[3] She fell in love with physics after reading a science article in 8th grade about how the telephone worked.

After graduation she became an apprentice teacher at Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where she taught labs, but decided not to take the job permanently as she did not think she would work after marriage.

By working on her dissertation at night, she finally finished in 1955, just in time to get tenure at Wellesley.

[1] Andrea Kundsin Dupree, later president of the American Astronomical Society, recalled Guernsey as "a marvelous physics teacher" and a particular influence from her undergraduate years.

Guernsey was also instrumental in restarting the New England Section of the Association, which has named an award for an outstanding high school or college physics teacher in her honor.