'Mama Of The School' To Be Honored Sunday

MANCHESTER - When Mrs. Gladys Feldkamp was in the second grade, the d e c i d e d she wanted t o become a school teacher. On June 11, Mrs. Feldkamp will retire after teaching 46 years in country schools in Washtenaw County. Mrs. Feldknamp, who now teaches the first grade at the Pleasant Lake Elementary School in Freedom Township, says she has mixed emotions about retiring. 'Tve been saying one more year for the past 10 years. But now I've reached the mandatory retirement age of 65." Bom on a small farm near Defiance, Ohio, Mrs. Feldkamp moved to the Chelsea area with her parents when she was eight-years-old. She attended country schools in the Chelsea community and graduated from Chelsea High I School in 1924. Following graduation she enrolled at Eastern Michigan University, then called Michigan State Normal College, and took a six-weeks teaching course. That fall of 1924, one week after her 18th birthday, Mrs. Feldkamp got her first teaching assignment - the one-room Beach School located east of Chelsea. There she taught kindergarten through the eighth grade and had 30 students. "The standards for teachers were not very high then and I had to use the knowledge I received while I was in country schools. I had to i wórk like the dickens though to keep ahead of my class." The following year, she I went to the St. Thomas I School on Scio Church Rd. I where she stayed for the next I three years. It was there that I Mrs. Feldkamp learned how I to speak and understand GerI man as many of the students I were from Germán families. Her next assignment came in 1928 at the Dresselhouse School on Pleasant Lake Rd., where she spent two years. Then she quit teaching for one year and returned to Michigan State Normal College where she earned her lifetime teaching certifícate. Later she received her bachelor and master degrees from the college through some extensión courses she took during the evening when she wasn't teaching. The next 24 years, she taught at the Knight School on Scio Church Rd. She left that school when it was consolidated into the Ann Arbor School District. In 1955, Mrs. Feldkamp came to the Pleasant School as building principal and as a kindergarten teacher. She served in these roles for the next six years. She has taught the first grade for the past 10 years. During the late 1950s, the Pleasant Lake School became part of the Manchester Public School District. During her teaching years in one-room country schoolhouses, Mrs. Feldkamp recalls cutting her own kindling wood, starting the fire in the stove usually located in the middle of the room, hauling ashes out and doing janitorial work. Her students, she says, used to bring drinking water to the school from a neighbor's house. Since she taught children of all ages in her small schoolhouses, the students were seated according to size, with the smaller ones in front. Classes for each grade level lasted about 10 minutes each. "We had the drill and repeat method of teaching then. Discipline was not a problem and the children were very friendly. If I wasn't bom in the country, it would have been difficult taught in city schools. She found that teaching in country schools offered her I more freedom than if she had I taught i n city schools. "I like the children and my I work. I never carne up with I anything else I would rather I do. But I never thought I I would be teaching for so I many years." Mrs. Feldkamp says I ing conditions have improved I considerably over the years I as have standards, materials, I equipment, hours and pay. I When she first began I ing, she received $85 per I month. This sum dropped to I $55 per month during the I depression years. "The kids today are I ally the same as they were I years ago. But they are bolder today due to televisión and oter things they are exposed to. I believe in good, firm discipline and punishing children if they misbehave." Some of her present first grade students are grandchildren of many of her former students. Since Mrs. Feldkamp has no children of her own, she considers her many students as "her family and children." She said one 1 i 1 1 1 e girl referred to her as "the mama of the schoool." Retirement plans cali for doing some traveling and devoting more time to the small resort she and her husband Clarence own at Clear Lake in the Waterloo Recreation Area. The Feldkamps have a spring and summer home at the lake. Tomorrow, from 2 to 5 p.m. Mrs. Feldkamp will be honored during an open house to be held at the Pleasant Lake School. Mrs. Minnie Cerwinka, a former custodian at the school for 16 years, now retired, will also be honored. The everit is sponsored by the Pleasant Lake School ParentTeacher Organization. (over please, for picture) MAMA OF THE SCHOOL. . . (cont.)