It looked so huge and there were kids running around everywhere. It was my first day at Little Folks School deep in the heart of Pleasant Grove in southeast Dallas. In reality, Little Folks was a pair of houses with one huge area for a playground.

I thought about Little Folks when I went to Quitman Elementary School to take pictures Monday morning. The little ones with their backpacks and packed lunches showed the excitement a first day can be.

Back in those ancient days, there was no pre-k or kindergarten in public schools in Dallas. I had always stayed with my Aunt Connie (Dixon) and this was my first venture out in the real world. It was 1956 and I was five years old, but I do remember the first two people I met. These two would become a very intricate part of my life in the years to come.

Eula Mae Sanderson, along with her sister Nell Furtick, was the co-owner and operator of the school which was a daycare and had a first grade class. She introduced me to her son, Bill, and he was to show me around. Bill Sanderson was another red-head like me and he never met a stranger. Eula Mae was the most beautiful woman I had ever met next to my Mom, of course.

On that first day, Bill showed me where and when everything happed at Little Folks. I fell in love with the playground area and was excited about all the friends I was able to meet. I learned about snacks, lunch time and nap time, all in the first day.

I would stay at Little Folks until entering Nathaniel Hawthorne Elementary School in the fall of 1957. Bill and I would go to different schools and junior high schools, but we remained in touch over the years. We would join back together at W.W. Samuell High School where we became close friends. Through the years Eula May taught me many things. She taught me a lot about manners and how a man should be a gentleman, how kindness goes further than being a jerk, and how to appreciate the beauty of language.

Not only did Eula Mae teach life lessons at Little Folks, she sold World Book Encyclopedias, and the set she sold my parents was used for every report I ever did in school until I graduated in 1969. The woman could teach, she could sell, and she could weave stories with words that enthralled an inquisitive youngster like me. She would recite poetry and a draw pictures with her words.

I spent many hours at the Sanderson home during high school and Eula Mae was always there. She was the sounding board for a love sick teenage boy who was devastated when his girl friend dumped him.

Back in 2001, I returned to teaching after 20 years out of the classroom. I accepted a job at W.W. Samuell High School and needed a place to live. Little Folks was no longer in business and Eula Mae lived in the house which used to be the school. Bill lived next door in the other house on Hume Drive, just west of Buckner Boulevard.

I rented a room from Eula Mae, a room where I had learned my ABC’s and took naps some 45 years earlier. Me and Miss Eula Mae spent a great year together that year. We spent hours talking about the past, the present and the future. We talked for hours sometimes. Eula Mae was showing the beginning signs of the ugly disease of Alzheimer’s, which would later take her life.

She would tell me something funny, and tell it to me again in five minutes. She would always make me tell her a joke. She told me “You can tell me the same joke every day and I will laugh every time because I won’t remember it a few minutes later.”

I cherish that year living at the Sanderson/Little Folks home. Eula Mae had a dog whose name was Chili-dog. I used to walk to Braum’s Ice Cream a block away to bring her and Chili-dog vanilla ice cream cones.

A few short years later, she was in a nursing home in Rowlett. She was always cheerful when I went to see her. She would introduce me to all her friends each time I went. In 2006, Bill and I both lost our mothers. Her funeral was a tribute to a woman who for over 40 years taught and raised the children of Pleasant Grove at Little Folks School. At her memorial service, Pleasant Mound Methodist Church was filled to capacity and many were proud Little Folks alumni.

She was the first teacher I remember, and she had an enormous impact on my life. I think of her often. I hope when I taught school I left a little of Eula Mae with my students, especially the love for words and reading and the quest to be a truly good person who puts others first.

As your children and grandchildren enjoy their first week of school in Wood County, I hope they have a Eula Mae Sanderson in their life. For me, it has made all the difference.