Dearborn Heights — Girls who attended college in the 1940s usually became nurses, teachers, secretaries or housewives, said 92-year-old Margaret Rivard; “I chose teaching.”

“I used to play school when I was little,” she said.

Having always wanted to teach, Margaret Rivard, however, chose to take this relatively ordinary career and follow anything but an ordinary path with it.

And many years later, her love of teaching has been shared not only with her son, Larry Rivard, but also her daughter-in-law Diane Rivard, and grandson Christopher Rivard.

All four members of the Rivard family have been or are currently Catholic school teachers, and as Christopher Rivard explained, “There is never a closer-knit community than that which you find in Catholic education.”

 

Beyond typical expectations

Margaret Rivard graduated from Marygrove College in Detroit — at the time an all-female school — in 1943 with a bachelor’s degree in English and minors in education and French.

From 1943-47 she taught at Fitzgerald Elementary in an area that is today Warren. Many of her students came with their families from rural parts of the South, as a number of the parents had found work in defense plants in the area.

“The children loved to come to school because they could use the bathroom indoors,” said Margaret Rivard, explaining that the students were unaccustomed to the indoor plumbing in the school building.

In 1946, Margaret Rivard, whose parents had not even attended high school, received a master’s degree in literature from the University of Detroit.

“I wrote my master’s thesis on Lewis Carroll,” she said, reflecting with a grin that she was not overly fond of Carroll, but had chosen the author of “Alice in Wonderland” after trying to decide on a topic.

She married her husband in 1947, and together they became one of the founding families of Divine Child Parish in Dearborn.

After being a long-term substitute Catholic school teacher at St. Robert Bellarmine Elementary School in Redford, Margaret Rivard became a full-time teacher at Divine Child Elementary in 1966, and continued there until retiring in 1982. Even after retiring, she remained there as a volunteer tutor for many years.

She gave birth to eight children between the years of 1948 and 1960, and put all through Divine Child Elementary and High School.

 

The next generation of teachers

One of Margaret Rivard’s children, Larry, followed the path of education originated by his mother, and received a bachelor’s degree in 1972 in social studies with minors in education and English after attending Eastern Michigan University.

He later obtained his master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Eastern Michigan in 1979, and from 1977 to 2010 was a part of Divine Child High School.

Larry Rivard was a high school counselor and social studies teacher at Divine Child, and later became chair of both departments. He was assistant varsity baseball coach, junior varsity baseball coach, and was voted Teacher of the Year.

“I met my wife, Diane, there,” he said. “She was teaching a year ahead of me, and we met in the hallway.”

He said it was a major decision to marry someone from work, adding that when he explained his wedding plans to the principal at the time, Sr. Mary Gerald, she responded, “I was waiting for you to ask her!”

In his time at Divine Child — during which he also taught both of his children, Katie and Christopher — Larry Rivard came to realize why he loved teaching in a Catholic school.

Besides his and his wife’s closeness that grew with the Bernadine Franciscan Sisters, he found that teaching helped his own faith, too.

“You really appreciate the students,” he said, explaining that he taught two generations.

“I taught parents and their kids, but I retired before I got to the grandkids,” he said.

 

Joining a teaching family

Diane Rivard started teaching at Divine Child High School in 1977, after graduating from Marygrove College with a bachelor’s degree in English and minors in education and the humanities.

Like her mother-in-law, Margaret Rivard, Diane Rivard had always wanted to be a teacher, and had also played school as a little girl.

This was partly based on her own Catholic school education as a child, having attended St. Mary of Redford’s satellite school, Our Lady Queen of Hope Elementary, and later St. Mary of Redford High School, both in Detroit.

The schools were under the guidance of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), who retain a prominent presence in Metro Detroit today.

“I love the IHM sisters; they taught us to be proud of being Catholic, to be classy women and educated women,” said Diane Rivard.

Her dream was to attend Marygrove College, and she worked at K-Mart to pay for her tuition costs, getting excited when the holidays brought 72-hour weeks: “I always loved to learn.”

Diane Rivard never varied from her plans to teach English, receiving her master’s degree from Marygrove in reading education.

She taught English at Divine Child High School and later became chair of the English department, and in 1988 received a second master’s degree in guidance and counseling from Eastern Michigan University.

The following year she began full-time counseling at Divine Child, while also teaching at least two English classes each year, until she retired in 2010.

“I enjoyed working with the students on an individual basis,” she said.

In spring 2010, Diane Rivard received an award from the Michigan Association for College Admission Counselors, based on student submissions of experiences with a counselor, which was presented at a statewide conference.

 

The third generation

With his grandmother and parents deeply involved in Catholic education for so many years, Christopher Rivard had quite a record to follow when he decided to become a Catholic school teacher, too.

After attending Divine Child schools from first through 12th grade, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in political science from Michigan State University in 2012.

After a 2012-13 student teaching internship at Dunckel Middle School in Farmington Hills, simultaneously completing a secondary education teacher education program from MSU, Christopher Rivard joined St. Genevieve Catholic School in Livonia.

He currently teaches English, history, geography and religion to sixth, seventh and eighth graders, and also leads the school drama club.

Compared with his grandmother’s average class size in the early years, with as many as 52 students in one classroom, Christopher Rivard’s average class size today ranges from 16-17 children.

“I chose to be involved in Catholic education because it offers so much more,” he said. “Everyone carries their own weight each day, and in teaching the Catholic faith, students have the chance to rest that weight.”

He mentioned a mission trip during his Divine Child days that greatly impressed him with the importance of Catholic education.

Helping the needy in West Virginia at a Catholic community called Nazareth Farm, Christopher Rivard and his fellow classmates grew to understand their faith in action.

“There was one lady in particular who had a flooded house,” he said, explaining that the woman was ill and had a pacemaker.

He said that when the group prayed with her, she responded, “Don’t pray for me; pray for my son because he had a hard day at work.”

“That instilled in me a reason why we do this,” he said.