Business at Hand >> Ritter made kindergarten special for many

Written by Ann Richardson Wednesday, 15 February 2012 00:00

She was kind and gentle, sweet and so very, very patient. With her white hair in a neat bun, she radiated warmth. She was the next best thing to your mom, and to a 5-year-old, she rocked.

Anna Ritter passed away last week at the age of 93, but the beloved kindergarten teacher will live forever in the hearts of those she touched during her 26-year tenure in Ocean City.

I was truly blessed to have had Mrs. Ritter, at the old Wesley Avenue School, for the 1963-64 school year. Like all good teachers, she made a tremendous impact.

I was chatting with a group of friends and Mrs. Ritter’s name came up. We shared a collective smile and a warm, fuzzy feeling because she was that special.

“I thought she was my mother,” Ginny Cox Mulford, Ocean City High School class of ’70, said. “Or maybe I thought she was Mother Goose.”

Mulford’s mother, Peggy Cox, was a beautiful model who sported pre-maturely white hair.

“I guess it was the white hair, Mrs. Ritter looked like my mother; the minute I saw her, I knew I would be OK,” Mulford said. “I didn’t want to go to kindergarten. I was a child who did not want to leave her mommy, but somehow she made me feel comfortable. She made that first day easy.”

Ritter was born on June 8, 1918 in Darby, Pa. She went to West Chester State Teacher’s College, and taught in Darby for nine years. She then taught in Ocean City for 26 years.

“She was a legend,” Mulford said. “She was well renowned.”

Mulford returned to Ocean City after college and was hired to teach art.

“I was so fortunate,” Mulford said. “I had Mrs. Ritter as a teacher, later I was her colleague. She was an amazing person, an amazing teacher. She was a hell of a good teacher.

“She was thrilled that I became a teacher. She was very supportive and encouraging. I remember her telling me in the ’70’s how much things had changed, even in kindergarten, since she started. She did a great job keeping up with the trends. She was always very positive.”

Mulford visited Ritter a few years ago.

“She was so sharp, and just as lovely as I remembered,” Mulford said. “Her memory was impeccable, scary good, all the details, names, people she remembered.”

Ritter taught more than a generation of Ocean City children, including all six of the Blyler children, who grew up next door to my pop-pop on Plaza Place.

“I remember my mom telling Mrs. Ritter, ‘You can’t retire until have David Jr.,’ the youngest,” Greta Blyler Liston said. “I was so sad to see she passed away.”

Liston – who taught my children at Little Friends Nursery School – is in her own right every bit as warm and wonderful as Ritter. She is now a kindergarten teacher, and she credits Ritter for planting the seed for her success.

“She had a great impact on my desire to teach,” Liston said, adding that preschool teachers and her father, the late David Blyler, a teacher, principal and Ocean City School Board member also influenced her. “They were my teacher role models. I wanted to be just like them. I loved those years in school the best. Kindergarten is the beginning of our learning years in school. Mrs. Ritter was the teacher every parent wanted their child to have. She was caring, loving and gentle natured. She always had a smile on her face and a genuine love for her students. She had a gentleness about her that I remember always made you feel comfortable.

“She read stories to us, sang songs with us; we played games outside together,” she said.

Blyler fondly remembers Ritter reading “Dick and Jane” stories; “I began to learn to read with her.”

“I can still see her standing outside our kindergarten classroom door greeting us each morning with her beautiful white hair neatly pulled back in a bun,” she said. “She was the best! I remember when I got my first teaching job in a public school I got my wish of being a kindergarten teacher. I told myself I am going to be just like her. My father and Mrs. Ritter taught me to be a kind and loving teacher and to treat each child as if they were my own. I love being a teacher and being a part of their learning experiences. I love to see their ‘light bulbs’ go on as we learn new things together.”

Lew Austin had Ritter in the 1961-62 school year.

“Mrs. Ritter was a great teacher,” he said. “I am sure I was no angel, but what 5 and 6-year-old is an angel? Mrs. Ritter built the foundation for our future in the Ocean City school system. Ocean City had a small year round population, so everyone knew everyone.”

Kathleen Crockford, whose mother Alice was a teacher, said she, too, felt “blessed to have a kindergarten teacher who helped me to love school so much.”

City Clerk Linda MacIntyre smiled when asked about “Mrs. Ritter.”

“She was so kind, so soft-spoken,” MacIntyre said.

A picture of her class revealed 25 happy little 5-year-olds.

“What a sweet woman. She praised us; no matter what you did it was just wonderful in her eyes. She really built our confidence. She really was a wonderful teacher.”

Catherine Piper – my third grade teacher – taught with Ritter for many years, starting at the Wesley Avenue School and ending at the “new” Primary School until Ritter retired.

“I visited her about two years ago, she was still very pretty,” Piper said. “She was a lovely woman and she married a nice man, Alfred. After she retired, they took car trips to Florida. They loved to go to places to see fish and animals.

“She was a wonderful teacher, very humble,” Piper said. “We all loved her. She set the bar very high. We all got along well, had a great time. We loved that Wesley Avenue School; it had such warmth and character. It was a social place; the newer school was just a school. It didn’t have that homey atmosphere, the teachers all wanted to be back at Wesley Avenue.”

My longtime friend and classmate Julie LaRosa Kelleher says she, too, has fond memories of Mrs. Ritter.

“She was so sweet with her white bun,” she said. “I remember gathering in a circle on the rug and she’d read to us or we’d play games. She was the perfect kindergarten teacher.”

Things have changed since we sat in that cozy circle and Mrs. Ritter read “Dick and Jane” story books. A relaxed pace is so yesterday; today we worry, fret and fixate on a 5-year-old’s test scores.

Mrs. Ritter was born to be a teacher; she fulfilled her calling. Every kindergarten teacher is a truly gifted, special person. We long remember lots of really good teachers, those caring, gifted compassionate professionals who went the extra mile for children.

We’re lucky in Ocean City and Upper Township. Our community boasts very good school districts, but that’s not the case in a lot of areas. We pour millions into failing schools with little to show for it. We have stressed out, struggling – and some say chubby – children; what happened?

Maybe we need to bring “Dick and Jane” back; maybe we need more recess, maybe it really is that simple.

Perhaps Robert Fulghum, the author of “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” is on to something. Education is too complicated. Maybe it is all about sharing and caring; maybe we need to go back in time, focus on the “three R’s” – reading, writing and arithmetic – encouraging children to be good little readers and good little people and stop worrying so much.

“All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and to be I learned in kindergarten,” Fulghum writes. “Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand-pile.”

This is what Fulghum says is important:

“Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

On behalf of all your former students, thank you Mrs. Ritter for blessing us with such a good start in life. God bless you.

Terri Kemenosh-Cooper said it best.

“I adored her as did my entire family,” she said. “I'm sure there is a very special place in heaven made especially for her; rest in peace my sweet kindergarten teacher.”

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