The Palimpsest

De Quille, Dan

English

Trailing a Lost Child

Anderson, Jonathan G

Tradition, Innovation, and Assimilation in Iowa's Amana Colonies

Lyftogt, Kenneth

The Hardest Battle We Have Yet Witnessed

Boatright, Kevin

A Simple Little Building

The Palimpsest, vol.68 no.3, Fall 1987

Swaim, Ginalie

THE PALIMPSEST
Above: I he new teacher and her
crew of happy, intelligent, and 
industrious ambitions. Just now 
making walks to well and fuel house 
out of old desks. Hard wood, hard 
nailing. Also spading for hyacinth 
and tulip beds.”
I HAVE BEEN weaning myself 
from mv beloved Arbor Vitae 
Summit all the year. In the early 
mornings before the children 
came I have gone from window 
to window and looked out long 
and silently on mv little yard and 
trees. I planted my love in their 
rootlets. I felt sad but brave not 
to show it. Sunny day.
In late Mav of 1909 Sarah✓
Gillespie Huftalen, age 43, wrote 
the above passage in a small 
notebook labeled “1904—09 at 
Arbor Vitae Summit School. 
Oneida, Delaware Co.’ For five 
years Huftalen taught in the 
northeastern Iowa county, 
bringing her students in the one- 
room rural school up to her 
educational standards. Steadily 
she added her touches outside 
too, planting trees and flowers
until the schoolyard became*
worthy of the new name she
0
painted on the newly constructed 
wooden arch: Arbor Vitae 
Summit.
Then in late August of 1909 
Huftalen signed a contract to 
teach in Tarkio Township, Page 
Countv, Iowa. When she arrived0 '
at Norwich School in southwestern 
Iowa, she realized she would 
have to start all over again. Her 
description of the school reveals 
the challenge: “The ground 
contained an acre of hillside 
sloping somewhat steeply from 
west to east; the north side 
having a double row of trees; 
back of which was a board fence 
that had been repaired with barb 
wire (against the law). At the 
west close to the building there 
was an untrimmed hedge of 
Osage Orange at least 20 ft. in 
height. At the east and foot of 
the hill there was no fence 
although there were remnants; 
also along the entire south side 
where two or three posts still 
remained, remnants of barb wire 
lay along the ground in the dead 
grass. Outside in the road sweet
clover as high as a cow’s back was 
thick and thrifty in bloom. There0
was a board (large) gate lying on 
the ground. A stile stood lonely 
at the top of the hill in front of 
the building. No well.
“. . . There was a fuel house; 
the outbuildings were so old and 
decrepit as to be past describing 
and the lower third of the ground 
was covered with coarse horse 
weeds as high as our head. More 
than a wagon load of ashes and 
broken glass lay underneath the 
porch at the east and another 
load likewise under the hedge at 
the west.
“A vision came quickly to 
mind of the possibilities of the 
whole of that long hillside with 
the building perched on its top. 
What to he done inside and 
outside remained to he seen.
What remains to be seen on 
the following pages is how 
Huftalen turned her vision into 
reality, with the help of students, 
parents, and others in the 
community. The following photos 
of Norwich School (perhaps 
taken by a Reverend Nichols 
from Yorktown), the captions 
Huftalen wrote beside each 
photo, and the notes and reports 
are from scrapbooks and 
notebooks in the Sarah Gillespie 
Huftalen Collection, SHSI (Iowa 
City)> (Captions and notebook 
entries have been edited slightly 
for publication.)
— The Editor
SPRING 1987 23


Left: Lulu Smith and Myrtle 
Wallace mowing weeds with hand 
sickle and stacking up to help
beautify the yard. Girls take a hand# #
in the cleaning game at one corner 
of the large school yard.
Right: “John [Snyder] says he knows 
how to empty ashes better than 
anybody else. They go a scattering 
on the highway, not on our yard 
under the porch or by the hedge or 
fuel house.
w.v
V■V. ‘¡G
. -  - / . V .  -  - a r  r ft A ft AJm f ft
Huitalen invited every man in
the school district to a ‘School
Yard Improvement Bee to cut,
grade, and seed a level
playground out of the hill. She
noted that “scrapers were
borrowed from the countv. A
0
Shenandoah business dug an 80- 
foot well and “built a Bower bed 
as a bonus.’ Huftalen listed the 
improvements in a scrapbook: 
“Terrace wall built 1910. 96 ft. 
long, steps 12 feet long. Level 
play ground 96 ft. x 48 ft. Soft 
ball & tennis, etc. Lower terrace 
sodded. We also put up a 
graduated steel flag pole and 
May pole having colored lines 
with rings ik snaps. These poles 
were equipped with pulleys & 
children appointed in turn to be 
custodians. Also had 3 swings,
2 seesaws, 2 croquet sets; these 
on upper grounds above terrace 
wall. We hauled a load of ashes 
and debris from under the porch, 
another load from where the 
alyssum bed now is, and a load of 
old iron, wagon loads, mind you, 
and we cleaned up and it looked 
better. ’
SPRING 1987 25
Right: “Mildred and Beulah Hall 
looking at a little tree which they 
planted on the school grounds in the 
spring, watched and hoed it during 
the summer and are now loving it 
through the winter.
THE PALIMPSEST
Left: “Hazel Gwynn and Dallas 
Copeland. Bordering our tulip bed 
with bricks. Team work such as 
helps build for citizenry and 
Democracy.
—
Above: “Glenn Lawson and Elmer 
Lingo, May 1911. Proud of our new 
cement rimmed flower bed! Picture 
shows fence vve repaired, trees 
[John] trimmed and top of cement 
wall and steps. Lawn mown. It was 
a school home not a school house. It 
was where we all loved to be.”
Left: “A corner of the sand pile 
where many happy hours of 
constructive work in thought and 
action were indulged. These 
primary children imitated the 8th 
grade geography class by building a 
map of [South America] — large 
and shapely. They formed the 
school grounds and their farms and 
yards. Ever building.”
SPRING 1987 27
Right: Elmer Lingo, John Snyder, 
Philip Smith, Wallace, Philip King. 
Still at it. An acre that has never 
been cared for, an acre of hill at 
that, is quite a job.”
Far right: Beautiful and useful: 
hack side or front. (The caption of 
another photo of the arch reads: 
“Our new arch with seats on either 
side and new hitching post at the 
front in place of a hoard gate that 
was rotted Hat on the ground, and a 
decrepit stile.”)
An excerpt from a report by 
Mary Smith, age 10:
“We made an arch and have 
seats fastened to the posts on 
either side and we planted a 
Wistaria vine and a syringa. We 
have a very nice lawn mower 
named Daisy. We got it at 
Clarinda. And we have a nice 
lawn. We have made it smooth 
bv the use of the lawn mower. 
We all cleaned up the yard and 
piled the rubbish in a corner and 
the boys got dry goods boxes and 
hauled it away. All of us worked 
with willing hands. We have 
been at work on the grounds and 
the school house two years and 
we hope to make it more 
beautiful and useful.”
28 THE PALIMPSEST
Selected entries from Huftalen s 
diary reveal long hours and slow 
progress — and a schoolteacher 
perhaps too exhausted at day’s 
end to worry about complete 
sentences or correct 
capitalization.
Apr. [1910]. Scrubbed floor and 
cleaned — this used me up — 30 
pails of water.
May 26. Sow alyssum around 
cannas. Staked the canna bed. 
hoed weeds, mustard! Put in 
3 doz. gladiolus, also sow 
petunias, pansies, bachelor 
buttons, phlox, poppy etc. Took 
up tulip bulbs.
June 2. Mr. Huftalen spaded 
large, deep, round bed near
well. I put in castor oil beans, 
cypress, poppies, sunflowers, 
etc. in beds and at west side of 
building and around trees. Hoed 
trees — and mustard!! Hoed 
roses. Chickens scratch out some 
gladiolus and flowers coming up. 
June 3. Cut mustard with sickle
— all west of walk and building
— hard, from coalhouse to north 
fence.
June 4. Took up daffodils and 
hyacinth, poor place for bed. I 
cut mustard!!! hoed mulberry 
and put stakes around beans and 
cypress bed. Set trumpet 
creepers at two east corners oi 
coal house. . . .
June 7. Philip King cut mustard. 
1 mended back board fence.
removing barb wire and limbs 
and brush and putting on boards. 
June. Philip mend door lock. I 
go nearly every day to weed. 
Weeds are so bad they require 
continual attention.
June 29-30-July 1. Philip King 
18 hrs. to help make the arch to 
go on posts in front, to patch roof 
with shingles, and mow weeds. I 
paid him $2.70. I furnished 
lumber for arch $1.75. . . .
Aug. 22. Children and I weed 
one afternoon — very warm. Did 
a lot — all under trees at 
north. . . .
Aug. 26. Have been over every 
day to hoe and pull weeds.
Sept. 5. School began. 1st week, 
pull weeds. 2nd week, hoe and
SPRING 1987 29
pull weeds, break up brush.
Sat. 24. John came at 7 a. in. 6c 
about 8:30 Phillip Smith went 
too and then 1 about 8:15 and we 
worked until 5:30 We were tired. 
1 sawed boards most all day. wet, 
poor saw, 6c no place to hold 
them. Got the outbuildings
enclosed 6c sills laid ready for*
floors 6c roof to board and 
shingle.
Tues. 27. . . .  I can only wonder✓
some times why God sent me to 
this old neglected school yard 
and buildings. If I had the means 
1 would donate the whole thing
because it costs such an effort for 
me to ask for anything. I worked 
at school from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. 
tired.
Mar. 13 [1911]. Mon. p.m. 
Raked the yard. 1/2 da.
Apr. Clean up shingles all over 
yard and brick etc. such a mess. 
Dallas 6c Phillip spade, stake 6c 
rake flower beds.
Apr. 14. Pick up little sticks and 
stones and shingles. 10 daffodils 
and hyacinths begin to bloom. 
May 9. cut weeds, hoe flower 
bed S. of house. Children put in 
some wild flowers last week. . . .
Inside we are getting ready for 
last day, exam, finishing studies, 
reviewing and making special 
language booklets. Very busy
always.✓
May 18. Have things in pretty 
fair shape. Boys mow yard with 
lawn mower, scrub outhouse.
Girls ditto. And hall, carry chairs✓
etc. tired.
May 19. finish studies 6c 
practice for social. House full. 
Good program.
Above: “The teacher and her Hock 
eager for work or play.”
30 THE PALIMPSEST
“How We Beautified 
Our Country School House 
and Grounds”
(a school report by Opal Wallace, age 12)
Well, I don’t hardly know where to begin. 
But I can tell you what we have done. First 
when our teacher came the yard was a weed 
patch. The weeds were higher than her 
head.
Every summer a man would come and 
mow the weeds down just before school 
began. Then when we came to school we 
would stub our toes and cut our feet. 
Teacher said when she first saw it her heart 
went to the bottom of her shoe, but she said 
it will look nice when it is cleaned up.
We took rakes, hoes, spades, saws and 
other things and cleaned till the yard was 
clean. Then we began to make flower beds 
and plant flowers. We earned a prize map for 
greatest improvement so I think what is 
worth doing is worth doing well. When 
school was out we all promised we would
Students wrote reports about their improved school- 
yard. Left: A greeting card pasted on construction 
paper frames the title of this report. Below: In 
Huftalen’s words, “We loved our new welcoming 
front.”
come and work in the summer. After school 
was out quite a while each family received a 
card which said, “You may come and help 
pull weeds. Bring your lunch and hoes. I 
have asked the rest.’’ And so we did and 
pulled every weed in sight. But before this 
we took down our old rickety, rotten stile 
and put up an arch instead. Teacher painted 
on it “Norwich School” in black letters upon 
white.
When the next term began we had a pro­
gram and got us a lawn mower. Two years 
ago we came over and mowed the lawn and 
kept the yard in shape. Men came with 
teams and scrapers and fixed us a terrace 
48 ft. by 96 ft. level for a play ground and a 
cement wall 97 ft. long and steps and one 
cement flower bed.
Teacher and our big boys made the two 
outbuildings and the arch.
Now we have a fine school yard.
First when we raked the yard it took us 
three days. The second time it took us one 
day and the third three hours. We are 
improving, aren’t we?
SPRING 1987 31


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