Take Note

Parents hand down many blessings to their children— athletic ability, say, or an aptitude for music. The women of the Self family in Cottonwood, Ariz., are no exception: Every daughter born over the past four generations has inherited the call to teach.

"All of the six females in the family are teachers," said S. Diane Self Thompson, who instructs 4th graders in the public schools. "That's our calling."

The tradition began with Thompson's great-grandmother, who taught in a one-room "dug out" in the Oklahoma territory. That pioneer's daughter, granddaughter, and three great-granddaughters...