We recently heard from client Lahnice Hollister, who worked with Modern Memoirs as she prepared to posthumously publish her granduncle’s autobiography, Resisting Jim Crow: The Autobiography of Dr. John A. McFall. It was a tremendous honor to handle various pre-press services in editorial and design phases before Hollister independently managed cover design and publication. Since then, we’ve been proud to carry this remarkable book in our online shop, and we were delighted to hear of Hollister’s ongoing efforts to bring the book to readers everywhere.

This is a title that would be ideal for any American history class at the high-school level or beyond, and its start as a manuscript Hollister discovered in the Fisk University archives while researching her family history would also make it right at home in schools of library science. But truly, anyone with interest in our country’s history will find this autobiography to be a compelling and inspirational read. In the spirit of encouraging lifelong learning, we invite you to click on the link below to learn more about Lahnice Hollister and her remarkable granduncle, including a short video she created about his life and how learning about it has enriched her own.

September Question: Who was a favorite teacher of yours, and why?



Staff responses

Megan St. Marie: My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Girard, read books aloud that I still remember to this day and told me that one day I’d write books of my own.

Sean St. Marie: My favorite teacher was Sr. Marlene Mucha. I loved her because her enthusiasm for literature was infectious. She cared deeply about us both as students and as people. She was tough but fair and guided us toward finding our own meaning and interpretation of the works we studied. In particular, I'll never forget her Literary Explorations elective, where we read some incredible books that I'm sure were not commonly found in high school curricula, let alone at a Catholic school. I'm sure she was responsible for my decision to minor in literature, and I think Sister would be so pleased to learn that I work at the Emily Dickinson Museum in addition to my role at Modern Memoirs.



Ali de Groot: Ms. Andrea Ackerman, my eighth-grade Language Arts teacher, who taught us never to use the verb “to be” more than three times in an essay. She also wrote me a deeply personal condolence card that I barely understood at the time but carried with me for the next 50 years. I happily reconnected with her in summer 2023.

Liz Sonnenberg: Miss DeSanto, my first-grade teacher, because she invited us to look at the front page of the newspaper and use a red pencil to underline every word we could read. Intimidated at first, I marked every “but,” “the,” “is,” “he,” and “she,” etc. that I found, and was amazed at the resulting sea of red—even on something meant for adults! She filled me with confidence and swung open the door to the wide world of reading.

Nicole Miller: I was always very artistic, and think I largely drew my way through school. My favorite teachers were those who assigned creative projects, where I could shine my brightest. In early grade school, I illustrated my fourth grade teacher's Christmas cards, and in my last year of high school, I painted the Bread and Roses Strike for my history teacher. The painting was displayed in the Massachusetts State House and then it hung in the front of his classroom until his retirement. I always felt it was pretty neat that every student who came through the school during those years would learn about that history through my painting.

Emma Solis: My fifth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Harrelson. While she didn’t put up with my fondness for distracting myself and my classmates, she recognized the literature lover in me and showered me with kindness and encouragement. She also had the best classroom library.