Her name was Rose Johnson. And she was a teacher her students would never forget.
One of those students, Loren Ingebretson, wrote about her for a reunion of her school’s students. Mark Storo, Inver Grove Heights, Minn., another of her students, sent Loren’s story to Neighbors.
The school was District 22 east of Kragnes, Minn., where Loren started school in 1954. Rose was his first teacher. “I know that the things she taught me were the basis for what I know today,” he says. (In later years, Loren bought her farm near Kragnes, and now lives there).
“Rose taught phonics. She told us stories about letters and sounds, and somehow in all of the stories, this mundane subject became one of my favorites.
“She taught us to be good citizens, how to hold proper meetings and to shoulder our share of the load. Young Citizens League meetings were held every Friday morning at the onset of the school day.
“She firmly believed that not to be able to read properly would handcuff us all of our lives, and the two lower letters in the grading scale (D and F) would not be tolerated in her school.
“She taught me that if she held my wrist during class time, it meant I was not behaving, and that the pressure on my wrist would increase until my behavior changed. I think it only happened once.
“I recall the spring of 1960,” Loren says, “when Rose taught us all about religious tolerance. It was not our first lesson on it, because indeed we had a subtle lesson every day at lunch time, when we prayed, ‘We fold our hands. We bow our heads, to thank Thee, God, for this good bread.’
“It was not the standard Lutheran prayer we used at home, nor was it the Catholic prayer that the Hovdestads and Prosby families and Rose used at home, but it was one that fit us all, and we didn’t eat without prayer.”
And then came the 1960 presidential election between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy; if Nixon won, he’d be the first Quaker to become president, while if Kennedy won (which he did), he would be the first Catholic president.
“Rose reminded us,” Loren says, “that the manner in which we worshipped God should not be the reason to choose the candidate.”
“When I went to Glyndon (Minn.) school in the fall of 1960, my old school closed. (The district number had been changed from 22 West to District 326 around 1956).
Rose’s teaching career changed, too, and for the next 13 years until she retired from teaching, she taught first grade in Glyndon.
“She and her husband George farmed the land across the road from us. Around 1964, George had a small heart attack, and he and my dad started to pool equipment and farm together. “George died suddenly in the spring of 1968, and we then rented the Johnson land. Rose became a lady who defiantly refused to ask for help, so Dad would have us volunteer, and that was deemed OK by Rose.
“I remember asking her once why she and George had ventured from the western Dakotas to the Red River Valley. She told me they were sort of outcasts in their families, because she had married a Lutheran and he had married a Catholic.
“She went on to say that they borrowed every dime they could get their hands on to buy the 400 acres they now had. (Later), it was a terribly wet spring, and it became apparent that planting a wheat crop according to the calendar would be financially devastating, so George took a gamble and planted all 400 acres into flax.
“The flax produced well, and more importantly the price of flax went to all-time highs, and they paid off the mortgage and never ever borrowed another dime.”
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Rose told Loren that District 22 fired her once.
“The school board felt that a young and married woman was apt to become pregnant,” Loren says, “and that the young students were ill prepared for questions about how that came about, so they would need to hire a man or a single woman.” So Rose was let go.
Then, Loren says, “the school hired a young woman who soon became engaged and resigned, followed by a second one who did the same thing, and all of a sudden the school had no teacher. So the school board came to visit George and Rose.
“Rose said she was elated, but immediately saw her hopes dashed as George firmly told the board ‘no.’ He told the board that he and Rose would never be able to have children and that she was his partner on the farm and he needed her there. So thanks but no thanks.”
But the board returned twice, and finally, after it offered her a “considerable wage increase,” George relented, Rose was hired, and her career resumed.
“When our children were born,” Loren says, “no matter what the genealogy charts would say, make no mistake, they were Rose’s grandkids, too.
“The kids would get off the school bus and walk past Rose’s house on the way to our house. Rose began to eat her evening meal about that time, and the fact that our kids today eat one of the healthiest diets of homegrown vegetables possibly is largely due to stopping at Rose’s.”
Eventually Rose developed dementia. And then one day, Loren says, “she closed her eyes and verbally her teaching days came to an end.
“The priest at her funeral did not know her, and when we planned the funeral, he was appalled that I thought there would be 150 people at the service. He told the ladies of the church that 50 plates would be sufficient. After all, he said, ‘The woman was 98.5 years old and had no children.’
“During his eulogy, as he looked out over the 150 people celebrating her life, he asked how many of them were her children. No one stood.
“He then asked how many were close friends, and a few stood.
“And then he asked how many were her students, and nearly everyone stood!
“He responded, ‘God bless you, Rose!’
“Her earthly days of teaching came to an end, but in truth, the lessons are still being taught,” Loren says. He told the District 22 reunion attendees to “think about the lessons Rose taught you, and that you passed on either verbally or in skills learned to countless others you have come in contact with!
“I give thanks often for the gift of education, some of which was learned at 22 West, some at other schools, but also by the lessons taught us by our parents, and by a woman who never gave birth to any children, but was a mother figure to so very many!”
Loren says Rose kept a scrapbook. In it, he found something she wrote about her teaching career.
“What other profession is there,” she wrote, “that one can put on clean clothes, and even when age was betraying youth, could you have the wonderful feeling invoked by a child when he or she would say, ‘You look so very pretty today!’ It made me know that I had children and that I was loved.”
If you have an item of interest for this column, mail it to Neighbors, The Forum, Box 2020, Fargo, ND 58107, fax it to 701-241-5487 or email blind@forumcomm.com.
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