Winslow, Josephine 1884-1972

WINSLOW

Posted By: Linda Ewin Ziemann (email)
Date: 8/11/2003 at 20:08:42

JOSEPHINE WINSLOW, LONGTIME TEACHER HERE, DEAD AT 87

Services are Monday at 10 a.m. at Mauer funeral chapel for Josephine
Winslow, 87, 320 First Ave. NE, retired LeMars school teacher.

Miss Winslow died early Friday morning [April 15, 1972] at Floyd Valley
hospital where she had resided since October 1967.

She was born Aug. 11, 1884, a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John Wallace
Winslow. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church.

A teacher in LeMars and Plymouth county for 36 years, Miss Winslow began her
teaching career in 1905 here. After teaching in rural schools for six
years, she came to the LeMars school system in 1911 as an elementary teacher
at Clark school under superintendent Harvey Kluckhohn.

For the next 30 years, until retirement in 1941, she taught various grades,
mostly third and fourth at Clark and served many terms as principal at that
elementary building.

Dr. Kluckhohn recalls an event that pleased Miss Winslow very much was her
serving as Diamond Jubilee Queen in May of 1956 at the time of the diamond
jubilee anniversary for LeMars high school, her alma mater.

She had graduated from LeMars high school in 1903.

Following her retirement as an active faculty member at age 56, she worked
much of the time with individual students in tutoring, spending some with
those who were handicapped.

Her father, Wallace Winslow, was a former LeMars mayor. He was a civil war
veteran. Miss Winslow was also active in the women's relief corp with the
grand army auxiliary, in the days when there were many civil war veterans in
LeMars.

Surviving is a foster nephew, Wayne Muth, of Ankeny.

JOSEPHINE WINSLOW....poetry written by Harvey N. Kluckhohn

Her calling was to teach; and she made of it a noble thing,
Through nearly two-score years she proudly plied her trade --
In tiny one-room schools at first, then in the old Clark school,
And finally in the modern edifice that took its place --
Proving in each, a workman who needed not to be ashamed.

The tools of her trade were books and charts and sticks of blackboard chalk;
And she used them skillfully.
But her kit of tools held more than these,
To them she added patience, praise, and love;
An encouraging word, a reassuring smile, the ability
To inspire every boy and girl to do their best.
Always considerate and just and fair,
She could be firm withal, and even stern
When occasion called for it. A reproachful look from her
Was potent punishment, and an approving smile a spur to greater zeal.

Although she drilled her pupils in the three R's and drilled them well,
Her teaching did not stop with these.
By example and by precept she imparted, day by day,
Lessons of honesty and fair play, of courtesy,
And of living by the Golden Rule.
She implanted in their minds ideals of patriotism,
Taught them to honor their country and respect it's flag.
The daughter of a veteran of the Civil War,
She recounted stories of men's valor on the battle field,
As told her by her soldier-father from her earliest years.
And when the world wars came, she sent letters to her soldier boys,
To bring them cheer, receiving in return their messages of gratitude and
deep affection.

When she retired from the classroom years,
Her role as teacher did not end.
She kept right on -- working with the handicapped,
Youngsters who found learning difficult,
Adults in quest of citizenship in their adopted land --
Bringing to such as these the special kind of help
Which only a deep devotion to the task could give.
And to this ministry of love were added other services --
To her church and neighborhood, to the sick, the needy, and the lonely ones.
She exemplified in all of them the teaching of the one who said,
"For, inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these,
You have done it unto me."

Now she has gone from us, her gentle spirit taken flight
From a frame grown weary, with the weight of mounting years.
The other day, friends gathered in quiet chapel room
To say farewell to one who, through the years, they had known and loved.
And all across this land, in places near and far,
Her "children" pause for a moment in reverence to her memory,
And they will bless the day when she answered to the call to be a teacher.
Yes, her calling was to teach; and she made of it a noble thing.

Submitted by Linda Ziemann
Taken from my Grandmother's treasured scrapbooks