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Honoring
a 'true teacher'
By Kaitlin Melanson/ kmelanso@cnc.com
Thursday, November 3, 2005
If asked
to describe the most influential person in
your life in 85 characters or less, could
you do it? It was exactly this task Sabra
Sherry was faced with while trying to put
together an epitaph during the final days
of her mother Audrey Goldstein's life.
"When
they told me 85 characters or less, I thought,
'How is that possible?'" Sherry said. "How
do I sum up all that my mother was in 85
characters?"
This was a
sentiment shared by most people who knew
Audrey Goldstein, a woman who spent 23 years
of her life as a devoted educator in the
Marblehead community.
Sherry's longtime
friend Nancy Marrs had the pleasure of not
only befriending Goldstein, but also being
a student in her eighth-grade English class.
"As you
go through school, there are always one or
two teachers who stand out in your mind,
even long after you have had them," Marrs
said. "She was that for me."
It was for
exactly this reason that Marrs approached
Goldstein near the end of her illness wanting
to be able to give something back to her.
"I had
heard that people had put together a scholarship
in the name of [former Marblehead teacher
and coach] Brad Sheridan, another educator
who had died around the same time she did,
and I thought she was just as deserving of
such an honor," Marrs said. "I
approached her before she had passed and
told her that I was planning to do this.
I felt it was important for her to know how
much she meant to people and that even after
she was gone there would be something to
keep her memory alive."
Currently,
Goldstein's friends and family have raised
nearly $9,000 in donations for the scholarship,
which will be administered through the Citizens
Scholarship Foundation of Marblehead. The
group hopes to raise $20,000 in order to
endow the scholarship, allowing it to live
on forever.
Finding
her life's work
At the age
of 16, Goldstein had achieved what many people
search their whole lives for, true love.
Childhood sweethearts, Audrey married Saul
Goldstein at the age of 19.
At the beginning
of her career, Goldstein spent 10 years at
Hanscom Air Force Base as an administrative
assistant. It wasn't until her own children
were in school that she decided she would
take the time to go back to school herself.
"It was
great because we would all sit and do our
homework together," Sherry recalled. "Here
she was raising two small children and going
to school at the same time. She was special
like that."
In the end,
Goldstein graduated with a bachelor's degree
in English and a master's degree in non-Western
history. It was then her career as an educator
began.
Originally, Goldstein started out substituting
in both the Marblehead and Swampscott school
systems. He first job as a full-time teacher
was as a history teacher in the Marblehead
Middle School . She would later change her
specialty to English.
"Audrey
loved to teach," said her husband Saul. "She
was the type of teacher who was always the
first one there in the morning and the last
one to leave at night."
ESL
class part of legacy
After leaving
the middle school, Goldstein then went on
to teach English at Marblehead High School
, following her daughter who was enrolled
at the school at the time. It was at the
high school where she really made her mark.
Goldstein started the English as a Second
Language course, which still exists at MHS
today.
"In her
class, she had students who were from Turkey
, Greece , Sweden and Israel who all had
trouble with the English language," Saul
said. "So Audrey approached some of
her American students and asked them if they
would be interested in volunteering during
their free period to just sit and talk with
these students so that they could learn through
hearing the language."
Saul added, "She
was able to get 50 people to volunteer, and
when the administration learned of this,
they approached her and asked if she wanted
to teach a formal course, and that was how
the ESL program started at the high school."
Roger Tuveson, a former colleague of Goldstein's,
described her as having great enthusiasm
for her work.
"I would
see Audrey in between periods, and you could
just tell she was just waiting to rush back
in to class," Tuveson said. "She
was definitely a dynamo."
"In the
end what drove her out was the politics that
were involved in the school system," Saul
said. "She wanted to get out while she
still loved it."
New
venues
Though she
left Marblehead schools in 1997, her teaching
career did not end. She soon after took on
a couple of different side jobs, which allowed
her to continue educating those who wanted
to listen.
"My mother
had a couple of cool side jobs, which included
being an independent historical tour guide
in Boston and teaching Japanese students
American culture at the Showa Institute in
Jamaica Plain," Sherry said.
Later in life,
Goldstein and her husband moved out to Needham
to be closer to both their daughter and their
son, along with their five grandchildren.
Late
appreciation
Sherry said
that it wasn't until the very end that her
mother was able to sit back and really see
all that she had done and meant to people.
"My mother
was a huge pack rat, and at the end, I sat
with her going through all of her files,
and we read through tons of greeting cards
and letters, which people had sent her through
the years," Sherry said. "It was
great because it was a sort of life-in-review
situation and finally at the end, my mother
who has always been so humble and not acknowledged
anything she has accomplished looked at me
and said, 'I really was a good teacher, wasn't
I?'"
For her son,
Eric Goldstein, it was also at the end when
he realized what an amazing person his mother
was.
"I had
never really paid attention to all that my
mother did for all of the people around her," Eric
said. "It wasn't until she was dying
that I could really see it. She just had
a way of having people just open up to her.
In the end, I think my mother's greatest
quality was just the simple fact that she
truly cared about people.
Even towards
the end, Sherry said that her mother faced
her death with dignity and grace.
In her eulogy
for her mother, Sherry recalled one of the
most stunning and meaningful moments during
her mother's illness.
"In early
December I learned that my mom's oncologist
told a colleague that my mother was the most
amazing patient he had ever met," Sherry
said. "I was awestruck that the head
of oncology at the Beth Israel Hospital,
a doctor who has treated countless cancer
patients, would make such statement, and
yet when I stopped to think about it, I realized
that it just confirmed what I had already
come to learn - that my mother was truly
unique."
After a long
battle with stomach cancer, lasting two and
a half years longer than doctors had predicted,
Goldstein died this past Feb. 8. Right before
her death, however, the task of summing up
her life in 85 characters was finally achieved
with an epitaph that read, "Loved and
admired wife, mother, grandmother and friend.
A true teacher and an inspiration to many."
"I feel
this sums up my mother's essence," Sherry
said.
To contribute
to the CSFM's scholarship in the name and
memory of Audrey Goldstein, checks can be
mailed to Audrey R. Goldstein Scholarship,
c/o Nancy Marrs, 212 Pleasant St. , Marblehead
, MA 01945 . You may also check out their
Web site at http://users.rcn.com/jedam/index.htm,
or e-mail Nancy Marrs at nmarrs@bu.edu for
more information.
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