Luella M. Hopkins Briick Scholarship

LUELLA M. HOPKINS BRIICK BIOGRAPHY

Luella M. Hopkins Briick was born January 28, 1906 (the year of the most famous San Francisco earthquake) to Alice Helena Stoddard and Robert Eugene Hopkins at Plano, Fremont County, Idaho. She was the second of three children.

After drought, frost, and general farming disaster, the family moved to the Palo Verde valley near Blythe, California. There, Robert worked on development of the irrigation intake for the first water in the area, and Alice cooked for prospective buyers that the railroad brought to the area.

Luella maintained fond memories of early desert life until her demise. She enjoyed desert flowers; was forever fearful of snakes, spiders, and scorpions. She remembered travel through miles of land without water, eating fresh pomegranates in school, and the toads under the pallet that served as their tent-house floor. The tent-house was canvas and netting sewn by her mother on her treadle sewing machine.

Luella attended elementary school at Blythe with a poly-ethnic student body of burgeoning America. The family moved again when Luella was about twelve so she graduated from a Los Angeles elementary school. (The first World War was just over). High School was completed at Long Beach Polytechnic High School. Her motto at Poly was “enter to learn – go forth to serve.” Luella was a good student and was a life member of the California Scholarship Federation. She was a member of Chapter One and knew the founder of the organization.

Her association with the organization founder later explained how she was chosen to be an advisor to another chapter. Some other advisor/teachers couldn’t easily understand how a “commercial” teacher could be an advisor to a scholarship society.

High school graduation accentuated a desire for employment, money and freedom, so Luella began work in a local bank in the Trust Department. Spanish had been a favorite accompaniment to her commercial subjects and Luella had dreams of becoming a secretary for an import/export concern.

For the present, she worked to become a good Trust Officer, not just the secretary to the Trust Officer. At last the opportunity for advancement came and with it the question, “Luella, will you train Steve?” “He’s to be the new Trust Officer and you can teach him everything he needs to know.” In 1923-24, women did not aspire to be in charge of anything.

So about 1927, Luella returned to school, first to Long Beach Junior College, now California State College at Long Beach, and then to Oregon State University at Corvallis, Oregon, where she graduated in 1931.

Courses included more Spanish, lots of Business courses, and as a last minute addition, enough Education courses to qualify for a Secondary Teaching Certificate.

In 1931, Luella accepted an offer to teach at Live Oak Union High School in Live Oak, California. As part of her assignment she taught the equivalent of present Community Education, a night class in Typing. At the same time, Ernest Briick, a local farmer, had need of typing skills for his Masonic Lodge secretarial work. He enrolled in class but soon decided “it was easier to marry the teacher than to learn to type.” Their courtship developed rapidly and soon Luella had a proposal and a ring. Because of the economics of 1932 married women could very rarely be hired, especially for a well-paying job. So no announcement was made or ring worn until after contracts for the 1932-33 school year were signed.

Ernest had said “I can build us a house if you can furnish it.” They were married in July of 1933, after the house was built to her specifications.

Luella then stayed home doing all the things farm wives did then (churning butter, canning vegetables, caring for a garden, raising a child, going to town for parts, etc., etc.) The farm progressed over years from hogs, to dairy, to an orchard in concert with cholera, changing technology, and the everlasting search for farm productivity and profit.

Then came World War II and a teacher shortage. About 1944, Luella obtained an emergency Elementary certificate and taught grades three through five, in a three-room schoolhouse. This lasted for four years and Luella again semi-retired from teaching. In 1954, Luella returned to her early love, and began again to teach commercial subjects at the Live Oak Union High School. By 1960, she had qualified for a life diploma from the California State Board of Education to teach all grades in public secondary schools and grades seven and eight in public elementary schools. In addition, to formal teaching she was an informal confessor and advisor to many students. She was California Scholarship Advisor, Yearbook Advisor, and Newspaper Advisor as well as Journalism teacher. Many community programs and yearbooks were prepared by her students. Individual needs were addressed in her classes either through on-the-spot adjustment of a lesson plan or independent studies for students who had conflicts. Many years a student would be doing bookkeeping or shorthand in a typing class.

Luella was particularly proud that she had assisted migrant children prevalent in her California farming community to gain basic literary skills, Hispanic and East Indian children particularly, were assigned to her because she lacked the biases of other teachers. She viewed all humans as equals in every endeavor.

She retired from formal teaching in 1975, after 25 years in education. At that time, she and Ernest spent time traveling, particularly in the Western United States, and gardening. Learning did not stop for her with the end of employment. An extensive personal library of books and magazines on shelves, on the sofa, on the end table, on the dining table, on any other flat surface, attested to a wide variety of interests.

Ernest died in 1981 and Luella continued in Live Oak, busy with travel and garden. In 1989 she moved to Chubbuck, Idaho, to live with her daughter. As Luella became aware of the Business School at Idaho State University, she often commented, “Why didn’t someone recommend it to me? The only school they talked about was the Wharton School of Business and that was too far from home, and much further than Oregon State where I went.”

Luella is buried beside her beloved Ernest in the Live Oak, CA, Cemetery. At her death in 1996, her only daughter, L. Edna, decided to find a way that students could remember her mother as fondly as Luella had remembered her students. Recipients of the Luella M. Hopkins Briick Memorial Scholarship are encouraged to learn well to serve well.