Teacher Called A Woman Of Class

DADE CITY - Hundreds of Pasco County students passed through Louise Gilbert's classroom in her 36 years of teaching.

One of them was her son, Ronald.

He chuckled Wednesday as he remembered his years learning under his mother at Mickens High School.

'That was a very interesting situation there,' he said. 'It's tough being the son of a teacher. I can remember times when it was time for a test, and the other kids wanted me to find out what was on it. One thing about my mother, though, she was fair. She didn't treat me any different than the other kids.'

Louise Gilbert, a longtime Dade City resident and respected educator, died Sunday in West Palm Beach following an extended illness. She was 87. Gilbert, 60, said he moved his mother from her home on First Street to his West Palm home a few months ago so he could care for her.

Louise Gilbert, a native of Georgia, was a graduate of Florida A&M University and began her Pasco teaching career in the 1940s. County schools were segregated at the time, and Gilbert taught business courses to students at Moore Academy and, later, Mickens High School.

She went on to teach at Pasco High School following desegregation in the early 1970s. People who knew Gilbert said she was a woman of class who dressed elegantly and was always professional.

'She was considered one of the best teachers in the community,' said her friend and co-worker, Thelma Allen. 'She was highly respected. Even in integration when she left and went to Pasco High, the teachers over there thought quite a bit of her.'

Martha Walker, who taught with Gilbert at Pasco High, said she remembers Gilbert as a dedicated teacher who loved her students.

'Every day when she came in, she had a big can of Lysol spray, and she'd spray that room good with Lysol,' Walker said. 'After she retired, I did the very same thing.

'She was just a wonderful teacher.'

Among Gilbert's students was Dade City Commissioner Scott Black, a 1982 graduate of Pasco High. Eight years later, Black ran into his old teacher while he was going door-to-door campaigning for a spot on the commission.

'There was a screen door, so I couldn't see her face, so I was going through my spiel,' he said. 'She sort of chuckled and moved closer to the screen, and I realized it was Ms. Gilbert.

'I was giving her my little introductory spiel, and she knew it already.'

Though Gilbert was well-known as a teacher, few people here knew about her tie to the civil rights struggles of the 1930s and '40s. Her husband, John Gilbert, was an associate of famed civil rights leader Harry T. Moore and instrumental in the movement to equalize the salaries of black and white teachers.

Ronald Gilbert said his father's work in civil rights happened before his parents were married and that he didn't talk about it. People who knew Louise Gilbert said she didn't talk much about her husband's civil rights work, either.

John Gilbert was 98 when he died in 2000.

Services for Louise Gilbert will be at 2:30 today at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, 14518 Seventh St. A wake will be held at the church from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Gilbert will be buried in the Dade City Cemetery.