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Overlock-Petersen History
A Union of the Daring Danes & the Gutsy Germans
by Isabelle Overlock Hallam © 2010
The trials and tribulations of three families |
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Isabelle graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1956 with a B.A. in French. Later she earned an M.A. in French Language and Literature at Boston University and a Ph. D. in Comparative and International Education at Michigan State University. She taught French for 15 ½ years at Wheaton High School, Wauconda High School and Morton West High School (Berwyn), all in Illinois, Belmont High School in Massachusetts, East Lansing High School in Michigan and in both East Lansing Middle Schools. During those years, she traveled to France often in order to maintain currency in the French language and culture and to visit as many regions of the country as possible. After earning her doctorate, she spent two years in a grant-funded position at the Assistant Professor level in the Canadian Studies Department at Duke University where she spoke at numerous conferences in the Southeast and organized and carried out workshops on the study of Canada for teachers and professors throughout North Carolina. She also helped to organize and carry out summer experiences for them in Ontario and Quebec. For 19 years, she directed and taught in the Secondary Education Program at Virginia Wesleyan College where, in January, 1986, she designed and implemented one of the first two Alternative Secondary Education Programs in Virginia. To help combat the teacher shortage, this career switcher program was offered to people who already had a degree in mathematics, science, English or a foreign language and had significant career experience in business, industry or the military. This program, now offered through the Adult Studies Program Office since her retirement, is still going and has sent a significant number of well-prepared teachers to school systems around the Hampton Roads area and elsewhere. The program won a $25,000 grant as one of three 1990 Excellence in Education Awards from the Consolidated Natural Gas Company Foundation. Isabelle is listed in Who's Who in American Education. This career was interrupted twelve years ago by marriage to O. Keith Hallam, a retired Naval officer who declared, after the wedding ceremony, that he was a full time job. And that has been true! Since then, they have traveled widely together in both Europe, Asia and the Caribbean, but he insisted on including several trips to visit the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, and the United States/Canadian Rockies to convince her that the most rugged mountains in the country were in the West. They live in Virginia Beach, Virginia. |