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Yates-Glandorf, Janie B.

 Person

Dates

  • Existence: 1929 - 2012

Biography

Janie Lataine Bartlett was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina on August 12, 1929, to Janie (Jackson) and Luther Osborne Bartlett. Her mother died from complications of childbirth. Luther Bartlett, jobless and struggling, gave his sickly infant to his cousin James R. Bartlett and his wife Bertha to adopt, while his two older children went to live with their grandmother. Janie Bartlett discovered that she was adopted when she was eight years old, although her adopted mother denied it. Raised as an only child, it was not until Janie Bartlett got married in 1951 that she learned she had older siblings and met her sister. Bartlett also learned that her father had remarried and she had two half-siblings and a stepsister. Bartlett found it difficult to get close to her siblings after being raised apart, but has formed lasting relationships with her sister, brother, and half-sister in adulthood.

Growing up, Janie Bartlett was active in the Methodist church. She credits her participation in church plays with giving her the acting bug, a passion that lasted Bartlett's entire life. Though Bartlett describes her adoptive mother as a lonely and sad woman, Bartlett credits her adoptive mother, who had to drop out of school after the fifth grade, with encouraging Bartlett to read and study. Bertha Bartlett died when Janie Bartlett was seventeen years old and the loss of her second mother had a profound effect on Bartlett.

Bartlett graduated from Goldsboro High School in 1948 and went on to attend High Point College (now University) in High Point, North Carolina where she graduated in 1951 with a B.A. in English. After graduation, Bartlett married Rodney T. Yates. They had two children, Tom Yates and Martha Yates Scarpellino. Bartlett spent the first years of her marriage in isolation, raising her two children while her husband attended an out-of-town seminary that kept him away from home except on weekends. Eventually the family moved to a town where both Rodney and Janie Yates secured teaching positions. Yates taught first at A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis, North Carolina from 1959-1963, and then at New Hanover High School in Wilmington, North Carolina from 1963-1966. Yates attended graduate school at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, receiving her M.A. in theatre in 1963 while teaching school and raising her two children.

In 1966 the family moved to Iowa City, Iowa. In 1967, Yates began teaching dram and English at City High School, a position she would hold until her retirement in 1991. Yates, and fellow teacher Mary Ellen Moore, designed Honors English courses, which became prototypes for other Iowa high schools. Yates also designed a Bible as Literature course that served as a prototype for area schools. During her tenure at City High, Yates also edited and wrote parallel texts for Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," and "A Midsummer's Night Dream" for the Perfection Form Company. In addition to writing the above-mentioned texts and several journal articles during her teaching career, Yates designed five individualized reading packets for Interact Publishers of California.

Along with teaching duties, Yates was the theater director for high school productions. Many of her students participated in state and national competitions. Yates's passion for the theater extended into many activities besides teaching high school drama classes and directing high school productions. Yates also formed a traveling troupe of actors called the Cross Town Players, and she participated in and kept track of other local theater companies such as the University of Iowa Repertory Theater, Duck's Breath Theater, the Iowa City Community Theater, and Riverside Theater. When Yates's former student, TJ Meyers died from AIDS shortly after graduating from City High and beginning a successful professional career, Yates created the TJ Meyers Theater in his honor. The TJ Meyers Theater gave performances to benefit local AIDS relief organizations and to create public awareness about the AIDS epidemic.

While attending to her City High responsibilities, Yates attended the University of Iowa where she earned an Ed. S. in speech and theater in 1974 and a Ph.D. in education in 1978. Ironically, as 1951 was a year of Yates's first college degree and marriage, 1978 marked Yates' final college degree, her divorce from Rodney T. Yates, and her marriage to Gil Glandorf. Yates claims that her successes contributed to her first husband's dissatisfaction with her and her second husband's attraction to her.

Retiring in 1991 from teaching at City High only freed Janie Yates-Glandorf to pursue her theater and academic interests in other venues. Yates-Glandorf formed poetry readings at the Senior Citizen Center in Iowa City, many of which have been aired on Public Access Television (PATV) and taught literature at the Kirkwood Learning Center. Yates-Glandorf also formed SSRO (Senior Standing Room Only), a theatrical troupe of senior citizens that regularly perform at the Senior Citizen Center and around town. Though Yates-Glandorf has stepped down as the managing director of SSRO, she continues to participate in theater and literary activities in the Iowa City area, and she is continually working on her memoirs for her children, grandchildren and future researchers.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Janie Yates-Glandorf papers

 Collection
Identifier: IWA0337
Abstract

Iowa City high school drama and English teacher.

Dates: 1943-2005

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