Family and friends gathered at Olive First Baptist Church to remember the life of Marty Bernstein, a Bristow teacher, who died not long after his dream of becoming a teacher came true.
Bernstein passed away after a nearly 20 year battle with heart disease.
“He had a second open-heart surgery and before he made it out of recovery it closed. They said his heart was enlarged and the valves going to were just no longer good,” said Corey Bernstein, Marty's son.
But that battle didn’t stop him from making his dream a reality.
“He was late in life when he decided to be a teacher and he still went for it he fought through his sickness and everything to get that goal," said Corey.
At 60 years old Bernstein graduated with a teaching degree from OU just this past May.
“He was my student teacher last year and most people find it hard to imagine that a man who had retired from one career fought so hard to be an elementary teacher," said Kim Shockley, a teacher at Bristow Elementary.
He was affectionately known as Mr. Marty and was only able to have his own first-grade class in Bristow for about a month.
Although his time as a teacher was cut short he worked at a number of schools helping in any way he could.