San Francisco teacher celebrates 100 years and the students she inspired over the decades

OAKLAND — On Sunday afternoon in Oakland, a retired teacher’s 100th birthday celebration turned into an emotional class reunion. Students from nearly four decades gathered to pay tribute to their beloved mentor, known simply as Flossie.

As she headed to her birthday party, Florence Lewis thought about the students who would see her.

“They come at 70 because they remember that something I said made such a difference in their lives,” she said. “And those memories brought them back here. It’s not that I expected it. I never could have dreamed of anything like this.”

About 40 former students filled the courtyard at Piedmont Gardens in Oakland to help their former teacher celebrate her 100th birthday. Flossie, as her students called her, taught English literature at Lowell High School in San Francisco for 20 years and for 18 years at Lincoln High School before that.

She said she first had to learn what it took to be a good teacher.

“Because the kids were smarter than me and I had to outdo them and the only way to do that was to become an artist. And I played,” she said.

Her classes were fun but challenging, and Flossie had a knack for bringing the plays of Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw to life. Brad Friedman, Class of 1973, was so inspired by Flossie’s class that he became a teacher himself, teaching high school drama for over 30 years.

“Teachers teach and students listen — or not,” he said. “You’re not a know-it-all who throws stuff at them. You’re someone who engages with them and tries to figure things out together. With Flossie, it was an experiment. I always felt like we were all engaged in a shared process that was very exciting and very fun.”

Susan Simpson, another alumna, has become a lifelong friend and helped organize the reunion. She has a condition called primary lateral sclerosis, a disease related to ALS that has taken away her voice. But speaking through an audio text reader, Susan said it was Flossie who helped her come out of her shell in high school.

“I spent three years in the same class as Flossie,” Simpson says. “Every morning, she welcomed me into several English classes. She taught me how to write. She helped me believe in myself and have fun.”

Apparently, Flossie had that effect on a lot of people. Daniel Handler used to hang out in her classroom after school hours and was later inspired to start writing children’s literature under his now-familiar pen name, “Lemony Snicket.”

“I thought, ‘Sure, it would be fun to be a writer.’ But she was someone who… didn’t let you rest on some unrealistic dream or half-baked thought. She forced you to pay close attention and do careful work,” Handler said.

Flossie said she decided to pursue teaching in the late 1940s because it was a job that women could do at the time. She said she thought she could command the attention of a class because she had the kind of personality that didn’t seem “teachery.”

Above all, Flossie taught the need to engage fully, both in writing and in life. It’s a lesson her former students took with them on their travels, and it’s why they were eager to return.

“Because if they’re smart and they need you and you’re there for them, they never forget,” she said.

Doctors, lawyers, architects – many of them already retired – in Flossie’s presence on Sunday, all became high school students again. Because once a teacher, always a teacher.