Worth the wait: Why Bristol school essays written decades ago will be returned to former students

Some 1,000 students of late Bristol high school teacher Loretta Teevan who may have been waiting up to 43 years to have essays about themselves returned will finally get their chance.

That will be possible June 11 at the Bristol Historical Society where a tribute will be held for Teevan, described as one who urged students to “believe in themselves” and “shape the world the way you want it to be.”

Many aren’t quite sure what the exact assignment was that the popular Teevan gave all her classes, but former student Marcia Chapman Eveland remembers it amounting to, “Tell me what you want to be when you grow up.”

As a sophomore in about 1964, Eveland wrote that she was going to marry Beatle Paul McCartney. That never happened, and it’s all she remembers about the paper, but she’s hoping to have a friend pick up the essay to find out what other directions she predicted life would take.

The beloved teacher always promised to return the essays, but for many it never came to be.

Although she saw Teevan socially for years as an adult, every time Eveland, a retired minister, asked about the essay, the teacher put her off with lines such as, “I’m getting to them,” and “One day I’m going to mail them.”

After Teevan died in January, her close friend, Eleanor Wilson, chairwoman of programs at Bristol Historical Society, asked her family for the essays and they gladly obliged.

Wilson knew about the unreturned essays because Teevan often spoke about making arrangements to return them to students, but it never happened. Many of the essays were returned to students over the years at class reunions, but when Teevan died, there were about 1,000 remaining in her possession, said Wilson, who has since put each one in an envelope and alphabetized them by last name for easy searching.

The pick up will be available June 11 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. during a tribute at Bristol Historical Society for Wilson’s friend of 65 years. The tribute will include sharing stories and memories of Teevan, and a few personal pictures and items belonging to her will be on display. As part of CT Open House Day June 11, the military museum and Bristol Sports Hall of Fame also will be open.

“I’m trying to fulfill that promise she made by returning as many papers as I can,” Wilson said. “There seems to be interest, but I don’t know how many will show.”

Teevan never married or had children. She used to say “all her students were her children,” Wilson said.

“She had a great sense of humor. She was a great mentor, a great educator and certainly a very very good friend,” Wilson said of Teevan.

Wilson said she didn’t read any of the essays because, “they’re very personal.” Essay writers weren’t notified individually, but rather they are relying on social media and other publicity around the event.

There are no consistent stories about the essay directions, but Wilson said the essays are titled with “I meet me in retrospect” or “I meet me.”

Eveland quipped that everyone is too old to remember the exact essay instruction.

Teevan was a high school teacher in Bristol for 43 years, most of it at Bristol Central High School and taught various subjects through the years, including Latin, English, French and mythology.

Former student Sue Simoneau, a retired Hartford Courant editor who graduated more than 50 years ago, said “part of the fun” will be to see who shows up. Simoneau said she saw Teevan so many times through the years — at church, the grocery store — but “she’d never, ever offer it (the essay),” even though Simoneau would ask, “Where’s my composition?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “It will be a laugh to see what my 16-year-old self wanted to be.”

Simoneau said it was a “different world” in the mid 1960s, and women weren’t seen as having many options beyond teacher or secretary, neither of which she wanted to be.

“Loretta gave us that little bump: Believe in yourself. You can make it in this world,” Simoneau said. “You go forward and shape the world the way you want it to be. She was just exactly what we needed.”