Storyteller and educator “Auntie Janice” Tutein was given the gift of gab. She has put that gift to use telling stories, which is her passion, and in teaching, which is her calling.
Tutein says her gift for story telling came from her mother, Ione Pemberton, who told stories handed down for generations. Some of those old stories were from Africa and some were made up by her mother.
Tutein said her sisters are gifted seamstresses and cooks, but explains, “I’m really the mouth. I remember my mother said I could outtalk most people.”
After learning her mother’s stories, Tutein has kept them alive with editing in a way to make them accessible to her present-day audiences. Most of her mother’s stories have a moral or a lesson to learn in them and Tutein makes sure that is always part of those particular stories.
She illustrated by telling the “Cow Dance story,” about a vain cow from a time when animals could talk and interact with humans.
“The cow danced — boom chic chic boom, boom chic chic boom,” Tutein says, setting a scene.
The cow thinks she is “all that” and ends up being tricked and eaten during a time of drought.
In her almost 30 years as an educator Tutein says storytelling has been a valuable teaching tool.
“I have used stories to educate, entertain and discipline,” Tutein says. “Some stories are just for fun and when I start to laugh the children listen.”
“During a time of need a story rolls into my head,” Tutein says. “Stories are a great way to educate children. Stories explain certain phenomena and mysteries of why things are the way they are.”
She has a hurricane preparedness story that she tells students in her science class at Pearl B. Larsen Elementary School based on the “Three Little Pigs” with the wolf the hurricane coming.
She went public with her story telling in 2000 when Pamela Richards, then the commissioner of tourism, asked her to travel to Canada and tell local stories about the Virgin Islands in a tourism trade show.
She says she uses the language of books, which is standard English, which everybody understands. She tries standard English first in her stories but sometimes dialect works best and sometimes she needs to go in and out of dialect.
“Some stories don’t work in standard English and I need clarification so I go to dialect,” Tutein says.
She says she has more than 100 stories she tells.
Dressing up is part of her persona and she does that in old-fashioned long skirts and blouses of yellow cotton flour sack cloth or colorful plaid madras. She always wears some type of cloth or straw hat which has become a signature piece with her. She tells stories at Whim Plantation at the annual Starving Artists Shows and the St. George Village Botanical Garden festivals. She is also a regular entertainer at Transfer Day celebrations. She has been doing events along with the Pearl B. Larsen Quadrille dancers. She says they make a great entertainment piece that could be promoted as such.
She did a radio show called “Reading Matters” for 13 years on Saturdays at WSTX, AM 970, that promoted reading.
Tutein is retiring at the end of the school year after teaching at Juanita Gardine for 10 years and 20 years at Pearl B. Larsen Elementary School.
“I am ready to retire from this phase and do other things,” Tutein says. “I’m going to miss it, but it will be nice to sleep in.”
She plans to continue volunteering at Pearl B. Larsen in the “Learn It” reading and math program. Tutein will also continue to volunteer at Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) doing crafts and stories in the after-school program. She wants to spend more time promoting the cultural component of CHANT – Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism. She says she will have more time to give in her role as the cultural director of the Agricultural Fair as a board member.
She plans to publish a book and CD of her stories. She said Crucian dialect is disappearing and she wants to makes sure it is kept alive in stories. She also wants to write a Recycling How To Book.
Tutien said she was “Bahn ya” and can trace her roots back 200 years. She grew up in Free Gut and graduated from St. Croix Central High School. She has her degree in elementary education from Morgan State University in Baltimore. She has been married to Clinton Tutein for 36 years. She never had children of her own but says she has always taken on kids and would “pluck them up in a minute.” In her free time which there isn’t much of she enjoys reading romance and historical novels. She also plays educational video games that she says erases the age barrier between her and students.
“Auntie Janice is one of a kind,” said Marcus Tyson a sixth grader at Pear B. Larsen. Kijante Williams also one of her students said she could not be replaced at Pearl B. Larsen and they will miss her.