Upon learning of Gertrude's wish to become a kindergarten teacher, Mina Weil offered her own plan to her daughter:

Your letter regarding work I have read and thought over. I think now we are selfish enough to want you at home for awhile (I can see the disadvantage of the little town) and I think if you look for it you can find something to do that will benefit a very needy class here. We have no manual training of any sort in our graded school, so it seems to me if you can arrange to teach some drawing and sewing perhaps to the lower grades the school would be better for it and you too. I want you to have some regular work when you once get home or you will be lost after fifteen years of knowing what each day held for you.

Mina's advice proved highly significant for Gertrude's future. Returning to Goldsboro, she did teach needlework, although within the context of the Goldsboro Woman's Club rather than in the public school. She spent the rest of her life in the house in which she was born, devoting herself to work that directly benefited the community's many needy groups.