Mrs. Effie Phipps

My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Effie Phipps, passed away yesterday morning. It makes me so sad. She was such a lovely, kind, wonderful person and an extraordinary teacher. Some people may not remember their kindergarten teacher, but I remember Mrs. Phipps as though I was in her classroom just yesterday.


Mrs. Phipps left a private school in town (where she was my pre-k teacher) and started her own kindergarten. The kindergarten was held at her house, which sat up on a hill, and was called Happy Hill Kindergarten, and it was indeed happy there.

I learned so many things from Mrs. Phipps. She taught us countless Bible verses, Bible facts and hymns; and to this day when I hear, read, or sing those, I think of her. From pre-k I remember she had a puppet that she would bring out during story time and she also gave us red hots to munch on during that time. I suppose looking back on it they were probably more like cinnamon candies than actual red hots. I doubt a 4-year old could handle red hots.

One of the things we would use during arts and crafts was egg shells. I suppose she kept egg shells from when she hard boiled eggs and dyed them different colors for us to use when having craft time. Even now at 32, when I crack open a hard boiled egg and peel away the shell, I think of Mrs. Phipps.

Mrs. Phipps had a webbed foot and we were all in awe when she showed it to us. I remember vividly one day when she was stapling some papers together and accidently stapled her finger and it started bleeding. She never uttered a bad word or let us see her cry, but walked out of the room and dealt with her injury.

Her husband, Mr. Elmer Phipps, was always around. He would watch after us on the playground and show us things out in the yard. He was so soft spoken. He passed away about a year ago.

I remember trying to learn how to tie my shoes at Happy Hill and Mrs. Phipps was patient with each and every one of us.

Paul “Bear” Bryant died when I was in kindergarten at Happy Hill, and Mrs. Phipps brought us in to her living room where we watched his funeral on TV, that was in January 1983.

We had fantastic field trips at Happy Hill. My cousin, Wes, also went to Happy Hill when I did. I think he was in the pre-k class when I was in kindergarten. I remember one time when we went to the television studio for a filming of Grunches and Grins, a local PBS show. When the hostess pronounced my name wrong, Wes promptly told her how to correctly pronounce it.

The influences Mrs. Phipps had on my life are countless. I couldn’t possibly name them all here in this post. She was a wonderful, wonderful woman and she will be missed. When I called my mom today to tell her the sad news, she said, “The angels in heaven are rejoicing.” Indeed they are.