Jo-Ann Boepple: Former EHS teacher will be fondly remembered
Published 10:47 pm Thursday, August 19, 2010
Former Edwardsburg High School students who were in Vera Slechtova’s German classes were very fortunate to have known her. She taught German and Geography classes for 22 years at Edwardsburg High School starting in 1968 and retiring in 1990.
Not only was she known to high school students but to many area residents as well. She hosted many trips to Europe introducing her native country Czechoslovakia to her traveling companions. She loved to showcase Europe to Americans.
My first encounter with Slechtova was as the mother of one of her students. My daughter at the end of her sophomore year in 1973 went to Germany with Slechtova and other German students, Jim Pauley and Val Weld. Sixteen students were on that trip.
Slechtova did all of the planing and this trip was one of the first of many adventures with high school students. Later she made the trip with students every other year and in the last years with the French teacher, Nancy Clase. They would travel to Europe together, separate and then return together.
Slechtova managed to go to Europe every year. When she wasn’t traveling with a group, she would go by herself to her home country to visit friends and relatives. She often went to elderhostels to learn new things about the European countries.
My next encounter with Slechtova was when I was the assistant high school principal. She always had good control of her classes and she made my job easy. She said she wasn’t always very popular with students. Czech was her native language and German was her second language, which was a school requirement for her.
As the German teacher she will be well remembered for the gingerbread houses her students made and sold at Christmas time as well as the German chocolate advent calendars. This money helped finance the student trips.
In 1998, my husband and I were very fortunate to travel with her on a trip to Belgium, the Netherlands and France as members of one of the groups she planned after retiring, It was an art tour in which Vera took us to many of the art museums in those countries. She had taken an elderhostel art tour and she knew all of the best places to go.
And my most recent association was as her neighbor. Ten years ago when the Edwardsburg Museum began to materialize, Vera kept a close watch over the development and construction of the building since it was in her backyard. She was so pleased to see her new neighbors and she was a great supporter of the museum. She called it her “little white museum on Main Street.”
Not only did Slechtova contribute to the culture of Edwardsburg residents, many would not have had the opportunities for European travel if it were not for her.
Last year the museum did a video interview with her and she described how she happened to arrive in Edwardsburg. Vera was a young woman during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia and she became a trained teacher in her country. On a trip to Italy with some other teachers, she defected and with two suitcases went to the American Embassy and asked for political asylum. After waiting a month. she finally received her papers.
She had met a couple from the the United States who often visited their relatives in Czechoslovakia and they agreed to sponsor her trip to the United States. She lived in St. Joseph, Mich. with them and went to Lake Michigan College, then on to Michigan State to get her American teaching credentials.
Ora Weeks, the Edwardsburg school superintendent went to Michigan State to interview teachers and hired her to teach at the Edwardsburg High School and so her career in Edwardsburg began.
She passed away last week. A memorial service will be held in September for her.
Vera Slechtova was one of Edwardsburg’s best kept secrets and how fortunate we were to have known her and have her in our community.