My Most Influential Teacher

As I think back over the teachers I had in high school and the professors I had in college, one truly stands out as having the most influence in my life.  As a teenager I tended to have a holier-than-thou attitude and felt my calling was to be a Methodist minister.  I idolized my folks' best friend and my baby sister's godfather, Ralph Haugh.  "Uncle Ralph", as he was known to our family, was a most congenial man and one who deserved adoration.

My family had moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC when I was 10 and I quickly developed an appreciation of history.  It seems as though the only books I read were history books--the biography of George Washington being one I recall.  In fifth and sixth grades, we were always taking field trips, be it to Mt. Vernon or historic Fredericksburg, VA.  Mom and Dad were always taking us kids to various historical sites around the area, as well.

I entered tenth grade at Yorktown High School in Arlington and heard horror stories of the junior year American history teacher, David Turner.  Mr. Turner received the reputation of a hard taskmaster and one to be feared.  The last person I wanted as a history teacher was the dreaded Mr. Turner.  Guess who I got as my eleventh grade history teacher?  You got it--David L. Turner!  Gawd, did my eyes roll and a long sigh of regret let out when I saw he was to be my teacher.  Little did I know, he would turn out to change my life.

He was a proud graduate of Leland Stanford, Jr. University, or Stanford as we all know it.  He was an enticing teacher--one who kept you on your feet when he'd point to you and bark, "Why was that, Mr. Hilsheimer or Miss So-and-so?"  He made you think--something that served me well when I got to college.   I recall his describing the Battle of Gettysburg and the surrounding action.  It was like he had been there and witnessed the battle himself.  Keep in mind I was still planning on becoming a person of the cloth.  I was never one to volunteer anything, but just tried to be invisible, hoping he wouldn't turn around,  point a finger in my direction and put me on the spot.  One thing he did,  though, changed my life forever.

During the last half of the school year, everyone had been assigned to write a term paper.  My first choice was a  history of American railroading, a subject Mr. Turner said was much too broad and impossible for  a high school junior to consider.  I settled on the topic and title: "The Sharecropper During the Depression".  Due to plagerizing and term paper sales, the papers, once submitted, were not returned to the student.  Many's the time I wished I had it back  Anyway, I was quite graphic in my descriptions of what sharecroppers and their families had to endure.  In fact, I even quoted from the Depression era writer, Erskine Caldwell, telling of how babies had to suck on the teats of female dogs in order to get nutrition.  I knew I was skirting, if not going over, the line.  But what the heck?  This was a scholarly research paper, right?  I was prepared to catch it from Mr. Turner and would defend myself as best I could.

Yorktown HS had four wings--all one building-- that surrounded a large quad in the middle.  In  the week before finals, Mr Turner invited any who wished to participate to a review session to meet in the quad one evening.  As the session was winding down, he remarked about the term papers he had read and graded and made the observation that he had read one of the best term papers he had ever read in his career and was quite surprised at the scholarly level of its content.  Everyone started  looking around, wondering who he was talking about when Mr. Turner turned around, pointed at me, and said, "Mr. Hilsheimer over there!" and said he was very much surprised at my level of scholarly work.  I was completely flabergasted and tried to remain humble, something that was hard to do for an average teenager who was surrounded by A and B students, a few of which were National Merit Scholars.  That moment changed my life!

Afterwards, as I was trying to drift off to sleep on several occasions, I saw myself, not as a minister, but as a history teacher in the mold of Mr. Turner.  It finally dawned on me that, rather than majoring in religion with a view of becoming a Bible thumping preacher, I would major in history, primarily American, with a view toward teaching.  Although I never attained the goal of becoming a teacher (I could have taught in North Carolina, where I went to college at NC Wesleyan College), my love of American history, particularly the founding of the nation and presidential history, was the seed that was sowed and nurtured by Mr. Turner.  I only wish he knew what an effect he had on my life.  I never saw him  after graduation, my family having left the Northern Virginia area afterwards.  He passed away some years later, something I was sad to learn.  He will live in my heart forever and was a true mentor to me, although he never knew it.