Lila Booth
Lila Booth has lived a life with a true passion for education and teaching. She started her life attending Girls High also known as Philadelphia High School for Girls. There, she was able to find her love for learning. She continued on to study at the University of Pennsylvania for both of her undergraduate and graduate degrees in teaching. After that, she became a teacher at Cheltenham High School, where she taught History and English.
It is barbeque day at Atria and the whole place smells like hotdogs and hamburgers. The lobby is filled with residents and their families. We grab a table in a more quiet area. She keeps encouraging me to help myself to their food. I say I already ate lunch and just want to talk to her. Her face seems to light up and says, "Well I am glad you came and would love to share my stories with you." She begins to share her story with me.
After hearing her life's story, I ask her, "Did your family have a large impact on your love for education?" She responds, "Well my older brother was in the war, and he was a genius." It was very hard on both Booth and her parents when her brother got called to fight in World War II. While she continued learning, her brother would be defending the country. "Did you feel pushed to work harder in school because of your brother's situation?" I asked. She says that she was already a hard worker and just continued to try her best. Her parents told her she could go to any school she wanted but it just had to be in the Philadelphia area, and she had to get a full scholarship. She ended up achieving exactly that. She said while she got a great education at UPenn, her education at her high school had a large impact on her and her love for teaching.
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I asked her what it was like teaching. She says that it was a very great experience. In fact, she talks about how at Cheltenham High School, the school she ended up teaching, she created the "Gifted Program." I asked her what led her to create that program, and she responded that some children were not being recognized for their unique abilities. "Education is very important," she states.
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She asks me what school I go to, and I tell her William Penn Charter School, thinking that she will not know what I am talking about. "Ah, a Quaker School. How lovely," she responds. She goes on to tell me about how her husband was a Quaker, and she was Jewish. During his funeral, she tells me how he was able to honor both Judaism and Quakerism. We held his funeral in a temple, but it was a Quaker service. "It was beautiful," she says in reminiscence.
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