Lela May HOWLAND

HOWLAND, SMITH, VANDERGONE

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 5/28/2013 at 18:25:04

May 3, 1974 --- November 21, 1951

Miss Lela Howland, 77, beloved Eagle Grove teacher for 53 years, died Wednesday morning, Nov. 21. She has been a patient at Lutheran hospital in Ft. Dodge for several months and two weeks ago was brought to a local nursing home for care.

Miss Howland was born in Belmond but came to Eagle Grove at a very early age. Members of her family were residents here when the town was in its infancy, and her father was mayor when the old wooden East Side School was built in 1855?. Miss Howland was graduated from Eagle Grove high school in 1892 and began teaching that fall. Of her 53 years as an Eagle Grove teacher, 40 were spent at East Side School and when the new school building in the east part of town was built, it was named Lela Howland in her honor. Lela Howland school is a beautiful one-story modern structure which has attracted much interest and visitors from a distance. At the cornerstone laying ceremony in December, 1949, Miss Howland said the school was “A fulfillment of her dreams” and the naming in her honor “unexpected but deeply appreciated.” She had retired at the end of the previous school year.

Wright County Monitor - Clarion, Iowa
November 29, 1951

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Eagle Grove Eagle - Eagle Grove, Iowa
November 29, 1951

EAGLE GROVE'S MOST FAMOUS TEACHER DIES HERE WEDNESDAY

WAS TEACHER, PRINCIPAL FOR 43 YEARS

Cerebral Hemorhage Suffered This Summer Proves Fatal, Funeral Friday

Miss Lela May Howland, 77, grade school teacher and principal in the East Side school in Eagle Grove for 43 years, died at 3:39 a.m. Wednesday, November 21st. Miss Howland had been seriously ill since mid-summer when she suffered a cerebral hemorhage which was given as the cause of death.

Miss Howland resigned as East Grade principal in 1948 and shortly afterwards the board of education named the new East Side building the Lela Howland school in her honor. The building was completed in the fall of 1950. Miss Howland participated in the cornerstone laying exercises in December 1949. She placed the register of her first class of 1892 in the cornerstone.

She was born in Belmond, Iowa, May 3, 1874, the daughter of Elisha and Sarah L. Howland and moved to Eagle Grove with her parents in 1884. She attended the Eagle Grove schools and was graduated from the Eagle Grove high school with the class of 1892. She attended Drake University, Iowa State Teachers College and the University of Iowa at times during her teaching career. Beginning in the fall of 1892, Miss Howland taught in the East Side grade school until 1896, when she went to Grand Junction, Iowa, to teach for one year. From 1897 to 1902 she taught at Marshall, Minnesota, leaving there to teach at Bathgate, North Dakota for two years.

Illness interrupted her teaching career for two years and she resumed teaching at Popejoy where she taught for one year 1906-1907 and again she had to give up teaching for two years on account of illness. In 1909 she started teaching again in the East Side school where she taught continuously until her retirement in 1948. She served as principal of the school for a number of years.

Miss Howland was a member of the Eastern Star, the White Shrine, which she served as worthy high priestess in 1934, the Equality Club of which she was a member emeritus at the time of her death, the Rebekah lodge, and the Congregational church of which she had been a member since 1895. She also served many years as chairman of the Junior Red Cross and had served as guardian of the Aokiya Campfire.

She is survived by two sisters Mrs. Clara E. Smith of Eagle Grove, and Mrs. John Vandergone of Portland, Oregon, one brother Harold Howland of Portland, Oregon, and a number of nieces and nephews.

Funeral services for Miss Howland will be Friday afternoon at 2 o'çlock in the Congregational church. Rev. Walter Ross will officiate, and burial will be in Rose Hill cemetery.