Mrs. Anne Slaughter Keyser of Washington, Va. ended a

Mrs. Anne Slaughter Keyser of Washington, Va. ended a career vhich spanned more than a half century when she retired from the eaching profession this spring. Her work embraced three generations from the era of the >ne-room school through the consolidation to one each high and grade school for an entire county. For 51 years and 7 months, Mrs. Keyser plied youngsters in elementary schools with readin’, ritin" and 'rithmetic. She generously dispended the three R’s for she figures that she averaged 32 students per year which would total 1664 during her teaching tenure. By actual count, Mrs. Keyser taught 46 students one year and in another school year she had 44 pupils in a class. In recent years some of the children enrolled in her class were grandchildren of students enrolled in classes at the offset of her career. She had anticipated retiring after she completed her fifty second year but her health did not permit this and cut her two months short of her goal. Mrs.' Keyser received her education at the Washington School where she was one of the first graders enrolled when the school was opened, and she continued through four years of high school here. Though she began school in a large class, there were only two graduates that year, she and Arthur Miller, retired postmaster at Washington.

She planned to attend college on a hundred dollar scholarship at ithe State Normal, now Longwood

| College at FarmviUe- when she was drafted into a teaching position. Residents of the area with school age children asked her father if she could teach. His reply to them was, “If she is old enough to teach, she is old enough to decide for herself.” And so the eight patrons, parents of the 26 students which constituted her first class, signed a petition requesting her to fill the position. She took the state examination and passed it.

Mrs. Keyser began her career as “Miss Slaughter” in 1919 at the tender age erf 16 in the one-room Battle Run School near Washington. Her mother made her do away with her long braids and pile bar hair on top of her head to make herself look older for some of the girls and boys she was teaching were older than she was.

She recalls that the chalk board in Battle Run School was the tongue and groove side wall of the room painted black. One very tall lad always worked his arithmetic as high up on the wall as he could and she would have to stand on a bench to check it. In those days the boys brought in the fire wood for the great cast iron stove that spread it glowing warmth to every corner of the classroom. A parent