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DIANA HEATH DeGrOAT

 
Conversations with Diana . . .excerpted answers to my questions (DP): 
 

Q. How do you know so much about the NHS faculty? I should know this, but was Mr. Heath, the history teacher, your father?

I don't know how I know all this stuff.  When I first received your letter, I thought I hadn't thought about NHS in years.  In talking to my brother-in-law Bobby DeGroat and thinking back into the archives of my mind, stuff started surfacing.  Bobby knew people I didn't know.

Yes, my father was WILLIAM HEATH.  He died while teaching an 11th grade history class in 1971.  The faculty of NHS  was very close knit and gave a great deal of support to our family at that time, especially my mother.  GENE ROSS eventually rented a room at my mother's house and was there until she retired.  My mother was a teacher, but never taught in Nyack.  The Nyack teachers always kept in touch with her.

Q. Did you go on to teach and then raise a family?

I  guess I am the MISS KEENE [NHS librarian] or Mrs. Kindle of the class; I graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a library science degree.  I worked in a high school and then in a junior high here in Wappingers for three years, then became a stay-at-home mom for our two children, Doug, now 33 and Kate, now 28. 

I know how important that faculty support was for my mother, because the same thing happened to me, when my husband died suddenly (1998).  He had been retired two years as a  high school math teacher, but had taught in the same place for 37 years.   The faculty support has been immeasurable.  Bobby and Judy DeGroat had moved here about 6 months before Bill died.  Their help has been incredible.

In bringing up Mrs. Kindle's name, I recalled that Mary Ann, who was a classmate of ours, had married when she was in college or right after she graduated, but then drowned in a flood in West Virginia, I believe.

Q.  I found Mary Ann Kindle in the yearbook for 1958—does that sound right?

 Mary Ann Kindle did graduate early, in 1958, but had been in our class until then.

Page last updated November 2, 2000

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