From the Words of Shirley Mason
by
Nancy L. Preston
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The Author, 1970
Introduction – Fall of 1970
My art class was in the basement of the Allen Building. I was returning to school at Rio Grande College, now called University of Rio Grande, to finish my teaching degree. Located in Gallia County in rural southern Ohio, Rio Grande was a small liberal arts college noted for its teacher education programs. I had left Rio Grande four years earlier to teach fourth grade in a northern Ohio school district. At that time, you did not have to have a four-year degree to teach. During this same period I had also married and lived overseas for two years. Now four years later, I was returning to my parents' home to live and to finish what I had started at Rio Grande. In the ignorance of my youth, I moved back into my parents' home, not even thinking to ask their permission for an adult daughter to reclaim her old bedroom. However, they knew, and I knew they knew, that I needed my Bachelor's Degree in order to support myself. My marriage was not going well. My parents were both employed by the college. My father was in the maintenance department and my mother was the postmistress. They both knew Shirley Mason long before I enrolled in her class. Dad always said of her, "She's a real nice lady, always says please and thank-you when she wants something, not like some of the other professors." My mother talked to her frequently in the college post office.
I walked into the art room my first day of classes that fall semester of 1970 beside a middle-aged woman who was dressed sedately in subdued colors. I took a seat and the lady in beige walked to the front of the room. "I'm Miss Mason," she said, "I will be teaching this class." That was my introduction to the lady who would be my mentor and friend for many years to come. She was not very tall, slender, and soft spoken. She impressed me from that very first day with her attitude towards her students when we shared our backgrounds and what we hoped to get out of her class. One young man commented that he couldn’t draw worth a darn. She smiled and replied, “Well, I’m not an art critic. I’m here to help you find the artist who lives inside each of us.” She continued by saying her goal was to help us not be afraid to experiment and to help us produce personal visions of art after some basic instruction from her. "Here's your first assignment," she said. The class, at first worried about our abilities to draw, relaxed in the knowledge that Miss Mason was with us, not against us.
One day she brought a stack of books about castles to class. She talked about castles, showed us illustrations of some, and then said, "I want you to build your own castle using any material you want. It’s due in two weeks.” I sat there thinking as the other students started sketching. I had a hard time getting started because it was such a concrete and finite project and I didn't want to do a variation of what everyone else did. On project day, the other students brought in beautifully designed castles made from every conceivable material. Mine was a "castle in the air" with angel hair simulating clouds. It was fanciful and lop-sided, not practical in the least, but Miss Mason loved it. At the end of class that day, she and I talked for a long time. She asked if she could keep the castle to use as an example in her future classes. I was delighted that she valued my creation. When she moved to Lexington four years later, Miss Mason still had my castle and took it with her. In one of our phone conversations, she said, "It's getting a little tattered, but I can't bear to get rid of it. It's hard to store, but I'll find a place." I think that castle was one of the reasons she and I bonded. I thought outside the usual castle walls and symbolically represented my high hopes for a better life. She saw something in that project that ignited a spark of friendship between us that continued to burn right up until her death in 1998.
Besides our mutually creative personalities, Miss Mason and I connected because I was a little older than most of her other students. I was also depressed, dealing with the separation from my husband, and trying to blend back into my parents' life in rural southern Ohio. Although I had grown up among its beautiful rolling hills, I had been away from the area for four years. I no longer fit in. Former friends were the same, but I had changed in ways I did not even realize. Two years teaching in northern Ohio, then living another two years on an air force base in Turkey, had broadened my narrow viewpoint. Shirley sensed I was uncomfortable and troubled so we started to talk more and more after class. I sensed that she too felt alienated by the culture and cliques that were a way of life in southern Ohio. I started going to class early just to have some time with her. There was something about Miss Mason that let me know she would listen to me without judging. As we grew more comfortable with each other, I started attaching poetry to my art projects although that was not part of the assignments. Then, I started sharing my other writing with her. I needed someone outside my family circle to whom I could relate. Miss Mason stepped into the niche. My mother said she felt sorry for Miss Mason as she seemed like such a lonely person. She should have felt sorry for me, as I too was lonely, although I was surrounded by family. Miss Mason and I were kindred souls. Slowly, we became Shirley and Nancy, two friends, no longer just teacher and student.
I continued to visit Shirley after our class ended that semester. I graduated in the spring and she wished me well. I was off to South Carolina to re-join my husband and to teach there. We were both sad at my leaving, but both Shirley and I knew it wasn't the end of our relationship. As it turned out, I wasn’t in South Carolina long. My husband received orders to report to Taiwan and I was not allowed to go with him. I returned to Ohio where I was hired to teach fifth grade in my old school district near Columbus. I wrote Shirley to catch up on recent events and she wrote back. That was the first of her letters that spanned our twenty-seven year relationship.
My book, Life After Sybil...From the Words of Shirley Mason, is based on Shirley's letters to me, photos, and other artifacts. It begins in 1970, about five years after Flora Schreiber ended the best-selling book, Sybil. I use Shirley's handwritten letters to recount the years of our friendship and to detail how the real person, known to the world as Sybil, lived her life. It is the story of Shirley's daily life; her triumphs and disappointments; and ultimately her death from breast cancer in 1998. Life After Sybil will hopefully be on the market next year. For those of you who keep asking about its publication date, thank you.