Retired teacher has a young outlook
by Frances Melrose
The Salvation Army's annual Doll Tea, to be given by the Metropolitan Auxiliary Friday and Saturday in the Phipps Tennis House, wouldn't be the same without Helen Redford.
Miss Redford, approaching 80, has been one of the sparkplugs of this Christmas event for more years than she remembers.
Initially, I got interested in the Salvation Army through my father, John Redford," Miss Redford said during an interview in her bungalow at 207 S. Gilpin St. As she talked, she was knitting, finishing a baby doll cap and sweater to be offered for sale at the tea. She makes dozens of such items each year for the sale.
"My father grew up in Tylesley, England, near Liverpool," she continued. "As a boy, he was appalled at the abuses heaped upon the Salvation Army people he saw on the streets -- actual stone-throwing as well as verbal insults. He was very sympathetic to them and their work."
Years later, when Redford moved to Denver, he was asked to serve on the original advisory board of the Salvation Army.
"And I caught my father's enthusiasm for the work," Miss Redford said. Following her father's retirement, she took his place on the board and now is a member emeritus.
But the Salvation Army is only one of many interests that have kept Miss Redford busy. For years she was one of Denver's best known home economics teachers, teaching in turn at Smedley, Cheltenham, Lake Junior High and Manual High School. She completed her career as assistant principal of Emily Griffith Opportunity School, specializing in adult education.
And she still cultivates a wide circle of young friends, most of them former students.
Helen Redford was born in Cripple Creek while here father was working there for the Continental Oil Company.
Later, the family moved to Billings, Mont., and Helen was graduated from Billings Hish School in 1916. From there, she attended Stout State University in Menomonie, Wis.
"My mother thought I needed a little finishing in an Eastern school," she recalled. ":And when you live in Billings, Wisconsin is East."
After a stint at Stout, Miss Redford transferred to the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley and earned a bachelor's and a master's degree in home economics.
"At the time, home economics was being talked of as a 'coming' field," she said. "You not only could teach, but you also could be a dietician in a hospital or hotel."
She started her career in the home economics department at Smedley in 1919, teaching cooking to seventh and eighth grade girls.
"Most of my students there were of Italian descent," she recalled. "Then, not long after I was transferred to Cheltenham where all but nine or ten of my students were Jewish. Cheltenham had the first Kosher cooking lab in town, and that was a challenge for me. Until I started there, I had known only two or three Jewish people, and I certainly knew nothing about Jewish cooking.
"But with the help of the kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Bessie Balaban, and the local grocer, Abe Gardenswartz, I learned Kosher cooking, and how to use two sets of dishes, one for milk dishes and one for meat. For a while, I spent more time in the kindergarten learning from Bessie than I did in my own class."
At Lake, Miss Redford started the first boys' home economics class in a junior high, with a group of ninth graders. It was the early 1930s.
"There were no textbooks for boys at the time, and boys of that age would spurn a textbook designed for girls," she said. "So the Lippincott publising company asked our home economics supervisor, Mrs. Kate Kinyon, to write a boys' text. She turned the job over to Helen Burnham and Evelyn Jones, both high school home-ec teachers, and me.
The three teachers co-authored "The Boy and His Daily Living," which was published in 1935. Five years later, they rewrote the book, calling it "Boys Will Be Men." A number of revisions followed, but the books now are out of print.
After 13 years at Lake, Miss Redford said she "had had all I could stand of the junior-high age." She transferred to Manual, and spent two years which she numbers as her happiest.
"There was no boys' home-ec class at Manual when I got there," she said. "I found the boys were interested in one, so I talked the principal, James Steele, into letting me start one. He feared there would be a discipline problem, so I asked him to let me over-enroll it. That way, I could throw out the first five or six troublemakers until the rest realized we weren't going to have any funny business in that class. It worked just the way I thought it would."
Part of the class was given over to teaching the boys to be waiters, with an instructor from Opportunity School.
Early in her career, Miss Redford had met Emily Griffith, founder of Opportunity School.
Helen Redford inquired about teaching at Opportunity, and Miss Griffith answered: "Oh Helen, you come back in about 10 or 15 years."
"So imagine my surprise when I was notified after two years at Manual that I was to become assistant principal at Opportunity," Miss Redford said.
Miss Redford went to Opportunity School in 1939, and was there through World War II. She was in charge of the day school which had enrollment of 20,000, with different students every day of the week.
"I doubt if the majority of Denver residents know Opportunity School's contribution to the war effort," she said. "We were training persons for a number of jobs -- machinist, aircraft work, welding and even parachute folding. Our shops went 24 hours a day, seven days a week, giving instruction.
After 11 years at Opportunity School, Miss Redford retired in 1952. She said she enjoyed working at Opportunity, but preferred her days at Manual.
"I think I was born a teacher, not an administrator," she said.
One of her former Manual students, Marion Quarles, became a Denver traffic policeman and was assigned to the corner of 16th and Stout Streets.
"Whenever I came to that corner, Marion would escort me across, and we'd converse a little," Miss Redford recalled. "After my retirement had been announced, he walked me across the street one day and said: 'It's a pity you're retiring. You're needed.' It made me feel very good."
Miss Redford cherishes other personal contacts made with students through the years.
"One boy enrolled to take high school subjects at Opportunity," she said, "and I discovered he had run away from home when he was 13, and had never been back.
"One day he mentioned that it was his birthday, and I asked how old he was. 'I don't know,' he replied. 'I've been on by own and lied so many years I've forgotten.' "
Miss Redford took the teen-ager to lunch and later saw him graduate. He enlisted in the Air Corps, made a career of it, and retired as a colonel. He never forgot Miss Redford and still writes to her.
"In his last letter, he said he still hopes to get a college degree, but he's afraid his son will beat him to it," she reported.
Another student who left a vivid impression on the teacher was Mary Wine, who was in her class at Lake Junior High.
"Her father was Max Wine, a bootlegger and gangland figure," Miss Redford recalled. "At the time I met Mary, both her parents were doing time in the penitentiary, and Mary and her two brothers lived at the National Home for Jewish Children. Mary was a dear little girl, so solicitous of her two little brothers.
"After the parents were released, the children were teaken out of National Home and sent to live with their mother and father. I was so upset at the atmosphere of the home, I went to the principal about it. I had a presentiment something terrible would happen. But there was nothing we could do,
"It happened on Dec. 14, 1938. Mary shot her father to death when she found him beating her mother with a stove lid lifter. Mary was 15 at the time."
Miss Redford went to the detention home to visit Mary before her trial.
"Public sympathy was with her completely," she recalled. "I remember a column by Lee Taylor Casey in the News, in which he said Mary should be given a medal for ridding Colorado of Max Wine."
Mary went to trial in September 1939.
"The jury came back in less than eight minutes with a verdict of acquittal," Miss Redford said.
"After that, she returned to her classes at North High School, and her classmates accepted her without comment or prejudice. She used to stop and visit me often on her way home, while I still was teaching at Lake."
Miss Redford who says she's a born joiner, is a member of PEO, Delta Kappa Gamma, and international education fraternity; the Order of Eastern Star, St. John's Episcopal Cathedral and its Circle No. 10.and two bridge clubs.
"And, of course, the Salvation Army," she adds. "That's one of my major interests."
She also enjoys travel and has covered much of the globe.
One of her most recent trips was in June to the 60th anniversary reunion of her high school class in Billings.
Rocky Mountain News, December 3, 1976, pp. 8, 56.