Mabel
While she was still a child, Mabel Farley decided to someday become a teacher, and she never lost sight of that goal. Around 1900, her public school studies completed, she enrolled at the normal school in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, about thirty miles from her home in the little town of White Deer. She must have been a dedicated student, for later, at her graduation ceremony at Bloomsburg, she was praised both for her teaching ability and for her academic prowess.
Bloomsburg State Normal School, c.1920
https://guides.library.bloomu.edu/c.php?g=318739&p=2205990
Qualified, and showing much promise, she returned to her home town, and soon began her first teaching job. She was still in White Deer several years later, where the 1910 U.S. Census recorded that both Mabel and her younger sister Lera were public school teachers. It is easy to think that her older sister's success had inspired the younger Miss Farley's choice of career.
Mabel still had the passion for learning that had helped her win accolades at Bloomsburg. Although Penn State was about seventy miles away, she had begun to study there, working towards a Bachelors degree.
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