Ms. Dorothy Drew was the best and toughest college English teacher I ever had. If she rewarded you with an A, you really earned it. She taught upper-level and honors courses at Syracuse University, and I couldn’t get enough even though her nickname was ‘D-minus’ Drew.

You had to be well prepared when you entered her classroom — she would call on you for conclusions about work she had assigned, and if you hadn’t done the reading, well, you were done. If the answers she sought were not forthcoming, Ms. Drew marked it down in her ready class book, with a frown her only comment.

She was aloof and enigmatic — yet not without humor.

And even though she was well into her 60s, you could see she must have been beautiful in her youth, with a terrific energy and sparkle to her countenance. I liked her because the classroom give and take was truly a learning experience. In short, the terror felt in her class was almost worth the time spent in preparation due to the understanding that went with it.

It was 1962, my junior year, and her course that semester dealt with poets from the turn of the century.

We waded through them, one by one, dissecting each screed carefully and with great attention to detail. But it was pretty dry stuff, and even Ms. Drew didn’t seem much enthused. And then she threw us a curve, taking up ‘In Flanders Field,’ the three-stanza epic written by Canadian medical doctor and Army Lt. Col. John McCrae following the horrific 17-day Second Battle of Ypres, which killed thousands during World War I — the Great War, as it was called back then. It remains to this day among the most poignant words ever written about the human cost, and the folly, of war itself.

‘In Flanders Fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row,’ it begins, and the images conjured up take shape immediately. ‘We are the Dead, Short days ago / We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow / Loved and were loved, and now we lie / In Flanders fields.’

No hidden meaning there or in the poem’s conclusion: ‘If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields.’

We took the little poem apart that day, line by line, discussing McCrae’s descriptions and intent, commenting on the imagery and marveling at its simple integrity. It is a very short piece and really didn’t take all that long to deconstruct.

And then someone asked why it should mean so much to Americans because we weren’t even in the war for another two years and lost no soldiers at the Second Battle of Ypres — they were all British, Germans, French, Canadians and Indians who died there.

‘Because it’s a metaphor as well as a chronicle,’ Ms. Drew said.

And then, much more softly, she added, ‘And because my fiancé went off to fight in that awful war and never came home.’

Then she quietly turned away from us, and her vulnerability and pain from the recollection made the time stand still.

It hit us all like a thunderbolt — good God, our ancient, straight-arrow college English teacher had not only been young and in love once, she would have even gotten married were it not for the war to end all wars. We had no idea of those intimate details of her life until that very instant, and none would have ever guessed they even existed. Shamefully, we were far too callow and self-absorbed to imagine such a revelation. We could only stare down at our desks, sad and transfixed. We were just stunned.

I will always remember the absolute silence of that classroom moment, and later, the strength and dignity of the woman who had devoted her life to teaching us what was important, or should be.

And I think about Ms. Drew every year about this time, around Veterans Day. I just can’t help it. ‘In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row …’

Thank you, Ms. Drew. I got it.

John Winthrop

SU Alumnus 

Published on November 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm