RETIREMENTS: Noreen Jeffreys, St. Joseph Elementary School

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Noreen Jeffreys

OGDEN — Second-graders at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School have been blessed for the past 30 years by the presence of teacher Noreen Jeffreys in their classroom. A native of Pittsburgh, Penn., Jeffreys has always loved teaching second grade.

 “When I taught out of college, I was a second-grade teacher,” Jeffreys said. At that time in their lives, “the children still think that their teacher knows everything. They have a little bit of independence, but they still love learning. There’s just an innocence about them; they’re just still sweet.”

Each day of those 30 years in the classroom has been different, Jeffreys said. “Every single day there’s a new lesson to learn. You find out that children are definitely not cookie-cutters; each one of them is just unique and has their own needs and their own gifts. So, every day with every child, it’s a learning experience, it’s something new.”

Jeffreys and her husband, Tom, have two children: Kristi, who is the mother of four children and lives in Ohio; and Bryan, who has two daughters and lives in Salt Lake City. Both children graduated from St. Joseph Catholic School. Bryan is now a teacher at Judge Memorial Catholic High School and Kristi has a career in accounting.

After Tom was transferred to Utah in 1992, Jeffreys, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Duquesne University, began working at St. Joseph Elementary School. She began as a substitute teacher and then was a librarian before becoming a fulltime teacher.

Jeffreys particularly enjoyed helping her students prepare for First Communion, she said, and Principal Jean Synowicki has valued Jeffreys’ contributions in this area.

“Noreen has been instrumental in preparing students for First Communion forever – she is a legend,” Synowicki said. “Her leadership, faith, kindness and knowledge will be greatly missed.”

Jeffreys hopes she has helped impart to her students some important knowledge along with basic academic skills, she said.

“I would hope that they would always want to learn, have a thirst for learning, but also that they know that their faith life, that God is always with them to guide them,” she said. “And I hope they got that from St. Joseph’s, and me in part, with their education.”

The Jeffreys have cherished the support the St. Joseph Schools community has given them since they moved to Utah.

‘The St. Joseph’s community has just been where we found our home after we moved all the way across the country,” Jeffreys said. “Every part of it is special, just the whole thing, the feeling of St. Joseph being home to us here in the community.”

“It really did become our family here in Utah, because none of our relatives live here,” she added. “And that’s where we found our friendships. We found our doctors and our dentists and my hairstylist through St. Joe’s, just those connections. It really has been our family here in Utah.”

Jeffreys does not have any dramatic plans for her retirement.

“We’re just going to see how things go, just kind of slow down and relax a little bit and just enjoy the time together,” she said.

She hopes to spend more time visiting her family in Ohio and catching up on projects around her home, along with substitute teaching at the elementary school occasionally. She also would like to be able to substitute more with her bridge group – something she has only had time to do during the summer in recent years.

The Jeffreys are members of St. Catherine of Siena Parish.