Sophie Mee: A Mount Vernon Teacher for Nearly Fifty Years

Sophie J. Mee, one of the longest-serving teachers in the history of Mount Vernon, New York, is remembered by a granite grave marker in the historic cemetery at St. Paul's Church National Historic Site.

A teacher at 17

She was born in Hyde Park, New York, in 1848. Her family were among the first settlers of the village of Mount Vernon, founded in 1853 about 20 miles north of New York City. In 1865, at just 17, she began teaching in the local public schools — as the last shots of the Civil War were being fired.

In the 1800s teaching was one of the few jobs open to women, partly because it was seen as an extension of their nurturing role. Many young women taught for a few years until marriage and family took them away. Sophie never married, which is perhaps why she stayed in the classroom for nearly 50 years. She lived in a succession of boarding houses within walking distance of her school, belonged to literary clubs and societies, and never missed more than two weeks of teaching through illness.

"The noblest of women"

For most of her career she taught the early grades at School 1, at Fifth Avenue and Second Street, and by every account she was excellent. A school official of the day called her "one of the best teachers Mount Vernon ever had." Superintendent William H. Holmes said: "Everybody liked her and her pupils thought she was the noblest of women," adding that she was "an inspiration to all who knew her" whom many citizens would remember as "a kind, good and gentle" woman "and a splendid teacher."

At the blackboard

She died as she had lived, in the classroom: on October 19, 1914, she collapsed of a sudden heart attack while writing on the blackboard for her third-grade class.

The front page of the Mount Vernon Daily Argus in 1914 reporting Sophie Mee's death, alongside news of the opening battles of the First World War.

The Daily Argus reported her death on its front page beside news of machine guns and the Allies driving the German army back on the Western Front. On October 21, the day of her funeral, every school in the city closed. After services at Trinity Episcopal Church, where she worshipped, she was buried at St. Paul's. Years later a local playground was named for her.

Sources

• National Park Service, St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, "Sophie Mee: A Special Teacher." https://www.nps.gov/articles/sophie-mee-a-special-teacher.htm