Lavenia Yuska

Tim Donovan commented on Jun 19

Lavenia Yuska was one of my teachers during my junior year at Manchester High school, 1974-75. I had her as an English teacher during the second semester that year, about February to June 1975. Lavenia taught a course on propaganda. She impressed me as being somewhat old fashioned, but overall I thought she had a good personality. Often she seemed quite cheerful.

Tim Donovan

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Tim Donovan commented on Jun 19

I don't know much (for sure) about her personal life, but it seems she had a lot of experience with men. Maybe too much. Once I overheard someone say she had been divorced seven times. During her tenure at MHS her last name changed from Banister to Yuska. Those guys were almost certainly just her last two husbands. One daughter and a son are surnamed Banister, but a second daughter is surnamed Boykin. Unlike her other daughter, whose original name (Banister) is indicated, this (Beth) Boykin apparently still has her original name--the name of a third husband. And there could've been others--up to five more--if by 1975 she was married after seven divorces.

Tim Donovan

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Tim Donovan commented on Jun 19

Lavenia might've gotten married the first time as early as 1940-42. Almost certainly, she started marrying vets right after the war, but the marriages didn't last, possibly because PTSD caused serious issues. Also, the prestige of being a vet belied the fact that many guys were just losers. To cite one example, at least one of the men who planted the flag at Iwo Jima ended up on skid row.

Tim Donovan

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Tim Donovan commented on Jun 19

At one point in her class, Lavenia hinted at a reason for the failure of one marriage. She said something like "the quietest men can be the sickest." I know it's dangerous to speculate on the basis of such gossamer evidence, but I think she was referring to a former husband, possibly the one surnamed Boykin. I note the daughter from that marriage apparently never married herself--a possible consequence of sexual abuse in childhood. It's remarkable, even abnormal, that Lavenia kept tying the knot after at least one, and possibly several, bad experiences with men. That may have stemmed from a past or Southern milieu, in which a woman, to be respectable, must be married. Or it may have resulted from a character disorder, in which the allure of romance outweighed memories of past failures, however painful. One might suggest she had so much love to give no failure could daunt her.

Tim Donovan

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Tim Donovan commented on Jun 19

Not surprisingly for a bright person of her generation, Lavenia had an interest in WWII. In her propaganda class we saw at least two films on Adolf Hitler.

Tim Donovan

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Tim Donovan commented on Jun 19

Apparently, June 1975 was not the last time I saw Lavenia. About a dozen years after MHS, in March 1988, I was in line at the old Autobank (on the corner of Broad street and West Middle Turnpike in Manchester). I happened to notice, farther back in line, an elderly woman looking right at me and rather favorably, as if she knew me. I wondered who she was. There were two possibilities: an elementary school teacher, and Mrs. Yuska. I concluded it had to have been Lavenia Yuska because, as a high school teacher, she was far more likely to recognize me as an adult. I was a bit flattered she still remembered me, over a dozen years after I was in her class.

Tim Donovan

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Tim Donovan commented on Jun 20

By 1975, Mrs. Yuska was well-acquainted with her colleagues at MHS. "Mr. Perry is approachable" she advised some students who wanted to use his office as the scene of a play. I appeared in that play, btw.