Yvonne Mayer

Yvonne Mayer Teacher/Director and founder of Our School Preschool died in the early evening of Thursday November 28, 2024, in her new home. Yvonne died peacefully and without pain. After 96 years of life devoting much of her life to the education of young children Yvonne finally needed the rest that only such a finality as death provides.

Yvonne requested the simplicity of cremation and no ceremony. Yvonne believed it important for the children and families of Our School who knew her to embrace those memories of the Our School Preschool classroom as they so choose to remember. Yvonne has the same request for those professionals and friends who have survived her long life.

Yvonne's compassion for teaching was especially on display in the form of her love for literature that children should have an insatiable desire to access the ideas of authors in all genres through reading and to perhaps become a peer with an author by sharing their fledgling ideas with others through authorship. Children become authors through bookmaking; illustrating their experiences, writing about their experiences and engaging with the ideas of children's authors when a story is being read.

Yvonne's life is rife with myriad events both large and small. These events began in France where Yvonne was born in 1928 and have been cumulative for Yvonne defining her as the individual she had become and who will be missed as the person who is no longer here today. Yvonne maintained contact with her relatives in France throughout her long life. Yvonne frequently visited France never relinquishing her culture while at the same time revitalizing her personal and professional self through family gatherings and those cherished moments with her relatives which embodied conversations that took place into the early morning after a sumptuous meal. Yvonne thought of her family in France often and thought of her family with a profound sense of affection.

Yvonne did on occasion share her personal and professional journey with people; Yvonne was a very private person, and you may have had an opportunity to glimpse inside Yvonne as Yvonne shared something of herself with you in a private moment. To others it would be an infamous challenge to Yvonne's integrity to offer more of Yvonne beyond what she shared with all of you in the classroom.

Yvonne will leave behind her the hope that the children she taught bring their education into the future uncompromised for themselves; that their understanding of the world continues to grow and is shared with others underscoring in this process of understanding and growth curiosity and the insistent need to question. The answers obtained in this process are never finite and evolve in a social context whose determinants impact others beyond the self. For families Yvonne hopes to leave behind an appreciation of their guardianship endeavors with their children and how this role will continue and expand to impact other families. To my professional acquaintances and friends keep an eye out for children and families who need support and offer succor.

Lastly...for Yvonne it should be known to those closest to her in the classroom that it is reassuring to know that your educational efforts will continue unyielding...and Yvonne will expect us to figure out a way to let her know from time to time "how it is going." Goodbye....

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince