LONNA McDONOUGH
I can't believe my story will be very interesting. It seems quite ordinary to me - even though not always easy. I believe God gives us trials and tribulations, expecting us to learn from them, but he only gives us as much as we can bear. Paul wrote that to the church in Corinth: "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength..." (1 Cor. 10:13). That's basically it. You take life day by day, one step at a time. You work through your problems and go on to the next problem.
I probably learned that about 21 years ago when I went through my divorce. My husband left when Kylie was three days old. He brought us home from hospital, packed up his stuff and left. He had told me three weeks before she was born that as soon as she was delivered, he was moving out, but I hadn't realized he would be that upset over the birth of the third child. I was totally devastated. I had a six year old boy, a three year old boy and a three day old baby. And I trusted him. We had been married for 13 years and you trust somebody that you have lived with that long and had children with. But that is my inclination - I trust people. I've been told that I am naive and possibly so, but that is the way I was raised. I wouldn't do that to someone else and couldn't believe it would happen to me. It is what I told my children and my students: you treat other people the way you want to be treated.
When I was divorced, I made up my mind that my children were not going to be losers in this situation. I had them because I wanted them. My in laws told me that they would take the kids and raise them, but I told them that was not necessary. They were mine, and I was 38 when I was divorced. I had my children late in life. I was 31 when Colin was born, Kylie when I was 38. It wasn't like I was an 18 year old girl starting out with three little kids to rear. I had a college degree, a good paying job for this part of the state and I made up my mind that my kids were not going to suffer.
I grew up in the little town of Arispe, population about 100 or 110. There was only one church, so I grew up in the Methodist Church. I attended Sunday school and Bible School, then I taught Sunday school and Bible School, and was married in the Methodist Church there. My husband, Charlie, was a member of the Missouri Synod Immanuel Lutheran Church, and after we were married, I went through confirmation and joined the church, as did our children.
My mom was originally from Pattonsburg, Missouri, which has an interesting history. This was the town they actually moved because of continual flooding. They built new houses, moved old ones, and moved the whole town to a place just off the Interstate south of Bethany as you go toward Kansas City. Grandpa was a farm laborer during the Depression. Mom had two brothers, one older, one younger, and their parents rented a farm south and east of Arispe. Later they bought a 40 acre farm just north of where they rented. Grandpa farmed it with horses.
Mom graduated from high school in Pattonsburg. She and Dad met through my older uncle. Daddy was from the Hopeville area. He was on the upper side of the age level, but at age 31, he was drafted. When he came home on leave in 1943, Mom and Dad went to Missouri and were married. He reported back for duty and Mom went to visit him. She continued to live there, in New York and Pennsylvania, and during that time, she worked at the candy factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She had just become pregnant with me and the chocolate smell made her so sick she had to quit. She came back to Iowa and lived with my grandma and grandpa. She had been a country school teacher. When she got out of high school and became old enough, she took normal training. She continued to teach until my dad got out of the service.
My dad's father died when Dad was 13 or 14, and they lost their farm. Dad had an older sister and younger brother, and to help put food on the table, he joined CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). In the process of building Lake Aquabi, he learned to use heavy equipment - dozers and scrapers that they use with the big caterpillars. After Dad was out of the military, he drove a gravel truck for a year, then he got a job with Union County, working on road maintenance and that is what he did until he retired.
When I was not quite two, my parents bought property in Arispe. Mom still lives there. I have one sibling, a sister, Arlinda Abell, four years younger than I. When she turned five in August, Mother started teaching third grade in Arispe Elementary. Eventually Mom went to Creston Junior College and got a two year degree. About that time there was a ruling that you couldn't teach unless you were working on your bachelor’s degree, so she carpooled with others in the same situation. They drove back and forth to Drake taking Saturday classes, night classes, and summer classes while she worked toward an English major. She was in college the same time I was in college. After Arispe, Mom taught seven years at Lorimor, then Shannon City, which is also part of East Union District, and she ended back at Arispe. She taught 35 years before she retired.
Eva Mae Shannon, long-time teacher in the Murray school system, has won many prizes for her art work and credits my mom with encouraging her. Mom took art classes in order to keep her teaching certificate. Eva Mae's parents, Kirk and Helen Brown, lived just north of where my grandparents bought their 40 acres. They had five children and I used to go to see Pat Anderson, Eva Mae's younger sister. She was older than I, but they had a little area behind a chicken shed where she had little plates and utensils and we made mud pies together. They had a player piano in their house. The music was on long cylinders that were inserted. Pat would put in a roll and I could listen to the music.
I graduated from high school at East Union, and went on to Creston Junior College for two years, then to Northwestern State University at Maryville (NWSU). At the end of my junior year at Maryville, I changed my major. I had been working on a social studies major with a minor in English. It became evident that the chance of my getting a job in that field was poor, because fellows working toward a coaching degree were choosing social studies, and they would have an advantage. So I changed to an English major with library science as a minor. I did my student teaching at Creston in the fall of 1966, and at the same time my library practicum hours at the high school library there. Because of changing my major, after my senior year in Maryville, I had to go to summer school to pick up 20-some hours of Library Science. East Union was holding a job for me. They needed a librarian and a high school English teacher. So I finished school on Friday, and began at Afton on Monday. I taught 3/4 of a year as part-time librarian and had two or three sections of sophomore English.
Two friends I'd gone to college with in Maryville were teaching in Stockton, California, and wanted me to fly out. For that reason, I didn't graduate until June, 1967. I had been teaching but I didn't have my diploma. I graduated in abstentia, i.e., I didn't walk across the stage to receive my diploma. My mother was disappointed, but all I wanted was the diploma and my certificate. That was evidence that I'd achieved my dream, because I had known ever since I was a sophomore in high school that I wanted to be a high school teacher. It was the only thing I ever wanted to be.
While I taught in Afton, I lived at home, and because we only had one car, my sister dropped me off at my school and went on to Creston where she was attending Junior College. At the end of the school day she would come for me and take me home. In the winter, my grandparents flew to Arizona to stay with my aunt and uncle. They left their car, which gave us two cars. Arlinda and I would take one and Mom would have one for her use, wherever she happened to be teaching at that time.
While I was in California, a job in Osceola was advertised. It was for a sophomore English teacher. Mother called to tell me and asked if I wanted her to arrange an interview. She did. Before I left, I had interviewed at a couple other places: at Boone for an elementary librarian's job and at Sigourney for a high school English job. That would have been like teaching in a small high school, and I would teach three or four different subjects. The job in Osceola would have been for sophomore English, the grade in which I'd done my student teaching.
I interviewed, got the job, and started here in 1967. Dr. Russell Ward was the superintendent and Keith Pollard was the high school principal. I've been here ever since for several reasons: I don't like change, I like the size of the community and its proximity to Des Moines, and I'm happy with the size of the school. For many years I was the only tenth grade English teacher. I taught every sophomore who went through high school at that time.
It was very difficult the first few years because Osceola doesn't offer much for single adults, and you didn't dare be caught going into a bar or anything like that. Not that I wanted to. That really wasn't my style, but still, there wasn't a whole lot to do. I went home a lot on weekends, and I spent a lot of time with my students. I had sleep-overs for the girls. The first year I taught I had Sue Curtis, Janet Oliver, Bonnie Moore, Jean Lewis, Sharon Daly, and Georgianna Johnson. It was the fall of '67 when I had those kids, so it is a bit of a strain to remember all of them. I had Alan Lundquist, David Lynn, Steve Hall, Barry Anderson, and Gary Jones. I was 23 years old and they became like part of the family. Not that I was part of their group, but I liked kids that age. I enjoyed and did things with them as an adult. Now, wherever I go in the community, I run onto kids I had in school and we stand and talk. Vickie Binning, for instance, was one of my students, then I had Chrissy, her daughter, and I taught Vickie’s older brother and younger brother, the younger brother's wife and their kids. They are still my kids. I remember them when they were 15 years old. Sometimes I don't recognize them immediately, but when they smile at me, I not only remember them but even where they sat in the classroom.
Over the years, I taught more junior and senior classes and we added more English teachers. Some of the teachers I worked with were former students - Rod Gall, the wrestling coach and phys ED teacher, Jon Pedersen, and several elementary teachers - Brenda Irving and Cindy Sitzman.
It was really important to me as I worked with kids to get to know each child one on one. I wanted to know who they were and what they were, and I wanted them to be able to open up to me and be free. It got to the point when some of the kids called me Lonna. The principals were not real happy about that, but I didn't think of it as disrespect. They knew I was not one of their "friends." I was not the same age; in fact, I had taught most of their parents. But they felt comfortable with me. One of the principals said that his child told him, "We can walk into that room, and it is always cluttered. There are posters on the walls, stuff on the floor, books stacked here and there, and it's kind of homey." They never felt threatened. They could always pretty much say what they wanted to say. They would sometimes come in after school just to talk. I didn't always agree with them and I told them where I stood on things, but they still felt free to tell me how they felt. I was like a counselor. Someone said that I should become a guidance counselor but I knew I couldn't distance myself enough for that position. I care too much, and have too much empathy for these kids. Lots of kids who were considered by other staff members to be problem kids caused me no trouble in my room. They might be ornery at times, but they did not show outright disrespect. When that happened, I lost it.
Respect is extremely important to me. I found that when I first started teaching, the kids respected their elders and adults more than they do now. Parents expected that and were very supportive of teachers. I don't know why this has changed. Perhaps parents don't teach their children that every person deserves respect for who and what they are, with the result that children lack respect for themselves and it affects how they deal with situations. If you respect yourself, you don't do certain things. Maybe it is that both parents are working outside the household, but I was a single parent and my kids were raised to show respect to adults and other people. They could disagree with adults but not disrespect them. They were respectful to me. They never wanted to do things that hurt me. If something came up that they knew I wouldn't approve of, they didn't do it. I had no trouble with them in high school at all. Now I am retired, but I often sub. Kids don't know me as well, and they tend to want to disrespect me. I find myself saying, "You are not going to treat me this way. I don't treat you this way and you're not going to treat me this way."
I got so much from my kids - far more in return than I ever gave. I got so involved in getting to know each of them that it was a wonderful experience. Out of all those kids in all those years I can only think of two I found difficult in the classroom, which means there were two I didn't enjoy. A couple kids ended up in prison. But whenever I see any of them, I always give them a hug and ask them to tell me what is going on in their lives. I think the fact that I loved and cared about them and they knew that, made a difference.
I taught in high school, ninth through twelfth grades for 36 years. I chose to retire early because teaching has changed drastically. I loved being in the classroom and teaching! What I got tired of were all the benchmarks, writing up what you were doing. What is required of the teachers regarding the amount of time they have to prepare and to teach is totally different from when I started. There is so much time taken up in paper work, assessing students, setting up benchmarks, and assessing percentages. There is so much more detail than planning your objectives around a lesson plan. I don't know whether it is better or not. It is good to hold teachers accountable, but making them responsible for whether the kids are learning or not is leaving out variables. You have students who learn in spite of you, because of you, and you have students who simply choose not to learn. And you are supposed to be able to give them that desire. Try as you might, there are some who are not going to do that, but you may lose your job because students didn't test well on state-wide assessments.
Teaching has become something that I really don't like. I love kids; I loved working with my own kids. I spent a lot of time with them, which is easier to do when you are a teacher.
When they weren't in school, most times I wasn't in school. I took them to school with me in the morning and home with me after school in the afternoon. We ate a lot of fast food. If there was
a ballgame, we picked up sandwiches and ate in my room. I did a lot with the Cheerleaders, AFS
(American Field Service), and National Honor Society. I did all the activities I could to make extra money so we could do those things. They thought they were raised in the school. It became a second home to them. I kept blankets there, books for them, and snacks in the closet. I would buy pop and keep it in the refrigerator, which was cheaper than out of the machine.
I had lots of support in raising my children. Even though I had sole custody and made most of the decisions related to what they did and where they did it, Charlie and I kept in touch. He lived in town with his second wife, and he lived about a mile from us after they were divorced. At that time, he was in and out of the house all the time. He had a lot of women in his life over the years, and I was always the stable one. I helped the kids chore; I made sure they got to do this and that. There was never a question of grades. Homework had to be done. We didn't have a whole lot, monetary-wise. I received very little child support, but if I had a problem with one of the children, their dad was there and we could talk about it. They knew they couldn't use one of us against the other. Charlie knew what was going on in their lives all the time. He knew what their grades were. They would call and talk to him. Lots of days I would fix breakfast and he would come in and eat with the kids. Or I would take the boys to his house and they would watch TV with their dad. The boys worked for Charlie when he was in a feed store in Indianola. Those were Saturday jobs and he would pick them up, take them, and they would load feed for him. He attended sporting events. The three kids were in Little League; Colin did Punt, Pass, and Kick. All three took tennis lessons from the time they were eight years old, and all of them lettered in tennis all the way through high school.
And I had friends! Virginia Ogan was a very good friend to me and to the children. If I needed help, she was there - particularly for Eron. When Eron was giving me a bad time, I would tell her and she would take him home with her. They would sit and talk and when they had gotten things worked through, she would bring him home. I was kind of like that with her daughter, Mindy. When she and Virginia had problems, she and I would sit and talk. Mark (Ogan) used to babysit with Colin. When the Ogan kids are home, we always see them.
I had other supportive friends, also - like John Huenemann's wife, Pensie. From the time Colin was 2, she kept my children until Kylie started to school. Pensie was firm with them, which I liked. She told me that when Kylie started to school, she would quit babysitting, but she would continue to babysit until then, which she did. Then she went back to school and started working at Head Start. Michael Huenemann was two years older than Colin, and the two of them are very close. They became part of the family.
Another very important part was the support of my parents. They helped when I needed it - not just financially, but when the kids wanted to go on Spanish trips or to Washington, D.C., and I didn't have the money, Mom and Dad would give them money to do these things. My dad passed away May 29, 2003, at 91 years of age. His body just wore out. Losing Daddy was hard, but not as bad as it might have been. He had not been able to do the things he wanted to do for about six months. He wasn't seeing or hearing. He couldn't walk without a walker, and he was on oxygen all the time. His death was finally a blessing because he'd been telling us for six months that he was ready to go. It is always hard to lose somebody but it is easier when it is what they want. My daughter was Grandpa's little girl. She was closer to my Dad than her own father because she never lived with her father. She's had a hard time with his passing, as has my oldest niece. She was the oldest grandchild and oldest grandchildren tend to be catered to.
My life would have been much more difficult if it had not been for the support of my mom and dad. Mom is now 85 and very active. She does lots of volunteer work. She goes here, she goes there. She quilts at the Methodist Church. She helps at the nursing home. She is on a Care Review Board. She has her hair done at the beauty shop every Friday morning. There are five or six widow ladies in Arispe who like to go places, and Mom does the driving. She often comes over here for Sunday brunch with us at Crossroads. She went with me to Colorado in November for Colin's birthday and spent a week. She is there for me whenever I need her. As long as I can remember, I've had these strong family ties. My grandparents were like parents, and when I lost them, my Mom and Dad were there.
My second boy, Eron, 25, graduated from Simpson with a communications degree. He has minors in history and political science. He works in Des Moines at New England Financial and has been there 2 years. My youngest, Kylie, is 21. She went to Southwestern Community College for two years and is at Graceland now, but is thinking of transferring. She is looking for a school that has journalism major, which is not available at Lamoni. When she started, she thought she wanted to go into theater, but now she has changed her mind. So we will be going to NWMSU to see what they have and what classes she has taken that will transfer. Over spring break we are going to the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley and see what their journalism program is like. After spending about three weeks with Colin and Joni at Christmas, and going to work with him, she decided that she wants to do what he does. She would like to be in the sports information field. So I have three kids going into the communications field, which doesn't surprise me.
This is where I am in life. I not only have had such great support from family and friends, but I have a large support base in this community. Every time I turn around, here is someone I've taught or a friend of mine. Osceola has provided me with stability and the opportunity to raise my children. My hope for my three has been that they are good human beings, and I think they are. The "recipe for living" that I recommend is: let people know you are interested in them, you want to know about them. Listen to them, respond and react to that. Be a good communicator. My experience with my own children and the kids in school confirmed for me that pays off.
Return to main page for Recipes for Living 2004 by Fern Underwood
Last Revised November 11, 2012