa Stulting, principal of a small, insignificant elementary school. Attacking her in a leading newspaper.

The Barnstones may have enjoyed enormous political and social capital, but Elsa Stulting had two things they did not (likely more): Backbone of steel, and allies within Houston School District. The plaque stayed up until she retired at age 74.

The Maypole incident

I want to close this introduction to Elsa Stulting nee Gohlke with something I see as even more powerful.

My parents, and WeeWee and my grandmother, were close to Mrs. Stulting and to my teachers and the parents of my friends. They were part of Elsa’s army of parents who ensured kids had school supplies, good clothing, food to eat, medical attention, books to read, and more, regardless of their “class” or social status. Elsa Stulting marshalled her troops—Interfaith Ministries, which included Sacred Heart, Annunciation, Wheeler Avenue, and Temple EmanuEl, plus Red Cross and anonymous benefactors—to adopt “her” kids. Parents and teachers were her eyes and ears.

One day in 1965 in the middle of the fight over Black kids holding the hands of white kids, and rehearsals at MacGregor Park, and a “Mexican” boy playing the lead role in the school’s musical, plus the Barnstones accusing her of shoving conservative (!) politics down the throats of her students, Elsa Stulting confided in my mother. My mom and other parents were helping plan the 1965 Maypole celebration. Once again, Mrs. Stulting was under pressure either to cancel or to segregate “her” kids as we danced.

That conversation made a strong impression on my mother, who in turn shared it with me when I was an adult.

It was, my mother said that Elsa Stulting told her, excruciatingly difficult for her to oversee the integration of Wharton Elementary. Once Brown was handed down, she accepted that integration was the law of the land and made it happen. There would be no “Little Rock Nine” at her school, no U.S. Marshals escorting young “Ruby Bridges” into Wharton. No race wars, no fighting. Just new kids in school.

It was also the right thing to do, she continued.

Damn straight we all danced around that Maypole on Saturday, May 1, 1965. Greeks, Italians, Germans, Jews, Mexicans, Blacks, Chinese, dancing around that blasted Maypole however we could, holding hands for dear life. Hora mixed with Tsamiko mixed with Payasa del Rodeo mixed with jigs mixed with Reigen mixed with, well, you get the picture. Pure, unadulterated joy.

It was the right thing to do.

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