Bertha G. Kitch: North Middleton Township School Teacher

A black and white photograph shows two horse-drawn wagons filled with children from the Basin Hill School and their teacher Miss Bertha Kitch. They are having their picture taken in front of Carlisle’s Market House. The ground is covered with snow. The horses are bedecked with American flags, and some of the children carry them, too. They may have come to Carlisle to participate in a Washington’s Birthday Parade.

Miss Bertha G. Kitch, the daughter of George Levi and Elizabeth (Darr) Kitch, was born in 1881 and grew up in North Middleton Township, later moving to Carlisle.

In 1902 she was assigned to teach at the Basin Hill School where she would teach for five years. Her name was mentioned during those years in various newspaper items describing events at the school. On February 22, 1906 Miss Kitch’s class held a Patrons’ Day celebration which included a lengthy program of recitations and music to commemorate the birthdays of Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.¹

In 1908, Miss Kitch was assigned to the Union Hall School in North Middleton Township where she would teach for three years. In 1910, thirty-four school patrons and friends attended Patrons’ Day on February 25. Miss Kitch’s students presented musical numbers and recitations such as “A Word to the Wise,” “A Temperance Boy,” “The Hot Potato,” and closed the program with a speech by student John Brown.² The students’ parents were very generous that Christmas and presented Miss Kitch with “a beautiful Axminster rug,” the newspaper reported.³

Miss Kitch’s last teaching job was at North Middleton Township’s Willow Grove School. She taught there from 1912 to 1915.

On May 5, 1915, Miss Bertha Grace Kitch married Clinton B. Brinser of Falmouth, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Carlisle.⁴ After the wedding they moved to Lancaster County.

Bertha’s bond with her first school, and her students at Basin Hill, must have been strong because when her students held yearly reunions, beginning in 1955, Bertha returned to attend them. In 1957, the reunion was held at “Twin Oaks,” the Bellaire Park cottage of Mrs. M. C. Richwine. The newspaper reported that among the guests was Mrs. Murray Richwine who had taught Bertha. “A feature at the covered dish dinner was a decorated schoolhouse cake creation of Mrs. Laura Finkbinder.” ⁵

Bertha died in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania on December 4, 1968 and is buried in Falmouth Cemetery, Lancaster County. Her obituary was published in the Elizabethtown newspaper as well as the December 5, 1968 issue of the Sentinel.