ChatterLei

My recollection is of me, in third grade, sitting on the floor at the feet of my beautiful mom sitting on the couch holding several pages stapled together of what seemed like endless lists of words appropriate for my grade level and above.

One by one, my mom would state a word and maybe use it in a sentence so I would understand the definition. Then I would spell it for her. If the spelling was correct, we would move on to the next word. If it was wrong, she would mark it lightly with a pencil and we would come back to that word. We would practice over and over, at my urging.

On the day of our school spelling bee, I remember feeling nervous but excited. All of the children participating in the spelling bee were standing in the front of the entire third grade. Slowly, and methodically, the group of children standing dwindled down to about five of us. My best friend got the word “Santa Claus.” She was so prepared. She started spelling with a CAPITAL “S” and continued to the next word with a CAPITAL “C”- l – a -u – s — e. She was asked to sit down. She fumed for days believing she did not say the “e” at the end.

Eventually, there were two girls left standing — my friend and competitor, K, and me. I don’t remember the words we were given, only that K walked into her mother’s arms crying and I was holding the first place trophy for winning.

My next memory was walking with my mom into the gym of another grade school a few days later, for the area school spelling bee. The number of chairs set up for parents and spelling bee participants felt overwhelming. Talk about nervous!

I remember every time a word was called out for one of the other kids, I would spell it in my mind and get it right. And, then there were three of us left standing. The next word was mine. What was the word that did me in? The word was “build.” Build!

As you might guess, I have never forgotten how to spell the word that earned me a 3rd place trophy at the all-school-spelling bee in our district.

(I’m the tall girl in the yellow shirt.)

I found out years later that my maternal grandfather and his mom both won spellings bees back in their day. What a fun connection!