John McNamara's historically rich descriptions of his adolescent community life in one school where he taught the same children from grade one to grade eight sends a warm message of the merge of elementary and middle-school personalities as they are beginning to understand the wonder of growing up. Their letters and speeches remember the impact of their Montessori community as they look at their own knowledge and humanity. His students speak simple truths about how their school made them comfortable with themselves, their classmates, and their work in the past and present and for the future. [This is an update of an article first printed in "The NAMTA Journal" 31.1 (2006, Winter): 69-77.]