While at Handley, Henrietta Cornwell was a member of the Holmes Conrad Literary Society, the news editor of the school newspaper “The Trail Blazer”, and involved with girls volleyball and basketball for three years. She earned her BA at Longwood College in 1932.

Her first teaching position was in Frederick County where she taught first through seventh grades at the one room Woodbine School in the community of Grimes. She later moved to the county’s Redbud School.

Henrietta married her Handley classmate Frederick M. Ritter in 1934. She stopped teaching after their son, Frederick Jr., was born in 1938.

Mrs. Ritter was involved in the community. She served as President of the Winchester Memorial Hospital’s Ladies Auxiliary where she helped organize the annual “Hospital Follies”. She was a member of the American Association of University Women and a leader in the Girl Scouts.

The Ritter family was active at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. Frederick Ritter, Jr, Class of 1956, became a Lutheran minister. He participated in the Vietnam moratorium and the civil rights movement before becoming an instructor in Behavioral Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. He ministered to the emotional and spiritual needs of people in the Hampton Roads area for almost 40 years.

Henrietta returned to Handley in 1964 and taught senior high English along side her sister Edith Cornwell Garrabrandt, Winchester High School Class of 1923. She was a class sponsor and the faculty advisor for the Handlian .

She remained involved in the community after her retirement in 1974.  She was a member of the Winchester Star Leadership Award committee, worked with “Meals on Wheels” and continued to support American Association of University Women projects.