Learning The Three R's With Miss Norton

As part of Allen ISD’s centennial year, The Flipside has been highlighting the people whose names appear on our school buildings. This week we feature the story of Frances Norton.

The impact that a good teacher has on students is hard to measure. That is especially true when the teacher works with small children who grow to be successful adults. Miss Norton started many of those students on that road to success.

Frances Elizabeth Norton was born in Renner, Texas on March 17, 1906. She graduated from Plano High School in 1925 and earned her permanent teacher's certificate from Denton Teachers College (now University of North Texas) in 1936.

Miss Norton began her career in Renner and then came to Allen as an elementary grade teacher in 1939. She retired from Allen in 1972 after thirty-three years of service to children.

For many years there was no mystery about who your teacher would be. Miss Norton and her colleague Gladys Watson were the only first and second grade teachers in Allen so every student, for several generations, passed through their classrooms. Norton taught a combination of first and second for many years while Watson taught second and third. A coat closet and door separated the two classrooms and students frequently changed classes through there.

I had the opportunity to speak with Miss Norton in 1996 shortly after a new elementary school was named in her honor. The following are excerpts from that interview.

Norton's entered the profession during the Great Depression and felt fortunate to have a job at all.
"I received no pay for that first month but since jobs were few and far between, I continued to teach. Today I can look back and say I loved every minute of it."

Norton felt that teaching brought her closer to the children. The more she taught them, the more she loved them. "Things may change," said Norton, "but children will always need guidelines and will always need to learn the three R's."

Looking back almost seventy years, Norton recalled her first day of teaching in Renner. "It was a four teacher school and I had the first and second grade. I wanted the day to be perfect. As students filed into the room I sat first graders on one side and second graders on the other. When things quieted down I heard a funny noise coming from a locker in the room. I opened the door and a dog jumped out. I asked the class about it and finally a little boy stood up and confessed he had found his dog on school grounds and put him in the locker."

Norton had many stories to tell figuring that she taught more than 2,000 children during her career. One year she had two sets of twins and a set of triplets in her class. To remember them all, she kept a scrapbook of every class from the 8 student class in 1932 to her last class in 1972.
One special story occurred late in Norton’s career. A farm worker and his family moved to Allen.

The family enrolled seven children in the first grade, since they had never received formal education but left an eighth child at home because she had a malformed foot. Miss Norton and a member of the PTA persuaded the father to enroll the eighth child and then she made arrangements with Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas to perform corrective surgery. During her recovery, Norton allowed the girl to stay at her own home.

“Miss Norton was strict but compassionate when necessary,” according to former student Bob Curtis. “Since there was no kindergarten, first grade was a kid’s first experience in school. Miss Norton made sure each kid was made to feel welcome and she also made sure they learned the basics.”

Like Gladys Watson, Frances Norton devoted her life to children and her church. She never married and rarely missed a day of school. For many, it was hard to think of the Allen School without thinking of Watson and Norton.

Frances passed away in 2002 at the age of 96 but there are several generations of Allen kids who will never forget their first year of school with Miss Norton.