Frances Horn

Frances Jean Horn ran her high school English class the way she lived her life.

She carefully prepared for every day’s lesson, greeted her students with a smile even when she dreaded the mandatory reading as much as they did (Moby Dick, anyone?), and mixed in just enough seat-of-the-pants zaniness to keep things interesting.

Somehow, that combination of joy, planning and winging it worked. She succeeded, often magnificently, as a wife, mother, friend, teacher, artist, crossword puzzler and unrepentant spoiler of grandchildren.

Frances, 88, died Jan. 11 after a months-long struggle with heart failure. But those who knew and loved her, and those who had the privilege of sitting in her classroom, benefit to this day from the wisdom and fun she brought to their lives.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Frances learned as a child that she had a knack for art and writing. She wrote letters to friends and family, sketched vases, flowers and the Irish terriers roaming her living room, and did a full-color drawing of Santa on a rooftop that impressed the toughest critics she’d ever encounter: the nuns who ran her Catholic elementary school.

After finishing high school, Frances decided to put her considerable skills to work in the classroom. To make that dream happen, she would become the first in her family to go to college, and the first to move more than a few miles from home.

It wasn’t easy. Her dad didn’t want her to go. The family didn’t have much money. But Frances paid her way by working during her summer breaks in Cleveland and during the school year at Ohio University.

It was there she met her future husband, George Horn, who was studying to become a math teacher. Frances agreed to a second date even though their first began with him bumming a quarter for a hamburger. Neither would regret the decision.

Together, they’d raise two children, Dan and Julie, and teach for more than three decades in Elyria, Ohio.

To her students, class with Frances was a little like watching an English classics professor on an episode of “I Love Lucy.” One moment, she was quoting from “Romeo and Juliet” or discussing the cultural importance of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The next, she was searching frantically for her glasses, which were, as everyone else could see, perched on her head.

She was, by any measure, great at her job. Her students read short stories and books they wouldn’t have read without her. She told them not to be intimidated by Shakespeare or Fitzgerald, but to embrace the madness and the humor of their work, to enjoy them as they would the soap operas they watched after school or the mystery novels Frances read for fun on weekends.

Life was a series of stories, Frances taught them. And these were great stories.

Her lessons weren’t limited to the classroom.

When an elderly neighbor needed a ride to the doctor or help making a meal, Frances was there for her. When friends fell seriously ill, she visited often and sat for hours with them at home or in the hospital. When her brother, Jimmy, was dying of cancer while she was on her honeymoon, she sent him letters every day until she returned to be at his side.

When others lost touch, Frances never did.

At home, she spoiled children and dogs with impunity, walking her terriers on a schedule a Marine would admire and spending hours sketching and coloring outside the lines with her four grandchildren.

Frances did not consider herself adventurous, but she instilled in her kids a desire to explore the world, even if she then wore out countless rosary beads praying for their safe return.

She slipped notes of encouragement into novels and short story collections she gave her son, and she and her daughter mailed journal entries back and forth after Julie moved to California, a way to keep in touch from afar.

Every fall, she sent her California grandkids colorful dried leaves she’d collected from her yard so they could experience a Midwest autumn.

Frances taught her final lessons in the last years of her life, after moving to Cincinnati to be closer to her son and his family.

When George fell ill, she cared for him with grace and love, fulfilling the vows she’d made on her wedding day almost six decades earlier. Then, when heart failure began taking a toll on her own health, she faced the challenge with dignity and courage, allowing her friends and family, finally, to do for her what she’d spent a lifetime doing for others.

Even then, she wasn’t thinking of herself. On the day she died, after a visit from a dear friend, Frances motioned for her son to come closer. When he leaned over her bed, she reminded him they’d forgotten to give her friend her Christmas gift.

Frances wanted to make sure someone would deliver it, since she might not be able to do it herself.

Survivors include her son, Dan Horn, daughter, Julie Weber, four grandchildren, Connor, Nate, Elise and Anna, and two great grandchildren, Izak and Maiv.

Visitation will be Tuesday, Jan. 20, from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. at the Vitt, Stermer & Anderson Funeral Home, 4619 Delhi Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio, 45238. Services will be Tuesday, Jan. 20, at 10:30 a.m. at Our Lady of Victory Church, 810 Neeb Rd., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Donations may be made to the American Heart Association, Go Red for Women via the website at goredforwomen.org, or by mail at 9825 Kenwood Rd., #104, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45242.