08/27/2026
Yesterday’s WHO is it Wednesday was a photo of a woman who taught three generations of local children: Miss Carra Mae Hinkle, who taught at Rockway school for 44 years from 1909-1953.
Carra Mae Hinkle was born on a farm about a mile east of Beatty on December 22, 1888, in Clark County. She was a great-great-granddaughter of James Demint, the founder of Springfield.
Living near Goes Station, young Carra worried that a lack of transportation would put an early end to her education. Instead, she was able to take the Springfield-Clark Traction Line to Xenia High School, where she graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 1907. She earned a scholarship to Marietta College but never used it. She spent the summer of 1908 studying at Antioch, followed that fall teaching at the Cross Roads School on Leffel Lane (The original school building still stands! It was Teaberries and is today Senor Piquin).
That July before she started teaching, she was one of 40 women and 10 men who took the county teachers’ exam at the courthouse, one of the last chances to get certified before the school year began. A year later, in June 1909, she sat for it again alongside 75 other hopefuls, this time listed as Carra Hinkle of Jeffersonville.
In the fall of 1909, Carra Mae Hinkle arrived at Rockway School, back when horses carried student vehicles to school. She would remain there until 1953, teaching first and second grade before eventually settling into first grade alone for 39 of her 44 years.
In December 1918, as an influenza outbreak swept the rural districts and forced some county schools to close entirely. Miss Hinkle was one of ten local teachers who fell ill. She was there when a 1929 fire destroyed the original Rockway schoolhouse.
Only once did she seriously consider leaving. In 1920, she was offered a position elsewhere with better pay and room for advancement. She turned it down and stayed at Rockway. She was quoted saying, "We teachers deal with the most precious thing on earth: the immortal souls of children. No joy is above watching the healthy development of a child."
When she retired in 1953, she shared stories from her memoirs at the celebration held for her. In her early years, she recalled some of the strict rules female teachers had, like these from 1915: no marrying during a contract term, no keeping company with men, a strict 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, no loitering in downtown ice cream stores, no smoking, no bright colors, no dyed hair, and skirts no shorter than two inches above the ankle.
When Miss Hinkle announced her retirement in 1953, a group calling itself "The Committee for Carra Mae Hinkle Day" organized a celebration, and on Sunday, August 30, 1953, more than 500 people, many her former students, gathered for a grand reunion in her honor.
County superintendent Oscar T. Hawke delivered the main address. The committee's chairman, R.A. Peneton, shared: "Miss Hinkle's love for little children has made her a very outstanding teacher. Her pupils thought so much of her that they never wanted Saturday and Sunday to come because they could not go to school on those days." She was showered with gifts from students and friends, and a bronze plaque was placed in the school's main hallway, reading: "A Tribute to Carra Mae Hinkle, teacher at Rockway School from 1909 to 1953. Her kindness, justice and integrity inspired the admiration, respect and loyalty of her pupils and associates, by whom this plaque is given."
The day ended with a ride in a horse-drawn surrey, "with the fringe on top," just as she remembered traveling to Rockway before automobiles. Asked if she would do it all again, she said simply that if she had her life to live over, she would once again choose the teaching profession.
She died on April 14, 1963 at the age of 74.
