The fan favorite, the myth, the legend: Mrs. Leann Nelson. Nelson has played a major role in the Lake Forest High School community. From being a part of the staff for 23 years to adopting a daughter from Romania to being one of the biggest shopping addicts in our school, Nelson has many layers.
Mrs. Nelson grew up on the north side of Chicago and went to an all-girls high school called Immaculata. She was quite the athlete, being on the basketball team, volleyball team, softball team, and club gymnastics team. After graduating high school, she went to college at DePaul for a Radiologic Science Degree.
Mrs. Nelson only spent two years in the hospital setting before she got married and became a stay-at-home mom. When her daughter was about 10 years old, she came to work at Lake Forest High School.
She said she loves her job at Lake Forest High School and wouldn’t trade it for the world.
What many people don’t know about Mrs. Nelson is that she has a daughter she adopted from Romania. It was 1990, Chow Chescu, the leader of Romania, had just been executed, right after he decided to ban birth control from the country. Due to this, the birth rates increased rapidly. When Nelson was in search of a child she could possibly adopt, she went to Romania for six months – her husband accompanied her for one of those six months.
She says there were many children tied up in orphanages and that’s when she knew she had a chance to save a little girl’s life.
“My daughter was in the hospital when we got her and we took the infant straight from there and went home,” said Mrs. Nelson. She almost did not get out of hospital. She said she had to bribe everyone who signed her certificate with liquor and cigarettes.
She made it clear that the adoption process was terrifying, but she would do it again in a heartbeat.
Even some of the things Mrs. Nelson does that annoy students are done with love. She notoriously took phones away before the new phone policy was established, but what people don’t understand is her motive behind it. Nelson shared that she confiscates phones because teenage girls’ suicide rates have gone up by 30% within the past few years.
She thinks that, without the distraction of the screen, people can focus on forming real bonds with their peers instead of comparing themselves to others on the toxic internet.
Although her strict rule may come across as unnecessary, Nelson’s piece of advice for all students is: “Be cautious if you are on the internet. Talk to people and form real relationships. It will be so much more worth it.”
