Bio: Palmer, Mrs. Fred (1969)

 

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

 

Surnames: Palmer

 

----Sources: Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin, Thursday, June 26, 1969

 

A Silver Crest School Teacher

Pine Valley Township, Clark, Co., WI

 

 

 

 

Bio: Mrs. Palmer Ends 48 Years of Teaching

 

By: Mrs. Edison Mathis

 

Transcribed by: Dolores Mohr Kenyon (one of her first students in Clark County at Silver Crest School)

 

Her Students would make a Small City!

 

“If all the children who have passed through my hands were to assemble in one place, they would constitute a small city.”  So said Mrs. Fred Palmer, who retired after 48 years of teaching in elementary education.

 

After two years in Eau Claire County, starting in Fall Creek, she went to Chicago, where she taught third grade at the Haugan School for 25 years.  She had 48 students in her home room, and because the school used the platoon system, in which the teacher would rotate periodically from room-to-room, she taught English to seven different third grades, consisting of not less than 48, and no more than 60 pupils in each class.

 

On returning to Wisconsin, she and her husband settled on the farm where they now live on East River Road, south of Neillsville in the town of Levis.

 

MEMENTOES OF NEARLY HALF-CENTURY

Mrs. Fred (Ellen) Palmer of Rt. 3, Neillsville, shows three mementoes which were presented to her on her retirement after approximately 48 years of teaching.  On her right she holds a certificate of merit from the Osseo-Fairchild school district, signed by all members of the school board; in the center is a silver dish commemorating the 20 years she taught in the Fairchild schools; and on her left she holds a "Service Award" from the State of Wisconsin, presented by Gov. Warren P. Knowles. 

(Press photoengraving)

 

First school

 

Her first school in Clark County was the Silver Crest School, where she taught for four years.  The building is now a hunting lodge.  Then followed a year at Shortville, which is now a home; then came Riverside for three years, now the Levis town hall; Roder, near Granton, now a home; and 10 years at Fairchild.

 

A graduate of Hixton high school, she attended county normal school at Eau Claire, and spent a year at Loyola in Chicago.  She took several courses in Chicago Normal College and Illinois School of Technology Cultural Review School.  Later she attended Eau Claire Teacher’s College. 

 

When asked why she decided on a teaching career, she replied that she had “a very wonderful teacher” when she was five or six; that she can’t remember ever wanting to do anything else, has never been sorry and has found the work rewarding.

 

One of these rewards was finding the fourth grade teacher at Fairchild to be a former pupil of hers.  She is Mrs. Lyle (Arlene) Abrahamsom, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Trachte of the town of Washburn.  

 

Not changed

 

One experience she had while in Chicago is probably familiar to many other teachers.  An assistant superintendent decided, they need not teach phonics.  Mrs. Palmer had no intention of not doing so, for experience had shown her it was necessary.  Her room had a large glass window in the door, so with one eye on the door, she went right ahead and taught her children how to sound out the words.

 

She feels young children have not changed much.  They are always anxious to learn and are looking for affection and a kind word.  However, the changing world has made discipline more difficult.  All through the years, she has had excellent cooperation from the parents, which she feels has helped her.

 

On leaving the Fairchild school, she was given a certificate of merit from the school board and school superintendent of Osseo-Fairchild for her years of teaching in the system, a pin and a silver tray from the faculty engraved with her name and number of years of teaching at Fairchild; a citation from Gov. Warren P Knowles for her “many years of teaching Wisconsin youth,” and a pin from her students.

 

Mrs. Palmer is the former Ellen B Galster of Alma Center.  She and Mr. Palmer were married there on September 10, 1919.  They plan to continue living on the farm south of Neillsville.

 

Mrs. Palmer hopes to gather all her mementos into a scrapbook at some future date, but she will need no book to help her remember the two little girls who presented her with their own personal gifts.  One brought her a pansy to plant, and the other washed dishes to earn the money to buy her a swan ornament so she would not forget them.

 

(Transcriber’s note:  Mrs. Palmer will always stand out in my memory as a very sweet lady with a big sweet smile.  A very nice teacher.)

 

 

 

 

 


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