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Everyday Was a Treat. Señora Britt Raymond Off to Make New Stories
EVERY DAY WAS A TREAT…
SENORA BRITT RAYMOND OFF TO MAKE NEW STORIES
She was on the Norwegian Olympic Ski Team. Or, she was in an Ingmar Bergman film, playing a sadistic nurse. ¡Qué susto! Or briefly dated Joe Namath (it was her fur coat). She, some say, speaks fourteen languages fluently, but thinks in Braille. She invested heavily in Tesla in 2003 and teaches only for fun.
It is difficult to say which of the many tales about Britt Raymond— part mystery, part Viking, all class and grace and splendor—are true.
That she is retiring this May after 36 years at Moeller is one truth. That she taught Spanish for three-plus decades and then became the brains, sweat, and heart of the Moeller Yearbook for twenty-two years is another. That Southern women only ever “perspire” and never “sweat” is another fact. Here’s what else we know—
Years before Moeller—how many, specifically, is not important or polite—but occupying German soldiers (true story) helped lift baby Britt onto city trollies. She was a child in Drammen, Norway, living beside a fjord. When she was in the first grade, her father, a haberdasher (look it up), soon moved his very Norwegian family to rural Argentina, where it became time to learn a second language: “The teachers would only ever speak Spanish and would also pull your hair if you did something wrong. I learned Spanish quickly,” Britt remembers. Three years later, the family tried Massachusetts and the third, and “final” language was learned on the fly, (Britt is also passable in Swedish and Danish so, five languages.) Then back to Norway for a bit before South Carolina for high school and, well, a sixth language: Southern charm (of which Britt Raymond has been certified “Distinguished Fluency.”)
-Moeller Principal Carl Kremer
Mrs. Raymond started at Moeller in the spring of 1988, replacing a teacher who was leaving in the middle of the year. “It has been a blast from day one!”
With the University of South Carolina came degrees in both English Lit and Spanish. Law school was a potential path, but it was also an era where only one other woman was enrolled in the program. “So instead, I chose working on a master’s in Spanish and teaching,” Britt says today. “Not one regret.” Argentine poet Esteban Echeverría was the topic of her master’s thesis, and she became the tutor for the university’s athletic department. Future NFL stars and coaches, names you know, would escort her about campus. The university quickly hired her to teach full time, summers spent (Isn’t teaching great!?) in New York City. Then more teaching jobs (university and high school) in Charleston and Columbia and three kids. Finally, husband Joe’s career beckons north and the move to Cincinnati, and Moeller, becomes the next chapter.
She opens the paper and sees an ad for a Spanish teacher at some private school called Archbishop Moeller. “Isn’t that the all-boys school?” she asks. “They’ll never hire me.” They did. In fact, “As I walked back to my car after the interview, they were already handing me the Spanish books Moeller used.” Then, “But I’m a Lutheran—” (official religion of Norway). Brother Joe Kamis (then-Moeller principal) couldn’t care less: “‘Just be yourself,’ he told me.”
Which is all Britt Raymond has done since. Be herself.
“The most beloved of teachers during her time here,” Carl Kremer (Moeller principal) said. “Students always knew she cared about them as people, not just as students. Britt’s kindness and Southern charm endeared her to them, especially to her colleagues.”
One colleague, Gavin Gray, shares the story of heading to Britt’s room to handle some IT/tech issues. “She was not happy,” Gavin recounts. “And I knew she was mad at me, very, but I had no proof of this. None. She was so polite and congenial about her annoyance, I left the room genuinely smiling. To this day, I’m not sure how she did that. Also, the matter was resolved.”
In the classroom, Britt says: “I let the students know right away that I
-Britt Raymond
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