Fifty-six years ago, Lucy Juliff Martin was chalking up prepositions and participles on a Granbury High School blackboard.

Martin and some of her students from that era gathered again Friday to reminisce and laugh about those good ol' school days. The Class of 1937 presented a thick and new, updated dictionary to GHS in honor of their beloved teacher.

"We had some money left over from our recent reunions," explained Patty Jackson Boynton of the '37 class. "So we decided to do something for the school. We wanted to give the school a dictionary in honor of Mrs. Martin."

Her students admired their strict, but caring English teacher. Part of the reason was because she was young and single. In fact, she was younger than some of her students when she started teaching here in the early 1930s. Students remember being treated to elite garden parties at her home.

"We felt like we lost her when she got married," said Dulce Everidge Quarles, another Class of '37 graduate. But it didn't take long for students to see that she continued to dish out plenty of interest and compassion for them.

"I'd say she was the favorite of all the teachers we had," added Boynton.

Martin, a Granbury native and herself a GHS graduate (1928), was assigned to be class sponsor of this '37 class when they began high school. She stayed with them all four years.

"I'm very flattered and indeed very honored," she told her former students after the short presentation ceremony in the high school library. "I love you all so much."

The feeling was mutual. "We know that and we knew that then," answered Colete Bird Thomas.

She hugged U.L. Tidwell, another '37 student. "He was one of the brightest," she bragged.

Martin's no-nonsense discipline policy in the classroom paid off. "She was such a good teacher and she demanded respect," said Boynton.

The only discipline problem that Martin could recall was the time a boy stuck out his tongue at her. He never did it again. He was assigned "reams and reams" of sentences to write, Martin said laughing.

Martin also taught drama. When she wanted a student to perform a certain way, she would take over with authority and do the scene herself. "She was quite an actress," said Tidwell.

One year Martin directed a school play when a movie theater was downtown.

Of the seven classmates who gathered Friday, only one, Juanita Abbot Davis, lives outside of Granbury. She resides near Lampasas.

Martin was born in what is now the Dabney House Bed and Breakfast on Jones Street across from the funeral home.

Her grandfather was D.C. Cogdell, who established Granbury's First National Bank. Martin graduated from Texas Women's University in Denton and came back to her hometown to teach for five years before moving to Forth Worth where she continued teaching for some 25 years.

Martin, now retired, still lives in Fort Worth.

[Attending Martin's presentation were: GHS Librarian Kathleen Stewart, Superintendent Gwyn Boyter, Colette Bird Thomas, Juanita Abbot Davis, U.L. Tidwell, Blan Russell Riley, Patty Jackson Boynton, Dulce Everidge Quarles, and high school principal Troy Green.]

2001 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY