Shirley Walters Wiley

I had Mrs Wiley for senior year English at Kincaid High School (1984). She was one of the best teachers I ever had (as so many others have said). Certainly the most memorable. I learned more from her than any other. I recall specific teachings to this day- "the ten fundamental principles of writing). Learn the rules and then you may also break them for specific reasons. Form follows function. So much more. I thought of her today when listening to a wonderful podcast on T.S. Eliot. ...

Shirley Wiley is the reason that I found a career in writing. She was my advanced creative writing English teacher at Bellaire High School in the late 1960s. I had a huge vocabulary that I used to fool my teachers into thinking I was smart, but Shirley Wiley could not be fooled. On an assignment to write a paragraph describing a glass of water, she gave me a grade of "D" and showed me how to polish and polish my writing until it sparkled. I write creatively only for myself but found a...

I had "Mrs. Wiley" one semester as my English teacher at Bellaire High School in 1960, and in that short time she opened my eyes and my mind and my heart to literature. I have just published a book of poetry, which would not have happened had she not been a part of my life. I would like to send a copy to you, if you could send me a mailing address.
Don Herzberg
[email protected]
Norwich, Vermont

Shirley, always "Shirley" never "grandma", was my grandmother. I feel privileged and awed as I read through all these entries and realize how many lives she touched. Thank you, to each of you, for sharing these pieces of her that I never fully knew. I often envy her students because it seems they received a precise well crafted love from my brilliant grandmother. She would not have called it love, but I do. Love is simply seeing and calling out the potential in the other. She did that every...

I have wondered for a long time what had happened to Mrs. Wiley. Someone just directed me to this obituary. I write now with some trepidation that my writing will not meet her very high standards. Mrs. Wiley is the only teacher I can remember from my high school days at Bellaire (class of 1965). Because she was so tough on my writing, my college English classes were a piece of cake. I will never forget the essay I had to write to describe a glass of water. She did not mean a decorated...

I think about Mrs. Wiley often, since "she taught me how to read and how to write." I didn't much like having to do a daily piece of original writing, whether a version of a Charles Lamb essay or free verse. Sometimes I was still writing or editing on the school bus to 1960's Bellaire High. I often polished a final draft in homeroom. Every morning my honors English class turned in our efforts of the "previous evening" to Mrs. Wiley.
Then we went on to spend a little less than an hour...

Shirlley went to UT with my parents. In the 1940's she and Big Lee & Little Lee lived upstairs from us in a duplex on Eagle in Houston. Then later we moved to Bellaire. All us Schwarting kids went to Bellaire while Shirley was a teacher there. Though Shirley was never my school teacher, I will always remember her as a fun and fascinating neighbor. My father painted a portrait of Shirley, so her beautiful face is forever etched in my mind. May the God of all comfort, comfort Lee & the whole...

I was a teacher in the Foreign Language Department at HSPVA when Shirley taught there. Although I only knew her briefly, I remember her fondly and could easily see what a remarkable teacher she was! Shirley was an inspiration to everyone! It was the policy of Ruth Denney, the founder of HSPVA, to hire the best and the brightest for the fledgling High School for the
Performing and Visual Arts and Shirley exemplified that perfectly! Rest in Peace, beloved educator and generous mentor to...

Seeing me slide in under the deadline would have made Mrs. Wiley smile. I can imagine her nodding and saying. "You certainly haven't changed...."

It was Mrs. Wiley's gift to see her students as we were, to take our measure and to foster in us a sense of our worthwhileness. It was how, in my case, she was able to assess the cost to me of four schools in three years and to find ways to allow me to feel visible. An example: She appeared in class one Monday and gave me a book of...