Teacher was enthusiastic gardener

1/23/2006

FREMONT - Hilda M. Groll Schwartz, 94, who taught all subjects to elementary school children for 35 years, died Jan. 16 at Elmwood Assisted Living at Fremont after she fell and bleeding was found in her brain.

Mrs. Schwartz was born and raised in Fremont and only left for a few years before moving back to her hometown, said her daughter, Barbara Heagney.

While attending Fremont Ross High School, Mrs. Schwartz was proud that she played basketball, even though there wasn't an established women's team, her daughter said.

She received a teaching certificate from what was then Bowling Green Normal College in 1931 and was an original member of the social sorority Beta Sigma Phi at Bowling Green, said her granddaughter, DeeAnn Furlong.

Mrs. Schwartz taught all subjects to students in fourth through sixth grades at Atkinson Elementary in Fremont and schools in York and Townsend townships in Sandusky County.

Her daughter said she always engaged the students with the subjects she was teaching and "thoroughly enjoyed teaching and was always interested in learning something new."

Mrs. Furlong said her grandmother never raised her voice as a teacher and used to boast that she only had trouble with one student in her 35 years of teaching.

She married Henry Groll in 1941, and the pair divorced in the late 1950s. In 1967, she married Paul Schwartz, who died in 1997.

For nearly 50 years, Mrs. Schwartz was a member of the Home Garden Club, and her own flower and vegetable gardens around her home "were something to see," her daughter said.

In addition, she was called on to design the artwork for the organizations she was in, and favored pastels and chalk.

During World War II, she was an air raid warden, taught first aid, and once showed how adventurous she was when she flew in a plane with an open cockpit, her daughter said.

After retiring, her granddaughter said Mrs. Schwartz kept busy by visiting hospitals and nursing homes to see family and friends several times a week.

Surviving are her daughter, Barbara Heagney; sons, Gary Schwartz and William Schwartz, six grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.

Visitation is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today, at the Wonderly-Horvath Funeral Home & Crematory in Fremont, and a private graveside service will follow in Gibsonburg. The family suggests material tributes to Hospice of Memorial Hospital or to a charity of the donor's choice.