Wilma (Ellis) & Donald Sappingfield

SAPPINGFIELD ELLIS BEAVER

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/14/2010 at 22:00:28

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Wilma (Ellis) and Donald Sappingfield
By Wilma (Ellis) Sappingfeld

It was March third, 1912, in the farm home of Jesse W and Catherine ‘Katie’ (Beaver) Ellis that a second daughter arrived. She was named Wilma Irene. Opal Blanche had arrived in the same home three years earlier. This farm was eight miles west of Anthon, Iowa.

Thus begins my story. My mother had lived all her life in Woodbury County. My father came from Orchard, Nebraska, and lived the county until his death in August 1969.

My maternal grandparents, Aaron and Allie (Winterringer) Beaver, and great grandparents, Henry and Catherine (Zerfing) Winterringer were pioneer residents of the county living in a rural area between Oto and Climbing Hill.

My schooling began in a one room school in Grant Township, we called it the Grubb School, in 1917. In 1920 we moved to a recently purchased farm four miles east of Oto. On April 2 ‘Good Friday’, we awoke to find we had a new baby sister. We named her Loretta and wanted to stay home and take care of her but the following Monday we had to go back to school, a one room school in the Oto district. The year I was in the eighth grade we entered Oto High School. I graduated in 1930.

Depression days prevented further education but the summer of 1945 I reenrolled in a normal training course at Morningside College. I passed the teacher’s exams, received an Iowa certificate, and began teaching in a one room school near Sioux City. I shall never forget that year. They were forty-eight burr oak trees in that schoolyard and on stormy days I taught with a kerosene lamp on my desk.
I continued summer education, and taught intermediate grades at Liberty Consolidated and at three rural schools in Plymouth County for the next thirteen years.
In the fall of 1958 I began teaching sixth grade at Sergeant Bluff. The other sixth grade teacher was Don Sappingfield.
I stayed at Sergeant Bluff for six years and then taught three at Lawton. The summer of 1966 I received my Bachelor of Science Degree from Morningside College after many summers and nights in the college classroom.
On June 18, 1968 Donald D Sappingfield and I were married at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Simi Valley, California.
I began teaching fourth grade at Berylwood, Simi Valley, that fall and retired in 1978, after thirty-three years of teaching.
Donald Dean Sappingfield was born to Bert and Iva (Peterson) Sappingfield, May 8, 1925, near Rosalie, Nebraska. The family lived in rural northeast Nebraska until 1943. Then they moved to South Sioux City, Nebraska.
They are five others in his family: Bert, employed at a meat processing plant, lives in Sioux City; Eldon, a barber in South Sioux City; Carol, a barber in Gothenburg, Nebraska; William ‘Bill’, a meat processor, lives in Morningside; and Elaine (Sappingfield) Pedersen, a bookkeeper at Marina Inn, lives in South Sioux City.
The father, Bert Sappingfield died in June 1956. The mother, Iva M (Peterson) was born June 3, 1903, at Lyons, Nebraska. She graduated from Blackbird High School, Lyons, Nebraska, and earned a teaching certificate from Peru State Teachers College. She taught at rural schools prior to the marriage on November 29, 1924, in Sioux City. She died in a Sioux City hospital on September 30, 1983. Burial was in Evergreen Cemetery, Walthill, Nebraska. She was of the Methodist faith.
Don graduated from South Sioux High and attended Morningside College receiving is Bachelor of Science degree in 1965. He was employed at the D K Baxter Company in Sioux City for ten years. He taught several years at Sergeant Bluff (sixth grade) and moved to Simi Valley, California, where he continued teaching in the elementary grades.
He left the teaching profession and is presently employed as an accountant in the Ventura County Public Administration Department.
He left the teaching profession and is presently employed as an accountant in the Ventura County Public Administrators Department.
In the fall of 1978 we moved to Ventura, a seacoast city.
We are both active members of Trinity Lutheran Church. We enjoy traveling, concerts, the beach and local trips especially Dodger baseball games.
Don’s hobbies are music and sketching. He collects music and plays piano.
My hobbies are flowers, crocheting, sewing and crafts.
We both enjoy snapping pictures and carry a camera wherever we go.
We keep in touch with Sioux City and area by returning once a year to visit relatives and friends.