compiled by Helen Batchelder, with thanks to Gerry Sullivan
“Although many years have passed since I taught, as a colleague with George, I still remember his intelligence, his humanity, and his gracious and generous spirit. He deeply touched the lives of all who had the good fortune to know him,” writes Millicent Goodman, who taught at the Bromfield School in the 1980s.
He deeply touched many; his spirit was gracious and generous. When some of us—his former students and alumni—learned that George “fuerat mortuus est,” we were moved. And some of us wrote. Here are a few remembrances. There are more on the Facebook page Harvard MA, Beyond the Stone Walls.
I had George Bernauer for advanced French (“portez toujours des sous-vêtements” doesn’t quite have the same cachet as “semper ubi sub ubi”) my senior year. It was challenging but well worth it. He introduced us to Beckett, Baudelaire, Camus, Molière—all the subversives! It was a privilege I treasure still.
—John Yates, Class of 1976
The first time I met George, I was 11 or 12 and he was student teaching but substituting that first day; in our 11- or 12-year-old way we decided we should call him George Washington and probably didn’t do any of the work he was supposed to ask us to do—yet, his mannerisms made an impression, and we as a class couldn’t wait to be old enough to elect one of his classes.
For me it was ninth-grade Latin, which I wish were still an elective today—everything we were told proved true: It helps you parse the meanings of words (today, especially medical and legal ones). By the time I was a senior, he had me tutoring other Latin students.
I loved George. He just as easily cut to the chase as to the quick, and he abhorred pretense. I will hear his intonation gladly in my mind’s ear, his quick, spot-on assessments, and the amused genius that was his character.
—Helen Batchelder, Class of 1979
I have many fond memories of Latin class in high school. I had a year-long gap between Latin 2 and Latin 3-4, so at the end of 11th grade, I asked Mr. Bernauer if I could borrow a second-year textbook for the summer so I could review, expecting an old one no one was using any more. He handed me a brand new copy of the current textbook, and never asked for it back.
He had his own office because he was the head of the foreign language department. It was a sort of fishbowl [near] the cafeteria, so you could see if he was there or not. I found him very approachable—never turning me away when I knocked on his door. Like many teachers in the late ’70s and early ’80s, he was a smoker, and a pretty heavy one at that. The studies of exactly how bad smoking was for health were just coming out. I asked him why he smoked so much, and he told me he didn’t want to be a senex. I may have had to look it up.
Latin 3-4, a class comprising juniors and seniors with maybe 10 altogether, was during my 12th-grade cake-baking and decorating phase. I made a cake any time something significant happened in the Aeneid. Mr. Bernauer never refused the offer of cake. I also remember sitting on the tables while having the celebratory cake.
I remember us reading an English translation of the Odyssey in Latin 1 out loud. I think he felt we needed the background to understand where the Roman texts we would read later on were coming from. I remember him treating it as a chronology of events rather than a work of literature, so we weren’t asked to find a deep inner meaning, for which I am eternally grateful. I’m amazed at how much I remember. And I still use the phrase “in medias res.”
“Ut senex requiescant in pace.”
—Cyndi Lerner Bliss, Class of 1980
I loved Mr. Bernauer’s Latin classes and took them all four years of high school. He was also my French teacher for the last two years of high school and I enjoyed those very much (except for “Symphonie Pastorale,” but that was Gide, not him). In the fourth year, what I liked was how he would have us read some of the text aloud, and then he’d finish off the chapter or passage, so we could both practice our pronunciation and hear it as it should be read (beautifully). He was very kind and affirming for a young bookworm [like] me. May he rest in peace.
—Victoria Caplan, Class of 1983
We went to Italy with him, a group of juniors and sophomores. At dinner one night in, I think, Florence, a scantily dressed woman jumped on the table and began to dance, castanets and all. Suddenly George jumped up and began grabbing us and ushering us out. His face was bright red. Turns out the woman was a stripper. But—just seeing his face, bright red. But with a hint of amusement.
—Doug Cregar, Class of 1983
So many memories with Bernie. He was a great advocate for his students and a great supporter for Harvard soccer. Learned much more than Latin from Bernie. Rest easy.
—Greg Kimball, Class of 1990
In 1998 [Mr. Bernauer] took a group of us to Spain and Portugal over April vacation. Bernie had spent time in Seville and gave us an amazing insider’s view of the culture, language, and spirit of Spain. He introduced us to old friends and encouraged us to explore, meet new friends, and of course try our language skills. I never had a chance to have Bernie as a teacher so I will always be grateful I got the chance to know him and learn from him on that trip. I’ve been to many places in the world and am grateful to Mr. Bernauer for taking us out there.
—Esther Davis, Class of 1998
George Bernauer was my most inspirational teacher, perhaps the reason I’m a high school teacher now. He was open to the intellectual curiosity of his students. Even though I took Latin, I finagled a Portuguese-English dictionary from him, or he offered it to me (I cherished it until a natural disaster took it away). Maybe it was something that resulted from his end-of-summer slideshows of the places he had been in Europe; aqueducts and coliseums were well represented. Or maybe it was his introductory lecture, in which he discussed the many Romance languages that sprang from Latin. I truly don’t recall. But the following summer during our family vacation, I studied that Portuguese-English dictionary.
I had so many questions, stimulated by his love of language: How did Portuguese change from Latin? What did it retain from the original Latin and what did it change? How is it similar to English? How is it different from Spanish, and why? These questions have burned for me throughout my life. How are all languages alike and different? How are all people alike and different? How does that give us clues of our dispersal throughout Africa and into the rest of the world? I became an amateur linguist because of him.
George read love poems translated from Latin. He also interspersed these with readings in Latin of the poet Catullus. Good thing he didn’t translate those or the School Committee would have caught on fire!
—Former student
Editors Note: “Semper ubi sub ubi” is a humorous play on words in which the Latin words translate roughly into English as the pun “always wear underwear.”
