They Were Teachers

As followers of this blog know, we have a series of "trailing posts" concerning lawyers, soldiers, clerics and farmers.  All of these threads involve people who we tend to know in some other role, but who had occupied the titled role. This thread is another example, listing people who had been teachers in addition to the role that made them well known.
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Clarence R. Huebner

Clarence Huebner was a general officer of the U.S. Army who commanded the 1st Infantry Division for much of World War Two.  Huebner was a very effective commander of a unit which he took over after teh very popular prior officers had been reassigned.  He had started off as a teacher, but had entered the Army as a private prior to World War One, was commissioned in 1916, and went on to a career in the Army.

Category:  Soldier

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John J. Pershing

John Pershing is also listed here in the They Were Lawyers thread.  The legendary commander of U.S. forces in Europe's first career was that of teacher.  After graduating from high school in his native Missouri he was a teacher in an African American school.  In that era, less than half of all Americans graduated from high school and that entitled him to his occupation.  He soon left it for West Point, however, and entered the Army from there.

Category:  Soldier. 

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Hudson Stuck

Also on this day, early Alaskan figure Hudson Stuck passed away from pneumonia at Fort Yukon.  He was 57 years old.

 

Stuck was the co-leader of the first expedition to climb Denali.

Stuck was an Englishman born in London who immigrated to the United States in 1885 after graduating from London's King's College.  In the US he worked as a cowboy and a teacher in Texas before enrolling in the Episcopal University of the South.  Following graduation he was ordained as an Episcopal Priest and served at first in Texas, where he was active in trying to provide relief to the poor and in opposing child labor.  He also preached against lynching at a time when it was at a Southern high.

In 1904 he went to Alaska where he was an Episcopal Archdeacon, a position in that church equivalent to a senior ordained clergyman.  Stuck exemplified muscular Christianity and was well suited for Alaska.  He was an Episcopal missionary priest there.  In 1913 he co-led, with Harry Karstens, the first ascent of Denali. He authored an excellent book on the topic, which I have read.  Two of his four books on his time in Alaska remain in print.

While the Episcopal Church has no means or process for canonizations, Stuck has a day on the Episcopal Church's calendar and is celebrated as a saint.

Category:  Episcopal priest, agriculturalist, writer, explorer, outdoorsman

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Lucian Truscott

Lucian Truscott was a career U.S. Army officer who joined the Army in 1917.  He is famous for his role in World War Two, where he was a very effective and flamboyant commander.  He was a member of the cavalry branch, and was an effective commander under both Patton and Terry Allen.

He started off, however, as a teacher, only switching careers when World War One broke out, which gave him the opportunity to join the Army as an officer in the cavalry branch.

Category:  Soldier, officer

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Barton R. Voight

A Wyoming judge who rose to the position of Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court, Barton Voight had first been a historian and history teacher, before an allergy which afflicted him when dealing with musty books forced him to reassess his career.

Category:  Lawyer.