Kading, Erlene

KADING, PARROTT

Posted By: Lydia Lucas - volunteer (email)
Date: 10/14/2010 at 21:22:16

REFLECTION ON THE PAST: From 4th Grade Student to 4th Grade Teacher
by Sharla Gradert

From the Ireton Examiner, March 11, 1999, p. 1.
The article includes a photograph of Erlene Kading.

The demolition of the Ireton Public School building holds much symbolism for our town's future, but it also represents a sort of nostalgia for so many Ireton residents. This was confirmed by the groups of people that lined the sight [i.e., site] barricades, trying to capture the last of the standing building on film. The following is a portrayal of an individual, who has not only been a big part of the school system but has also been very active in the preservation of its history.

In 1920, Erlene Parrott, age 9, entered fourth grade, under the instruction of Ruth Bartlett, at the Ireton Public School. It was a whole new life for her after attending a small one-room country school house in Eagle Township. In comparing the two, the brick facility in Ireton, built five years earlier, was huge. Erlene, the daughter of Frank Parrott, a Sioux County farmer, has vivid memories, not only of her classroom located right above the kitchen of the school, but also of the economic challenges taking place during that era. She was living in a world that seemed to be moving ahead in many areas but yet took a plunge backward with the Great Depression of 1929.

1928 was an eventful year for Erlene. She had been a member of the Ireton Girl's Basketball Team that had won the Sioux County Girl's Basketball Championship with two victories over Rock Valley. A near [record?] crowd of two thousand people witnessed the games at Ireton's midsummer carnival along with Erlene, who wasn't able to play due to a broken arm suffered in a previous game. It was also the year, at the age of seventeen, when Erlene graduated among ten other classmates. She wasted no time in pursuing her dreams of teaching someday just like her Aunt Carolyn Eddy, who taught in the Ireton school system in 1913. Erlene attended summer school in Le Mars which was an extension of Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls, Ia. She received her grades that summer, but not her teaching certificate due to her young age. She had to wait until she turned eighteen. Between the Kuecker and Vander Hamm schools in Reading Township and the Craig school in Plymouth County, Erlene taught for ten years. She recalls her starting salary being $700 per year with an extra $5 per month for stoking the fire and sweeping the floors. She want on to say that the Vander Hamm school was built under the direction of Charles Tye. His schools had indoor toilet facilities, furnaces and were always built with windows on the south and east sides for the best possible lighting.

In 1939 Erlene married Ed Kading and decided to take some time off from her teaching career. In 1956, with only one year of college, Erlene returned to the Ireton Public School as a teacher of third and fourth graders. Erlene has seen many changes in the system, especially when the rural school systems were closed between 1958-1959. At this time the name of the school was changed to West Sioux Community School. The school went from having an average of fourteen students in a class to thirty-two. But at that same time, the school started hiring specialized teachers for classes such as art and music. Erlene gave the Ireton school nearly 21 years of service and dedication. During that time she went on to get her four year college degree and fell just a few hours short of attaining her masters degree.

[Followed by three paragraphs on her advice to teachers and feelings about the demolition of the school building]