Mrs. Westover was a great math teacher at John Glenn High School.

She was also a fascinating person. 

In class she would, from time to time, drop little stories about her life outside the classroom.

She had a sister who was a nun.  When the Catholic church allowed nuns to show their hair, Mrs. Westover’s sister (the sister) decided she should dye her hair.  According to Mrs. Westover, not only did her sister (the sister) dye her hair bright (not found in nature) red, she also got the dye all over herself, and Mrs. Westover had to sort it out for her sister (the sister). 

Mrs. Westover sometimes drove in (nonprofessional) car races; and she won.  She said she won because she was the only person driving that knew about down-shifting on corners!  I was proud of her.  All we had in our family were sticks, and I already knew all about down-shifting.  I was amazed to hear that it was not a universal skill.

When I asked Mrs. Westover why I was nominated for the National Honor Society in my junior year (while at least one person I knew with much better grades did not get nominated), she told me that there was more to a person than grades.  What a nice thing to learn at a (fairly) young age.

Math was never my favorite subject.  I did well with it at the time, but to tell the truth, once each school year was over, I forgot most of it immediately.  I retained enough to balance my check book, to do basic bookkeeping, to compute percentages, and some other basic skills that get me by. 

But while math was not my favorite subject, Mrs. Westover was definitely one of my favorite teachers.