With 50 years of teaching umpteen college students about U.S. history, you would think that University of St. Thomas-Houston Professor Emerita of History Virginia Bernard would be gardening or traveling or doing needlepoint. Instead, the octogenarian worries that “we are in danger of losing parts of our history, not to mention our democracy.” Therefore, she penned a new book, “Memoirs of an Old White History Teacher.”

She said, “This book includes an easy 20 true-false American history quiz for readers who think they know it all – and may be surprised by the answers.”

Bernhard also wrote the book as a memoir to remember the good times she had with her students, “who taught me nearly as much as I taught them.”

“Memoirs,” she notes, is an easy, enjoyable read and available in paperback on Amazon for under $10.

Bernhard earned her undergraduate and Ph.D from Rice University and her master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her specialties are American history and Texas History. She taught at UST for 35 years, retiring in 2006.  

She is a prolific writer, authoring eight books and numerous articles, and is the editor of several other books on U.S. history and women’s history. Bernhard has received numerous awards, including the Minnie Stephens Piper Award for outstanding teaching in 2003, and the Catherine Munson Foster Memorial Literature Award in 2014 from the Brazoria County Historical Museum. A list of her books includes several on the Hoggs of Texas.

• “Grand Tours and the Great War: Ima Hogg’s Diaries, 1907-1918” with co-editor Roswitha Wagner (2022)
• “The Smell of War: Three Americans in the Trenches of World War I” (2017)
• “Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal: 10 Lists to make Before your Final Exit,” co-authored with her husband, Jim Bernhard (2014)
• “The Hoggs of Texas: Letters and Memoirs of an Extraordinary Family, 1887-1906” (2013)
• “A Tale of Two Colonies: What Really Happened in Virginia and Bermuda?” (2011)
• “A Durable Fire” (1990), a historical novel set in colonial Virginia, reissued as “Jamestown: The Novel” in 2014.
• “Slaves and Slaveholders in Bermuda, 1616-1782” (1999)
• “Ima Hogg: The Governor’s Daughter” (1984, 3rd ed. 2011), which won the Texas Historical Commission award for best book on Texas history
   

She is married to Jim Bernhard, author, actor, playwright, and arts administrator, and has three grown children.

Photo Credit:  James Bernhard