Hicksville, Meet Mabel
Of all the teachin' joints in all the towns in all the world, how did Mabel Farley happen to walk into Hicksville's?
The simple answer is that she applied to an employment agency for teachers. The likely reasons for her choosing Hicksville are a bit more complicated.
She was blessed with exceptional gifts, and doubtless she wanted to make the most of them. How much opportunity for her own growth lay ahead where she had been teaching? How quickly could she acquire a Bachelors degree, and then a Masters, if she were to continue at White Deer? Evidently, she had gained enough confidence to try teaching elsewhere - perhaps anywhere, if it was a place where her talents would be recognized. Her own continuing education mattered a great deal, and any new teaching job would have to be reasonably close to a university, at which she could continue her own studies. She also would want an opportunity earn her way into more responsible duties.
Salary would not have been an issue, for she was not one to live lavishly. Moreover, given her demonstrated abilities and her experience, she could expect any job she was offered to provide a decent income. The opportunity for her to learn and advance would have mattered more.
Huntington Long-Islander, April 7, 1911
It is interesting to note the responsibilities that went with
being a Trustee on a small-town Board of Education.
Newspaper articles from this era indicate that Long Island teachers often were "imported" from upstate New York or from rural areas in other states, where normal schools tended to be located. Hicksville already had been willing to hire young women from such places. To have an applicant from one more small town like White Deer would not have surprised the Board of Education.
Most likely, Mabel's first reaction to the thought of teaching in Hicksville was to learn whatever she could about the place. The agency, which may have placed other teachers there, probably gave her some basic information about the school and the position. In addition, it would have told her about Long Island's strong agricultural economy, Hicksville's ever-expanding Heinz factory, the convenient new trolley line, and the easy access to Manhattan - via the LIRR tunnels that had opened just months before. The tunnels would fit in nicely with her plans. First, because she could ride a train into Pennsylvania Station, and then take the subway to, say, New York University. Second, because many town populations in Nassau County already were growing, as the tunnels had made commuting easier. Schools in Nassau would need more teachers in the future, because they would have more students to teach. Without question, being Mabel Farley, she could become a valued part of any of the schools, including Hicksville, and as "her" school grew, she would be considered for advancement.
She must have greatly impressed the members of the Hicksville School Board, for there was one aspect of her job that was not disclosed in the article excerpted above. Perhaps it had not yet been confirmed when the article was written in April, but by the time the Union School opened the following September, it was known that Miss Farley was more than a teacher - she was also the school's Assistant Principal. That a woman under thirty achieved this status in 1911's Hicksville attests to her maturity, character and exceptional abilities.
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