After 63 years, Palisades High English teacher closes the book

The boisterous applause of hundreds of admirers echoed through Palisades Charter High School’s newly refurbished drama classroom on Saturday as Rose Gilbert steadied herself in a walker and made her way to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its entrance.

The diminutive English teacher of 63 years smiled at the crush of people around her, many of them former students from 18 to 66 years of age, and said: “Gilbert Hall is now open.”

In recent years, Gilbert, who retired three weeks ago at age 94, achieved celebrity status for being the oldest full-time teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and one of the oldest in the nation.


Over the five decades she taught in Palisades High’s Room B204, Gilbert, who married into money, was also known for donating generously for scholarships and construction projects to make the campus more welcoming for three generations of students who knew her as “Momma G.”

On Saturday, Palisades officially named something after her: the drama classroom. The honor could be viewed as mere window dressing, a title bestowed in return for her $1-million donation for extensive renovations in that classroom and nearby Mercer Hall.

via After 63 years, Palisades High English teacher closes the book – latimes.com.