At 102, former Lynn reading teacher is still sharp

LYNN-Frances Sargent can still remember the emotion she felt 88 years ago.The year was 1920, and at 14 she had just finished reading the novel “Daughter.””I can remember laughing, and crying and laughing and crying and never forgetting,” the former Lynn teacher said Tuesday when reached by phone at her Maine residence.Now Sargent is reliving those powerful emotions, sticking her nose into a refurbished copy of the 1,000-page novel as she inches closer to her Feb. 27 birthday, for the 102nd time.”I just hope I last long enough to finish it,” she quipped.It is fitting that Sargent would usher in another year on Earth by reading, since that is the very activity that defined her life, and helped countless Lynn students who were struggling with dyslexia and other learning disabilities find their way to college and beyond.Born in Malden in 1906, Sargent attended the Malden Public Schools until her acceptance to Boston University, where she graduated in 1929. Despite toting a fresh college degree, she did not go off to work after graduation, noting that it “just wasn’t what women did back then.”Instead, she was married almost immediately, and settled in Melrose to start a life as a homemaker and wife.Sargent gave birth to the younger of her two children, a son in 1944. When he was in the second grade, she began to hear from teachers and tutors from Melrose Public Schools that there may be something wrong with him, because he was having a difficult time spelling and writing paragraphs.As the problem persisted through the fourth and fifth grades, often slightly improving with practice and special tutoring, Sargent found it curious that her son would have such a problem with writing and spelling, but loved to read and seemingly never had an issue keeping up with a story.”When he was getting close to middle school, and we realized that he couldn’t spell, we began to realize that he might not ever make it to college,” she said. “So we searched and we found the Brown and Nichols tutors in Cambridge. They found out that it had nothing to do with reading; he could read very well, it was simply an error in his letters and the way he was looking at spelling.”Within two years, her son had completely corrected his problem, a slight form of dyslexia, and eventually ended up graduating from the University of Maine, Dartmouth University and Suffolk Law School.After seeing him succeed at the college level, Sargent was so impressed by her son’s turn around that she felt like she had to give back, and at 50 years old with two adult children, re-enrolled in Boston University to achieve her masters degree in education.Upon graduating from BU for a second time, Sargent took the step that would change the lives of many in Lynn, accepting a job at the Harrington School as a reading teacher and consultant, specializing in students with disabilities such as dyslexia.”I was so grateful for what they had done for my son, I wanted to help someone else’s child do the same thing,” she said, making sure to give credit to her department leaders and coworkers at the school. “There were always two other people (at the school) who were the real reading teachers – I don’t want to sound like I am taking all of the credit for this. Anything I ever did was simply to show how grateful we were, because if my son didn’t have the attention, he would not have been able to go on to law school. So I felt like I was obligated to give back to someone else.”After her husband’s death in 1969, Sargent returned to work in the Lynn and Wakefield Public Schools until her retirement in 1992, at the age of 84.She now lives in Brunswick, Maine, a college town that she says is perfect for an active, retired woman such as herself.While she never actually resided in Lynn, Sargent’s contributions to the lives of many students have left a place in her heart for the city, and for her students, the feeling is mutual.”I had a girl who was in my class from second grade on,” Sargent remembered. “A f