For most people, learning to read is the foundation of everything that comes after. For me, it was a story worth telling—and one I’ve carried with me through nearly six decades.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t learn how to read in first grade. I can’t say for certain why. What my mom has suggested over the years is that it may have had something to do with timing—my first-grade teacher was in her final year, and she spent a good amount of that year caring for her mother. She was gone a lot. We had substitutes. A lot. Combine that with a kid who loved playing more than anything else and could be distracted by his own shadow, and the result is clear: no reading. But I do remember having fun in first grade. No bitterness there.
Then came second grade—a completely different teacher in a completely different situation. This was her first year of teaching, and she paid attention to every student. She noticed what was missing. After observing me for a while, she sat down with my mom and said: “He doesn’t know how to read.”
The recommendation? A special summer school—and then repeat second grade.
That summer school was held at Marlowe Manor, and the tuition in 1967 was $100. Let that sink in. That was serious money for a family back then. But my mom had another way of looking at it: “It’s $100 towards his college education.” She believed I’d go to college someday. And she was right.
At Marlowe Manor, I spent time working one-on-one with one of the daughters of Hartwell and Jean Brown Goodrich—the wonderful couple who ran the place. The results were almost too good. By the end of it, I’d progressed so far that if they’d known I could read this well, they would’ve told my mom to cancel the second-grade repeat. But I was already enrolled, and I was small for my age anyway. So my mom made the call: go ahead and do second grade again.
The last day of the program, the Goodrich family presented me with a framed copy of a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox called “The Winds of Fate”—a poem that has stayed with me ever since:
One ship drives east and another drives west With the selfsame winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sails And not the gales Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate, As we voyage along through the life: ‘Tis the set of a soul That decides its goal, And not the calm or the strife.
To this day, I’m grateful for the whole thing—even the part where I didn’t learn to read in first grade. It led me to the right people at the right time. I’m thankful for my first-grade teacher for setting the stage (even if I don’t think she meant it that way), for my second-grade teacher who saw what was needed, for my mom’s willingness to make a real sacrifice, for the Goodrich family and their warmth and care, and for that poem—framed and hanging somewhere in my life—that I’ve carried with me to this day.
Because none of us gets through life sailing in exactly the same wind. It’s the set of our sails that tells us where we’re going. And sometimes, it takes a little detour to figure out how to adjust them.
As I was preparing this blog post, I did a search and found these two obituaries in the Deseret News:
Hartwell Goodrich
Hartwell Goodrich, 83, died Sunday, September 12, 1993 in Mt. Pleasant, Utah.
He was born August 18, 1910 in Elkhorn, Wisconsin to Pearl R. and Margaret Clark Goodrich. Moved with his family to Saskatchewan, Canada in 1919. Married M. Jean Brown May 9, 1934 in Reston, Manitoba, Canada. He and his wife, Jean, moved to Salt Lake City in 1947 and founded the Peter Rabbit Kindergarten, Goodrich Reading Center and Marlowe Manor Grade School. In 1983 he and his wife moved to Mt. Pleasant. He had been an educator most of his life and received his B.A. in education, at Queens College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.He will be greatly missed by his wife, Jean; his daughters, Tanya, Paula and her husband, Don Morse, Judy and her husband, Bill Thill; son, Jim and his wife, Debra; six grandchildren, Pam Morse, Chalese, Shawn and Jeremy Thill; Wesley and Monica Goodrich. Preceded in death by parents and a brother, Earl.
Private memorial services were held Friday, September 17 at Wasatch Lawn Mortuary. Interment, Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park.
M. Jean Brown Goodrich
“Mrs. Peter Rabbit”
Born in Manitoba Canada on Nov. 1, 1913, left for higher schooling on July 8, 02 following a long illness. Married Hartwell Goodrich in 1934, moved to Salt Lake in 1946 and started their own private schools, Peter Rabbit Play School, Goodrich Reading Center, and finished with Marlowe Manor Grade School. Hobbies other than reading included collecting antique dolls, valentines, theatre, either directing or viewing. After her venture in teaching, she and Hartwell played with real-estate where they purchased a place in Mt. Pleasant, UT.
Preceded in death by her husband Hartwell and daughter Tanya.
Survived by daughters Paula (Don) Morse, Judy Goodrich, and son James (Debra) Goodrich; six grandchildren, one great-grandson. She hopes to see you all with the next play by Charles Dickens.
Funeral services will be held Monday July 15, 2002 at 10:00 am at Wasatch Lawn Mortuary Chapel, 3401 Highland Dr.
