{"id":10592,"date":"2026-03-23T03:21:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T08:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/?p=10592"},"modified":"2026-03-24T19:28:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:28:16","slug":"helen-magargal-a-teacher-that-everybody-remembers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/helen-magargal-a-teacher-that-everybody-remembers\/","title":{"rendered":"Helen Magargal: \u201cA Teacher That Everybody Remembers\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Helen Magargal and her fourth grade class, 1974.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

by Evan Spring<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 1970s and 80s, Worthington native Helen Bartlett Magargal (1920\u20132008) was a beloved teacher at the town\u2019s R. H. Conwell Elementary School. But for her own high school education, options were limited. She chose to board in Northampton, doing chores to pay for her room. Sometimes she was lucky enough to get a ride home on weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in spite of that,\u201d as her daughter Christine Mulcahy explained, \u201cmy mother graduated in the top ten of her class. Great college material, right? There was no money. But years later, when Bernie Yvonne became principal here in town, and was a neighbor of my parents, he convinced her that she could<\/em>\u00a0go to college. She was a grandmother, she was in her forties, she didn\u2019t have a driver\u2019s license. So she tackled all those obstacles and became a teacher that everybody remembers.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the historical society\u2019s annual meeting on September 29, 2024, townspeople gathered to pay tribute to Helen Magargal, who also authored the WHS monograph\u00a0Early Schools in Worthington<\/em> in 1999-2000.<\/p>\n

In attendance were three of Helen and Ray Magargal\u2019s four children: Christine, the second child, now residing in Northampton; Wells Wrisley \u201cMack\u201d Magargal, the third child, visiting from Virginia; and the youngest, Steven Bartlett Magargal, who recently moved from Worthington to South Carolina. The oldest sibling, Judith Ann Berube, lives in Florida and could not be there. Also in attendance were Christine\u2019s son, Lawrence (Larry); Mack\u2019s wife, Terry; and Steve\u2019s wife, Diane.<\/p>\n

When Helen was a child, her family lived on Old North Road and then Buffington Hill Road. She attended the Lyceum School on Buffington Hill Road near the Corners, and at one point had a mortifying experience in the neighborhood. She and a friend were trailing behind one of the two elderly Rice sisters, who lived opposite the library. One of the Rice sisters was deaf, and Helen and her friend debated which sister was in front of them. As Christine explained, \u201cI think it was my mother who yelled something not nice, and it was the sister who could hear very well. My mother ran home, climbed up a tree, and her mother was down there with a shoe. \u2018Get down here, Helen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Lyceum school photo. Top row, left to right: Harold Brown, Walter Higgins, Marshall Goodwin, C. Raymond Magargal, Harold Smith, Harriet Higgins, Helen Bartlett, Doris Shaw, Geraldine Smith, Marvis Snyder, Mary Burr, Jenette Wright. Middle row, left to right: Donald Mollison, Robert Larro, David Wright, Daniel Reed, Walter Mollison, H. Franklin (Bevo) Bartlett, Eleanor Smith, Adwilda Gagnon, Irene Hathaway. Bottom row, left to right: Miss Florence Tonier, Thelma Hathaway, Richard Smith, Howard Mollison, Frederick Dodge, Rita Gagnon, Phylis Packard, Charles Bartlett, Eloise Bartlett, Henry Hathaway, and Miss Marjorie Bullock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Upper class at the Corners School, May 1934. Top row: Mary Ellen Read, Geraldine Smith, Helen Bartlett, Ruth Wright, Jeanette Wright. Middle row: Donald Mollison, Earl Eddy, Franklin Bartlett, Doris Ruth Owen, Adwilda Gagnon, Stanley Symszcech. First row: unidentified teacher (wearing glasses), Harold Brown, Walter Mollison, Eleanor Smth, Chester Weisner, Eugene Bernier, Irene Hathaway, David Wright, Daniel Read.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

After graduating high school Helen worked for a Springfield family as a nanny and housekeeper, while being courted by her future husband, Ray Magargal. \u201cHe would drive down with Harold Brown and they would look for the cheapest gas they would quote down the streets,\u201d Christine explained. \u201cBut he was too shy to knock on the door and ask Mom to come out. So, you\u2019ve seen that movie, he tossed pebbles. But he also sang the song \u2018Tangerine,\u2019 according to my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

For their wedding, said Christine, \u201cMy mother had to choose between a wedding dress or a wedding cake, and she chose to have a wedding cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photograph from Helen’s engagement announcement.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ray and Helen settled into \u201cThe Spruces\u201d on Williamsburg Road at Worthington Corners. The house had belonged to Helen\u2019s grandfather, and Helen\u2019s aunts Marion and Elsie Bartlett lived there as well.<\/p>\n

As several gatherers noted, Helen\u2019s talent for teaching was rooted in her awareness of each child\u2019s individual needs. Mack observed this in his childhood, when The Spruces had a dilapidated shed with an attic. \u201cWe were not allowed to go up on the attic stairs. And I went up there, you know, investigating, because there was a lot of interesting stuff there. She saw me coming down the stairs, but never said anything. She knew I was embarrassed, and she just let it ride. I think that was her gift of being able to tell what people need, what they don\u2019t need, not making them feel embarrassed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlus she used to read to me,\u201d said Mack. \u201cI was bad at reading, probably dyslexic. And so she would sit at the dining room table and read to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helen was in her early forties when she enrolled at Westfield State College to study education. She was following in the footsteps of her mother Alice Catherine Bartlett, who also worked as a teacher, and her aunt Marion Bartlett, a principal at the Memorial School in Springfield.<\/p>\n

But first she needed a driver\u2019s license. \u201cShe went back to Westfield State when I started first grade,\u201d said Steve. \u201cGoing back to get her license I think was harder than going back to college. She was scared to death of driving. I remember being in a car with her one time, and she went to the left side of the island instead of the right and got pulled over. The cop was really cool, but Mom, she was crying up a storm. \u2018Oh my god, I could have killed us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was also thanks to my father,\u201d said Christine, \u201cbecause he took on a lot of the work that she had done. You know, he was cooking, child care. He supported her. And then he liked hosting dinners for all the teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still remember the car my dad bought her,\u201d said Mack. \u201cIt was an old Dodge with big fins on the back, and it had push-button transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Newspaper clipping from the early 1990s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cShe never spoke much about how hard school was,\u201d said Steve. \u201cBut once she started teaching, she definitely knew she was in the right spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helen\u2019s first teaching job was in Hinsdale around 1971 or 1972. By this time her oldest child, Judy, had children of her own, and Christine had graduated from college. Soon Helen would be teaching at the Conwell School until her retirement, usually first or second grade, but sometimes third or fourth, or two classes combined.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son was lucky enough to be in her last first-grade class, and it was just great to have her as a teacher,\u201d said Janet Dimock. \u201cI think they all felt supported, even when they didn\u2019t behave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phyllis Smith recounted how Helen perceptively diagnosed a problem with her son. \u201cHe was very shy, and he was always in the back of the room and didn\u2019t say much. Come to find out, he couldn\u2019t understand her wording because of blockage in his ears. She\u2019s the one that found that he wasn\u2019t saying letters correctly because he didn\u2019t hear them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Helen taught Linda Arnold\u2019s children, Linda \u2014 who had previously worked as a middle-school teacher \u2014 volunteered in the classroom. Later she did some substitute teaching as well. \u201cShe made it look so easy,\u201d said Linda, \u201cand when I was in there alone, it wasn\u2019t that easy. She could multitask like nobody I ever saw, and this was when she had the combination class. She\u2019d have a group of children she was teaching reading, and they were all at so\u00a0many different levels. She\u2019d perform miracles providing seat work for all the other children, so they could be busy and engaged with something while she worked the children in her reading group. That was amazing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Helen Magargal with her third and fourth grade combination class, 1982.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before the gathering Kate Ewald heard from Lindsey and Matt Molyneux, who had Helen as a teacher. \u201cHelen used to watch Lindsey do all these little drawings,\u201d said Kate, \u201cand she invited Lindsey to come over to the house, and they did artwork together. And now Lindsey is a professional artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Matt Molyneux, \u201cShe made him feel so welcome and loved, like a grandmother might. He made a reference to a comment that Maya Angelou wrote: \u2018People will forget what you say and do, but they will well remember how you made them feel.\u2019 He shared that because that was his experience with Helen. Now he\u2019s a fabulous teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phyllis Smith recalled Helen reading to the children from Miss Nelson Is Missing<\/em>, a book by Harry Allard and James Marshall that features a witch-like subsitute teacher. \u201cThe kids were totally involved with her story, and they went out to recess,\u201d said Phyllis. \u201cAnd during recess, she came back all dressed up as this character. She\u2019s sitting at her desk, made up and everything, and freaked the kids right out.\u201d<\/p>\n

One time Steve convinced his mother to give him a key to the Conwell School so that he and his friends could play basketball in the gym after hours. \u201cThe very first night, Keith Modestow went through a wall,\u201d said Steve. \u201cSo now I gotta call up my mother and tell her. She goes, \u2018Ohhhh, no<\/em>.\u2019 My father came down with Bobby Bartlett and they had it fixed that night, and nobody knew any difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably discussion turned to Helen\u2019s husband, Ray, and his various pranks, including a notorious four-hole privy hung up at The Spruces in the garage. \u201cWhen we tore the barn down,\u201d said Steve, \u201cwe rebuilt the barn with some of the old wood. They were having a family reunion, so my father, being the prankster that he was, got the pictures of my mother\u2019s whole family \u2014 and it still hangs in the garage to this day, the four-holer \u2014 the pictures were glued to that, and that\u2019s how the people arrived to the family reunion. That might be the maddest I\u2019ve ever seen my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A gathering at The Spruces.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a few summers Ray and Helen ran the kitchen at the golf course, and they encouraged their children in the sport. \u201cShe just let us go, if we were going to the golf course,\u201d said Mack. \u201cIt\u2019s such a small town, there aren\u2019t many kids your own age to do things with, so you could always play golf by yourself, go out there and hit the ball around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many gatherers remembered the wholesome family environment at the golf club in those days. \u201cMost kids in Worthington,\u201d said Ben Brown, \u201cespecially if they knew the Magargals, were fairly proficient at golf, as junior members as well as finding golf balls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve, an outstanding golfer (and 2026 inductee to the Berkshire County Golf Hall of Fame), had brought along a cherished photograph of his mother in mid-swing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Helen Magargal at the golf course c. mid-1940s. Back row, left to right: Charlie Bartlett, Ray Magargal, Harold Brown (obcured), and Eloise Bartlett (obscured).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As Steve explained, Helen was self-taught but had excellent technique. \u201cShe was five-ten or five-nine, and you can see that in the picture, the follow-through. That\u2019s athletic right there. All her weight\u2019s on her left side. You want to show somebody a picture about how to finish a golf swing, that\u2019s how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christine and her son Larry lived with Helen and Ray at The Spruces for several years. Larry, who spent a year at Conwell and graduated from Gateway, said of his grandmother, \u201cIn the memories that stick with me, she was very persuasive, but in the sweetest, nicest way. I could never say no to her to anything that I didn\u2019t really want to do, and none of my friends could either, because they\u2019d all had her as a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing was playing within a hand-bell choir in the town. She pulled bells from some church somewhere in the Hilltowns. All of a sudden there\u2019s bells in the house, and she\u2019s like, \u2018Oh Larry, here, you do this, and then we\u2019ll get your friends.\u2019 Next thing you know, we\u2019re playing bells every single week. And nobody complained. If I talked to my friends today, they still love that memory. I never thought I would play bells, but you just couldn\u2019t say no to her. You didn\u2019t even realize she was asking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember her playing Moonlight Sonata<\/em> on the piano, just by ear,\u201d said Mack.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just loved music,\u201d said Janet Dimock, who moved to Worthington in 1976 and sang with Helen in the Hilltown Choral Society. \u201cWe\u2019d all meet at the Corners, and stuff ourselves in a car and drive up over to Clark Hill to go to rehearsal in Cummington. They were the most funny group of people that I\u2019d ever want to know. We were always laughing, because they were always telling stories on each other, pranks they used to play on people. The time that Bevo Bartlett and I think Ray hid out in back of the Osgoods\u2019 house and waited for Harriet to take a shower. This is as adults, not kids. They started throwing rocks at the bathroom window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the drama club would put on a play at the school,\u201d Janet continued. \u201cHelen would get all the kids involved. The kids would have little parts, or they\u2019d be the sound effects. Helen made little signs for the kids to hold, whether they were supposed to be the wind or some other background noise. And she got them all enthused about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing you should never ask Helen to do was support a raffle,\u201d said Janet. \u201cIt didn\u2019t really matter whether it was for the school, or the town, or anything else. She would be very stern. \u2018Raffle? That\u2019s gambling.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Worthington Congregational Church choir, 1996. Left to right: Susan Tallon, Dorothy (Dot) Nelson, Sue Lewis, Bevo Bartlett (hidden), Helen Magargal, Sue Desrosiers, Barbara Sweeney, Linda Courtney.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over the years The Spruces hosted many family members and guests, including Lyndon Brown, who rented a study room. Helen\u2019s Bartlett forebears once ran a hotel at Worthington Corners, and her father, Guy Bartlett, worked at the Weldon Hotel in Greenfield. Around the late 1980s, Helen and Ray ran a bed-and-breakfast. They also hosted teachers from England on an exchange program, including a couple named Trevor and Grace.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father was so, \u2018Oh, these English people, I\u2019m going to have to hold my finger like this,\u2019\u201d recalled Christine, holding an imaginary tea cup and projecting her pinky finger. \u201cWell, they became fast friends, and they came back year after year. One of my biggest regrets was that I could never afford to take Mom and Dad over there, so they could be with Grace and Trevor. People became family. They were friends, but they became family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a time when everybody in Worthington not just knew each other, but socialized and were very connected, by necessity as well as proximity,\u201d said Ben Brown.<\/p>\n

When asked how Helen spent her retirement, Christine replied, \u201cHer garden, her children and grandchildren, volunteering, church, bell choir.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mack added, \u201cShe spent hours and hours transcribing music for the bell choir. And making applesauce.\u201d She also continued to visit the Conwell school and read stories to the children.<\/p>\n

Of course she also spent time at Worthington\u2019s illustrious roadhouse, Liston\u2019s, where her son Steve was proprietor. \u201cOf course everybody paid attention to her,\u201d said Steve. \u201cShe liked the atmosphere, she liked the fact that people would come talk to her, and the conversations. It\u2019s like she was almost holding court sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Helen Magargal\u2019s funeral in 2008, there was a well-attended reception at Town Hall. \u201cI remember at my mother\u2019s funeral,\u201d said Mack, \u201csomeone coming up to me and saying, \u2018Your mother always told me what was what. I didn\u2019t like it then, but I appreciate it now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When Helen retired, her students gave her a gift of a tablecloth inscribed with all their signatures. \u201cWhen I would see that,\u201d said her grandson Larry, \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, wow, everybody loves my grandmother in this town.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Evan Spring, a jazz historian and freelance editor, moved to Worthington in 1998 and serves on the WHS board of directors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In The Spruces.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  by Evan Spring In the 1970s and 80s, Worthington native Helen Bartlett Magargal (1920\u20132008) was a beloved teacher at the town\u2019s R. H. Conwell Elementary School. But for her own high school education, options were limited. She chose to board in Northampton, doing chores to pay for her room. Sometimes she was lucky enough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdAsoD-2KQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10592"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10630,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10592\/revisions\/10630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worthingtonhistoricalsociety.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}