Chrystal Finley Retires at Howard After 22 Years

[genealogynut]

Independence Daily Reporter
May 22, 1957


Mrs. Chrystal Finley, first grade teacher in the Howard school is retiring this spring after twenty-two years as a first grade teacher.

She taught two years each at the Elk Falls and Longton school and 18 years at Howard.

Mrs. Finley attended the Elk Falls high school and the Emporia State Teachers College.

She has seen many of her students as first graders, graduate from high school.  One of these was her sister, Jo Anne Angell, now Mrs. Ardean Wood of Seattle, Washington.

The Howard high school annual for 1949 was dedicated to Mrs. Finley and this same year she was presented with a ten year service pin, by the Howard board of education, the first of such pins to be given.

Mrs. Finley is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Angell of Howard and the wife of Fred Finley a County Commissioner of Elk County. Their home is at Elk Falls.

[MarineMom]

Mrs. Finley attended the Elk Falls high school and the Emporia State Teachers College.



Did you know that in the 1880's it was called the Emporia Normal School and that a year there qualified you a for a teaching certificate

[genealogynut]

Yes, I think you are probably right about the length of time it took to get a teaching certificate.

I remember my grandmother, Beulah Montgomery, used to teach in a country school (Wildcat school, there by Moline) and she told me what she had to do to get a teaching certificate, and she has told me many stories when I was a child.  But in my dottering old age, I can't remember them, now. "Ain't that a shame?"

[MarineMom]

I interviewed a retired lady for a college class I was taking about 10 years ago she used to teach in a one room school in Hodgeman county she had some fascinating stories to tell--way more than I was able to put into the report I was writing and I wish I had kept my notes 'cos I have forgotten more than I remember Unfortunatly I am old enough to be able to say I attended a one room school for the first 3 years of my education

[genealogynut]

You can quit kicking yourself-----we all throw things away, then we wish later we had kept them.

Speaking of one-room schools-----I think it would be so neat if someone would take the time to interview Margaret Gragg at length.  She used to teach the country school at Fiat back in the 1940's.  I think she wuld have lots of interesting stories to tell.