One morning, Lindsay Brent, an LPN Nurse Manager, gathered with coworkers on the nursing team to discuss the newest residents who had come to Nazareth Home’s Clifton Campus. She heard the name “Frebet” and thought to herself how familiar a name. There was once a Frebet in her young life when she attended Montessori school, but what were the odds she’d see this person again so many years later? As it turns out, Lindsay was incredibly surprised to learn that Marie-Therese “Myriam” Frebet, her teacher for first and second grade, was now living at Nazareth Home. Lindsay would have the opportunity to return the love and care she once received from Myriam as her student (then as Lindsay Gaw) at Hayfield Montessori School in the early 1990s.

As the two of them reminisced together over old school yearbooks, Myriam turned to Lindsay and said with a smile, “You certainly were a wonderful first grader.”

Myriam was born in Normandy, France, in 1925 and always knew she had a love of children. She affectionately recalls that first graders were her absolute favorite. In 1954, she came to the U.S. and started a preschool in Louisiana, then went on to work in D.C. and Toronto. All this was before coming to Louisville in 1970 to help her sister with a sick child. She then began teaching at Hayfield Montessori School, founded by her sister Monique Denoncourt and her husband in 1967, and enjoyed a more than 30-year career there.

“I taught reading, writing, and other subjects, but if I was teaching pottery, I was very happy,” said Myriam. She took pottery classes at UofL later in life as a hobby.

As Lindsay looked at the school yearbooks, she especially remembered taking her pictures in front of the schoolhouse and doing pottery in Myriam’s class using a kiln. Lindsay made a beautiful vase for her mother that was sparkly brown in color and had a flower stamped on it.

As their time together was coming to an end that particular day, Myriam fondly looked at Lindsay and said, “You’re still so sweet and wonderful, just as you were as a child.”