Chapter 1: A Burning Desire

A week later, my mother carried my letter to Sister Sommers. My wonderful teacher—who had taught thousands of students how to thrive—was now unable to function without help

An old friendship. The first-grade class sits on the merry-go-round on the playground at Hartville Christian School sometime during the 1969-1970 academic year. In the background, Sister Sommers watches over her charges with a smile. In the foreground, the author sits in the center, third from the right, his eyes closed as he faces Dave Schlabach, who would shortly move to Traverse City, MI. Almost fourteen years later, the two boys reconnected at Maranatha Bible School, restoring their friendship. Photo sourced from The Lantern yearbook.

When I wonder, as I sometimes do, how it was that I fell in love with reading; when I consider, as I sometimes do, why I have been God-haunted across the six decades of my life; when I contemplate, as I sometimes do, what is the birthplace of my passion for the rhythms of the written word, I think about a welcoming classroom in Northeastern Ohio. There I was taught by Sister Edna Sommers, a Conservative Mennonite woman who decided the classroom was far more interesting than any man.

I loved her world, decorated each fall with bulletin boards of colorful construction paper cut into orange pumpkins bursting open, a Horn of Plenty that poured out luscious fruit and fall vegetables, and turkey cutouts that clung to the classroom’s wall of windows, set against the waving grass on the lawn outside.

With her sheer joy of learning balanced against a no-nonsense mien, Sister Sommers imparted to me her passion for reading and writing. The meticulous preparation she brought to each class, the high ethical standards she maintained, the love she generated for reading and writing—these are the qualities which made her beloved.

Sister Sommers understood the power of personal connection.

I loved the way she listened when I came to her bursting with excitement about something I’d read. Even arithmetic didn’t seem so difficult when confronted with her clear teaching. She even took us, small group by small group, to the restroom, showing us how to wash our hands after we used the toilet, inculcating within me an obsessive habit I still carry.

From the first day we met, she nurtured within me a burning desire to understand the world.

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As the summer of 1969 wound down, I looked forward to the day I would enter first grade. I bragged to my older sisters how fast I was going to learn to read. Then one day my sisters sat me down and explained the State of Ohio had a cutoff date—I was a September baby, so I might not be old enough to go to school this year.

I was horrified, devastated, terrified. “Might not be old enough?” I was going to be six years old! Everyone that age went to school. Were my sisters kidding me?

I went to my mother.

“We’ll see, Steve.” She sounded busy.

“We’ll see?” What kind of answer was that? My life hung in the balance—if I didn’t go to school this year, my life would be changed.

No, no, no. My life would be over.

I decided anything other than acceptance into first grade was unacceptable. I wanted to learn how to read books. I wanted to control when I entered and left the stories I heard.