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Mar. 31--Books and music have always been special to Betty Whildin-Gerber.
They've been her vocation and avocation, a focal point not just personally but professionally to the woman who spent a career as a classroom aide and school secretary. As a single mother raising four children, they helped pay the bills and hold a family together.
Now retired from the Wilson Area School District, she continues to pass on that passion to youngsters in eastern Northampton County who know her as "Nanny G," the grandmother who hosts Storytime at the Palmer Park Mall each month.
"I love to read. I never go on vacation without taking a book, and I love to sit out under a beach umbrella reading," she said recently as she sat in the Palmer Township mall's office explaining how she was recruited for Storytime. But, she added, "We don't take vacation when it's Storytime."
Harking back to her training as a classroom aide, she creates a lesson plan for each month focused on a theme that reflects a recent holiday or season.
Surrounded by almost three dozen tots ranging in age from 2 to 4, she begins by issuing name tags. The newcomers are hesitant, at first. The vets go right to the front of the line. It isn't long before the whole group blends easily, dancing together and fiddling with name tags.
That's what Nanny G likes to see.
This month's theme was St. Patrick's Day and she used the opportunity teach a bit of history and legend. The book, appropriately enough, was titled "It's St. Patrick's Day."
"Is anyone here Irish?" she asks. "Is there anyone wearing green? Do you know why we wear green for St. Patrick's Day?"
A music-lover who is celebrating her 50th year as a church organist, Whildin-Gerber has found that songs are as important as books for her young charges. She uses the music to entice the often-shy toddlers closer to her and the tags allow her to call on children by name.
Each session ends with a free raffle for the book she has read and an encouragement to return again at 10:30 a.m. on the second Tuesday of every month.
Jennifer Ciesla of Bethlehem Township brought her 2-year-old son, Owen, back for a second trip after she saw video taken by her parents on an earlier visit.
"He was dancing, clapping hands, watching all the other kids dance," she said. "It's great."
Jamin Williams, an energetic 3-year-old from Easton, is a regular at Nanny G's Storytime. "I play games," he said bashfully, afterward, as his mother, Theda Williams, worked to corral the youngster.
A single mom raising four children in the 1960s, Whildin-Gerber went to work as what was then known as a "para-professional aide" for teachers in the Head Start program in Northampton County. When her boss offered her the chance to go to community college for more formal training, she jumped at it and began a career in education.
She spent eight years at the elementary school level in the Wilson Area School District, then became a secretary at the middle school and later in the guidance office. She played piano for all the chorus rehearsals and grabbed every opportunity she saw to work with students.
"I loved it," she said. "I guess I just loved working with the kids."
joe.mcdermott@mcall.com
610-559-2151
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