Clara Johnson Wolverton was born on December 3, 1879, in Stockton, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, to Sarah Catherine Cole and Gabriel Wolverton. (Note: Wolverton is also sometimes spelled Woolverton in some sources). At the time of her birth, her parents were in their 40s and had two other surviving children - brothers Harry and Gabriel Jr. Some time in the 1880s, the family moved to Trenton, NJ where her father and brother worked as harness makers. Her earliest schooling is unknown, but she began keeping a meticulous record of her grades and teachers’ names while attending Centennial Grammar School from 1892 to 1894 (the current equivalent of middle school), then Trenton High School from 1894 to 1898, where she majored in English.
In the fall of 1898, she enrolled in New Jersey State Normal School. She was given the nickname “Toddie” by her peers and her favorite occupation was “performing experiments.” According to the school’s Grade and Report Book, she does well academically and is “Quick to understand a child’s point of view and to help, yet her manner seems unsympathetic, due to lack of facial expression. Ernest and shows some good ideas of teaching.” Despite the negative evaluation of her manner and expression, she was immediately placed in a teaching position at Bound Brook Public School just before her graduation in February 1901. For the next two years, she was well-reviewed by her superiors and admired by her students in Passaic County Public Schools in Manchester Township and Haledon Borough. Finally, In 1904, she accepted a permanent position in Trenton Public Schools.
She continued to live with her family in Trenton, which, at times, included her brother Harry and nephew Austin Wolverton. Her brother Gabriel Jr. worked in the insurance business as did Austin. Her father died in the early 1900s, and by 1910, she was living with her widowed mother at 248 Pearl Street in Trenton where she continued to live for several decades. In the 1920s, while teaching, she also attended the University of Pennsylvania and received a degree in education.
According to her obituary, she spent 50 years teaching science at Trenton Junior High School No. 1, which opened in 1916, and was later renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School (closed in 2007). She died May 8, 1964, and was buried in Riverview Cemetery, Trenton, New Jersey.
Levora “Lee” Rodda Easterbrook (1903-1995) graduated from New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton in 1923. She taught grammar school in her hometown of Butler for four years until she married Neil Easterbook, principal, and later superintendent of Butler Schools in 1927.
Kenneth H. Weber (1919-2009) graduated from New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton in 1941. His first teaching position was in Phillipsburg. He later served in the Army Air Force during WWII. He taught Industrial Arts at Bernards High School in Bernardsville for many years.
Instructor in Domestic Science at New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton.
Head of Department of Mathematics at New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton.
Established in 1908 as a two-year Normal School in response to the growing demand for professionally trained teachers, the New Jersey State Normal School at Montclair became Montclair State Teachers College in 1927.
Gertrude Scudder Bodine (1894-1978) was a graduate of Model School class of 1911. She was born at the “Cherry Grove” estate in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, the only child to the later in life marriage of Joseph Rue Scudder (1851-1895), and Gertrude Mae McCully (1860-1944), an organist and librarian at Princeton University. After graduating from the Model School, she attended Mount Holyoke College and graduated in 1915. She taught English and Latin in Junior High School No. 1 in Trenton. In 1918, she married Joseph Lamb Bodine (1883-1950), who also attended the Model School a decade earlier. Joseph Bodine served as U.S. District Attorney for New Jersey, Judge of the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, Associate Justice of the New Jersey State Supreme Court, and later Superior Court Judge. They had one son, John W. Bodine.
After her marriage, Gertrude served extensively as a volunteer in civic, cultural, and historical organizations in the Trenton area. She served on the board and later as president of the historic William Trent House museum for 35 years. She was also very active in, and served several years as president of, the Junior League of Trenton, First Presbyterian Church of Trenton, and the Trenton YWCA.
Principal of New Jersey State Normal School from 1855 to 1864.
Principal of New Jersey State Normal School from 1871 to 1876.