Week 11 - Schoolhouse

Today's block honors Lucy Stone, who in 1847 graduated from Oberlin College, the first in the nation to offer degrees to women. Lucy paid her own way through school with her earnings from teaching. 

On Dana's father's side, all her grandmothers were teachers.

My mother's mother Faye taught from the time she finished school until she was married, 1910 to 1913. The photo below, scanned from Aunt Alice's book, is the same photo that the local historical society in Hayden Indiana used in their article on teachers - I am guessing it was her high school graduation photo, 1910. She was the only student in her class, and went on to a 12-week teachers training course at the Indiana State Teachers College in Terre Haute that summer.  She taught grade school in Spencer Township where she grew up, and in a one room school in Patoka 130 miles away.

Faye

My father's mother Mary also taught school. She finished high school in 1918 and attended Junior College in LaSalle-Peru, then went to the State Teachers college in Bloomington Illinois.  My father believes this is her graduation photo and would date from about 1920 or 21.  She taught at a country school in nearby Lostant Illinois, then later, she taught 2nd grade pupils at Jefferson public school in LaSalle.  This school was only three or four blocks from her home and had all 8 grades. My Dad thinks she probably taught one or two semesters before her wedding in 1924.

Mary

Mary, born in 1901, was the middle child in the family of nine. Two of Mary's sisters were nuns and they were also teachers: Weronika born in 1894 who became Sister Mary Egidia; and Florentina born in 1898, who became Sister Mary Charissima. 

My mother -Dana's grandmother- and her sisters, our Aunts Alice and May also taught school.  I am using this photo from 1940 of the whole family - Faye and Fielding with their five children.

Faye and Fielding with Loris, Alice, Fielding (Buddy), May and Myra

Our Family Historian, Aunt Alice, had been a teacher in a one room school until she was married just a few years before this photo was taken.  My mother would be about 13 here so just about finished with grade school at the time. Aunt May was the middle child after Alice and Buddy.  Just one year older than my mother, Aunt Loris, on the left, became a nurse.