LEBANON — For nearly three decades at the former School Street School and then at Hanover Street School, if anyone — teachers, students, parents, principals — had a problem, they went to Susan LaJoie for a solution.
“There was one time I had to write up a letter to parents at the end of the (school) day and I’d forgotten to remind them the class play was the next day,” said Judy Jorgensen, a retired elementary school teacher who worked with LaJoie at School Street and Hanover Street. “Sue says, ‘I’m all over it,’ and later I went to her office and she handed me enough copies for every child to take home with them.”
LaJoie, who died last November from an illness at the age of 75, had a lot of responsibility as building secretary at the two schools. She first worked at School Street from the early 1980s until 2010, when the school was closed and faculty, staff and students were moved to Hanover Street School, where she worked until retiring in 2013. She maintained class lists, student records, and all the other administrative background work that helps keep schools running smoothly.
But she also needed to keep track of the goings-on at the school — who the students were, their parents, their pickup schedules — and that was something that LaJoie excelled at.
Judy Follensbee, who worked as a building secretary with LaJoie, described how hectic the job can be on a day-to-day basis.
“I’ve got (a student’s) mom standing here talking to me and this little guy is going to be sick and the phone’s ringing and you’ve got to know how to handle all three at once and not be rattled by it,” Follensebee said. “She was perfect, she could do it all with one hand tied behind her back.”
LaJoie had a way of knowing who everyone was and where everything was. Follensbee said her desk would always have stacks of folders and piles of papers on it, but to LaJoie, it was “organized chaos.”
She and LaJoie, Follensbee said, were proud of their jobs and wanted parents to always feel like their children were safe and cared for while they were at school. That often meant taking on extra duties or responsibilities helping out with students, which of course LaJoie was more than happy to do.
There were always students in the reading program, for instance, who didn’t have someone to read with them at home or after school, Follensbee said. So, LaJoie and Follensbee would have teachers send the students to their office to do their reading assignments there and the two would sign off on them.
Scott Bouranis, who took over as principal at School Street in the mid-2000s and worked with LaJoie for 11 years, called her the “consummate school secretary” and said, “Sue knew (the students’) backgrounds, she could talk about the kids, the parents, the grandparents … she was like the perfect person you would want to have been the contact that parents had.”
Bouranis said, only half-jokingly, that LaJoie and Follensbee might’ve known 95% of the people in Lebanon during their time working at the schools. That was because LaJoie was a Lebanon lifer.
Born in Lebanon in 1946, LaJoie met her husband, Wayne, when they were both just 5 years old. Childhood sweethearts, literally.
She lived on Spring Street and Wayne lived on South Street. He said all the neighborhood kids would always come over to his house after school because his family had a lot of interesting pets, such as skunks. They graduated Lebanon High School in 1964, married in 1965, and moved into a house on Abbott Street, which was just a short walk down the road from what was then the School Street School.
Wayne and Susan had three kids, two boys and a girl, during that time: Wayne in 1967, Jason in 1969 and Regan in 1974. While Wayne worked as a manager, Susan, who’d previously done a bit of substitute teaching locally and had worked at Dartmouth College as a secretary after graduating high school, stayed home and raised the kids.
Around the time when Regan, the youngest child by about five years, turned 10, LaJoie reentered the workforce and began working at School Street School. It was just down the street from their house and she could be home by the time the kids were getting out of class.
Regan, 48, couldn’t remember her mom ever taking a sick day from work.
“It would’ve had to have been serious (for her to take time off) because she was totally dedicated to her job,” Wayne said.
He said she loved working with kids and the atmosphere at school. Every year around Christmas time, he’d have to go out to her car when she got home from work to help her unload all the presents she’d received from parents and students.
LaJoie wasn’t very tall — Wayne said she was about 4 feet, 9 inches tall and Follensbee said she reminded her of the phrase “Ye be small, but ye me mighty” — and students, specifically third- and fourth-graders, would often grow taller than her by the time they graduated, much to LaJoie’s chagrin and their delight. Wayne said students would run up to her to measure themselves to see if they’d grown any taller.
If a teacher was having a hard time with a student, they could send them down to LaJoie’s office and she’d find something for them to do to calm them down before sending them back. Theresa Hunnewell, who worked as a special educator at both schools and knew LaJoie, called her a really good resource for teachers because she could fill them in on the family backgrounds of their students.
“She just wanted to help you out,” Hunnewell said. “If somebody forgot to pick their kid up, she’d be able to say ‘Oh, I know (the student’s) father, he’s probably just running late.’
“She would just know that stuff and she’d reassure you that things are going to be okay and you couldn’t have asked for a better environment (as a teacher).”
Jorgensen said it was just her nature to be helpful. If the teachers were down a playground attendant just before recess, LaJoie would go outside and monitor the kids playing on the swings. She’d stay late to make sure kids got home and come in early whenever anyone needed anything.
“She would drop everything to help take care of you,” Jorgensen said. “She always supported us so that we could do our jobs in the classroom.”
When School Street School and Hanover Street were consolidated in 2010, it brought big changes and challenges for LaJoie. Now instead of knowing about the families and lives of 90-100 students, it was 300 students along with a plethora of teachers and other staff she didn’t know.
She adapted, but it was a challenge. At School Street, her office was at the center of everything. Wayne said teachers would always stop in to say hello and see how she was doing.
Suzy Hayes, a second grade teacher at Hanover Street who also worked with LaJoie at School Street School, remembered LaJoie’s office there: a tiny little cubby next to a bathroom that all the teachers and staff would gather on breaks and after the school day ended, just to spend time with her.
“What I discovered was, wherever she was, it was really the heartbeat of the school,” Hayes said. “When (her office in School Street) was remodeled and put in this big room, that became the very central part of our school and if you wanted to find anybody you went to Sue’s office because she either knew where they were or they were right there.”
At the much-bigger Hanover Street School, LaJoie’s office was too many long hallways away from the teachers she knew for them to stop by as frequently and casually as they were able to before.
LaJoie was also too busy managing her increased workload, but none of the teachers the Valley News spoke to for this story could remember having a bad day or lashing out at anyone with frustration.
“She was always giving you positive energy,” Jorgensen said. “That’s really what helps a school run; having positive energy there all the time and even if she was in a bad mood, we never knew it because she always put herself aside.”
Ray Couture can be reached at 1994rbc@gmail.com.