Remembering Emily Hale

I write as an Abbot Academy 1956 graduate who is married to a Princeton graduate. Thus I grabbed and read the article by Elyse Graham ’07, “Letters to Emily,” in the March 18 issue. 

As a devoted student of Emily Hale, who was the drama teacher and instructor in elocution at Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., from 1947 to 1957, I was disappointed that you did not elucidate your readers a wee bit about Miss Hale. I never performed on stage but did get some corrections, always with a smile, on my speech (I was a Westerner from Colorado) and was taught to stand up straight, speak distinctly, and look the person in the eye. A classmate says T.S. Eliot came to Miss Hale’s class and read from “The Waste Land.” I went on to Smith College and discovered Emily Hale was in the same location, Northampton. She even remembered my graduation with congratulations and best wishes, a card I still have today.