Cora B Parker, Teacher from the 1930's to the 1950's

Cora B Parker was a teacher at Stockton for at least 20 years and was my 1st grade teacher during the1953/54 school year. She is on a 1930's teacher list as Miss Burns, a 2nd grade teacher.

Below: Miss Cora Silvara Burns (before her marriage to Mr Parker) in a 1946 class photo;

photo courtesy of Barbara Larsen, a student in that class

As our kindergarten year neared its end in 1953 kids started talking about which 1st grade teacher 

we might be assigned to and much of the talk was about a very strict, somewhat scary, teacher we might 

get. It was said her last name had been "Burns" at one time and the word burns was emphasized by the

 older kids to scare us.  Apparently Miss Burns had become Mrs. Parker sometime between 1947 and 

1953 and I was assigned to her class. Her hair was silver or platinum and at 60 she was older than 

most of the other teachers in the school, but, because of her unusual hair color, one student, probably

Louis Orangeo in an "Eddie Haskell" moment, flattered her once by telling her she looked like actress

 Lana Turner.

I don't remember too much about first grade but I probably often talked out-of-turn and I'm guessing that is 

the habit that Mrs. Parker is writing about on my promotion card.

She appears in an index to NJ births as being born to John Burns and Mary A. Cole* on 9 Jun 1891

in Hunterdon County. Her name appears in the 1915/16 catalog of Maryville College, Maryville TN 

where she is listed as a second year student from Freehold NJ with her major as "Classical." 

She later pursued more education, attended Columbia University, and in Columbia University catalogs

 in the 1920's she's listed as Cora Silvara Burns living at  20 Spring St  in Flemington NJ; a 1930's catalog

 reports she was assigned to Stockton School. 

In 2008 Michael K Heaney published a doctoral dissertation at Rutgers titled

 Uncounted Costs: The Civil War's Impact on an Infantry Company's Men and Their Families.

 One of the men profiled is John Burns, a man who immigrated from Ireland at age 7 about 1852

 with his mother,  joined (or was drafted into) the army, suffered a number of wounds in battle, and spent 

the next 60 years relocating 20 times or more and trying many different jobs and businesses with little

 success.  Throughout that time he continually petitioned for disability payments and pensions from the

 government as a wounded vet. John Burns was the father of Cora Silvara Burns in his second marriage 

and the profile says John and his wife moved in with Cora in Flemington about 1923:

An excerpt from p. 291 in the book (p 315 in the pdf):

* Mary A Cole was Mary A Cole Henry, a recent widow; 

Mary A Cole Burns tombstone at Findagrave