Recipes for Living Mary Klein

I was born in the house where we lived in Barnes City, Mahaska County, Iowa on September 12, 1935. I was the third daughter born to Roy Eugene Sprague and Marjorie Josephine Nelson Sprague. My sister Betty Jean is seven years older than I, and Gertrude Elizabeth is five years older. My full name was Mary Alice Sprague. My parents were both hard working people. Mother operated a restaurant, and besides farming, Dad ran a gas station and hauled fuel to farmers. Before I was two years old, in May of 1937, Dad died. The diagnosis was blood poisoning, which was a secondary complication. He was leading a horse that became startled by a car, and Dad was kicked in the forehead.

Our family went to live with my maternal grandparents Grandpa John and Grandma Matilda Nelson in What Cheer, Iowa. Grandma didn't like her name, even when they shortened it to Tillie. To make matters worse, her sister-in-law named their cocker spaniel Tillie, and to add further insult to injury, when the first Tillie died, she named the second dog Tillie Two. My aunt and uncle were very sophisticated people, who seemed to enjoy calling their dogs to the house, "Here Tillie," or "Here Tillie Two."

My mother had three living brothers and two of them lived with my grandparents. It is fortunate that they had a fairly good sized house, because we all lived together. Uncle Bernie was an invalid with Parkinson’s Disease, and Uncle Art also had health problems. Mother's youngest brother, Earl, lived two blocks away. His family was very much a part of my childhood memories. He had four children - a son and three daughters. His youngest were twins. We played a lot together and, along with other kids in the neighborhood, we provided our own entertainment. We had circuses, jumped rope, ran around the block, just ordinary kid things that we enjoyed. I was thrilled to get a new bike for my birthday, probably when I was 12. It was a really big gift about that time. A pony was always on my wish list, but I never got one.

Playing was not the biggest part of my growing-up years. My grandparents had a large garden - actually three gardens - plus a large cornfield. I helped Grandpa hoe, and helped Grandma can and plan meals. For this big family, everything had to be done in a big way, without modem conveniences. There was no indoor plumbing, and it was a blessing that we had a drain in the kitchen. At least we didn't have to haul out the dirty water.
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Occasionally I talk to the kids at school about responsibility, and use the example of the laundry process when I was a kid. Even though they don't understand, I describe taking the clothes to the basement and sorting them, pumping the water from the outdoor cistern into a boiler, and building a fire in the coal/wood-burning stove to heat the water. We dipped it over into the old Maytag washing machine and washed the clothes. The machine had a wringer, so we wrung out the clothes into the first rinse water, put them through another wringer into the second rinse water, rolled them through the roller wringer into the wooden clothes basket, took them upstairs, out to the clothes line, wiped off the clothes line, and hung them up. In the wintertime we hung the clothes on lines throughout the house. There were big nails pounded into the top of the woodwork, and ropes stretched across. Even though unsightly, the method dried the clothes and provided humidity. Everything was 100% cotton, which meant that everything wrinkled and had to be ironed. So after the clothes were dry, we took them down, wet ("sprinkled") and ironed them. We were thankful when no-iron polyesters came along.

Mother was a country school teacher prior to her marriage to my dad. After he died, she went back to teaching, and taught at the Beaman School for three years, from the fall of 1939 until the spring of 1942, where she was affectionately called "Popcorn Sally" because she loved popcorn. She was a strong advocate of women pursuing an education and continued further education on weekends and during summer months until she received her Masters' Degree. Throughout my life, she was and continues to be a very strong role model for me.

I started school in first grade at What Cheer. There was no kindergarten. Mother continued teaching in country schools, and wherever she taught, I attended. When I was in third grade, she taught in Thornburg, Iowa, so she became my third grade teacher. For my sixth and seventh grades, I was in What Cheer, living with my grandparents. When I was in eighth grade, Mother was principal at Rose Hill, Iowa, and when I was going into ninth grade, Mother accepted the position of principal for first through twelfth grades as well as English teacher at Murray Community School. That was when Merle and I became acquainted. We both attended the Murray Church of Christ. Merle and I began dating when I was in my sophomore year in high school. He is six years older than I, and mother was concerned about me dating this older man. The minister gave Merle a good reference, and she allowed me to continue seeing him.

We continued to live with my grandparents at What Cheer. The two years Mom and I were at Murray, we stayed in Mrs. Eva (Gradey) Wetzel's home, which was just two blocks east of the school At the time, Grandmother was in ill health, so nearly every weekend Mom and I returned to What Cheer to help with the cleaning, clothes washing, and meal preparation for the following week.

When I was in eleventh grade, Mother accepted a position as County Supervisor of Crawford County, in Denison, Iowa. Because of Grandmother's ill health, my mother and I thought it best for me to continue high school staying with my grandparents and helping them. By that time there were five who needed care - both grandparents, Uncle Bernie, Great-uncle John Sundburg, and Art who was able to take care of himself, but needed help with meals. Both grandmothers died within a month of each other. My paternal grandmother died in December 1952, and Tillie died less than a month later. I continued to help take care of Grandpa and his sons, my uncles. That was my situation when I was in high school. I was at Murray for my freshman and sophomore years, and for my junior and senior years at What Cheer.

When I was 17 years old, Mother remarried, and I was adopted by my step-father. It was a rather unusual situation. I was still in high school and he didn't need to adopt me, but he had been single until he married Mother, so he had no children. He simply wanted to adopt me, and did.

I graduated in 1953, and that fall enrolled in the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Des Moines. I had lots on my mind in addition to school. Uncle Art kept saying they would be okay but it was a worry. Nursing was a three year course in which we did a little bit of everything. Nowadays they train in more specialized skills, but we had a broader training that included mental health, surgery, and obstetrics. We could serve in the medical or orthopedic wards, or in the emergency room. We did rotations so we covered every department.

Merle and I became engaged in November of my senior year in high school, and he went into the service in December 1951. He served in the Marines during the Korean War. He was a Sergeant serving as a radar man. He was discharged in December 1953. I completed my nurses' training in 1956, and Merle and I were married on November 17 of that year. Merle was a farmer, living on a farm next to his parents. His farming was diversified, with beans, com, hay, and he had a herd of cattle, but mainly Merle was a major hog producer. He wanted me to be a farmer's wife and not work outside the home. This house was not modem, but I was accustomed to that, so it was not a big deal. Three years later, in the fall when Kevin was due, a new addition was built onto the house. It was modernized and a partial basement was added.

I did what farmers' wives did in those years-I had a large garden, raised and canned lots of vegetables, fruit, and meat. By the time the growing season was over, I expected to have 100 quarts of green beans, corn, and a variety of fruits put away for winter. We had an orchard with pears, cherries, and a variety of apples including Jonathan, Wealthy, Transparent, and Crab Apples, which I spiced. We grew grapes from which I made jelly, jam, and my mother-in-law taught me how to make grape pie. A hot grape pie was always a special treat, but a lot of work because the grapes had to be picked, washed, stemmed, skinned, then the pulp was cooked and run through a sieve. That was added back to the skins, cooked, thickened, poured into a crust, and baked. They are not well known these days.

We hired the locker to butcher the cattle we raised to eat. Some of it I processed for canned beef. Each year we bought baby chicks. Some we kept to become laying hens, which provided us eggs. Some we butchered and froze for fried chicken, and the adult laying hens we butchered to can. It made for a lot of work in the summer but easy meals in the cold winter. Nothing tasted better than creamed chicken and biscuits, or noodles with chicken or beef. We did very little grocery buying. There were (and still are) many advantages to being a homemaker, including financial.

Merle and I have four children, two boys and two girls. Kevin was born on October 4, 1959; Cheryl on September 22, 1960; Joyce on October 7, 1963, and David on September 10, 1973. I have always felt very fortunate that we have two boys and two girls. Kevin and Cheryl were born while we lived at the west farm. They were full of life, and being close in age, were like two peas in a pod. Merle's folks, Stanley and Marie Klein, retired and moved to town in the fall of 1962. At that time we moved to the east farm where his folks had lived. They had a Delco system for electricity, and by the time Merle and I moved there, REC (Rural Electric Co op) had come through. Joyce was born the following fall and David ten years later. All the children were involved in 4H as soon as they could join.

In the fall of 1966, a government grant was available to fund a school nurse position at Murray. Beverly Edwards was hired and was there one month when she had the opportunity to go from part time at Murray to fulltime at Osceola. Beverly and I had become acquainted when she came to visit with our son Kevin, who had sustained a broken arm while teeter-tottering at school. At this time, she told me about the school nurse position being available and encouraged me to apply. Since it was only part time and our youngest child was now three years old, I applied for and got the position. Now, in 2003, I've been there 37 years and my, how the time has flown! And what changes have been made!

My original office was above the third floor of the school, in a space commonly referred to as the old clock room. It seemed like a long way up when I looked down three flights at little kindergartners on their way to see me. The room was just large enough for a cot. I had no desk and no sink. The water was hauled in a pitcher from the water fountain in the hallway, emptied into a basin, and the waste carried to the other end of the building in a five-gallon bucket. My equipment consisted of a thermometer, band aids, dressings, a blanket, and an emesis pan. There were staff people who thought even that was unnecessary. Surely a school nurse would do little more than apply band aids.

Those were my accommodations for two or three years, and then Superintendent Eugene Hess thought I should have something more convenient, so the south side of the home economics room was petitioned off for my quarters. I was tickled that I now had access to a sink, which had served the former industrial arts room. The room was long and narrow. There was not much room on either side of a bed, but it sufficed. At least, I didn't have to go clear to the end of the hall for water. The room looked out over the balcony of what, when Merle and I went to school, served as the gymnasium and cafeteria. Tables were put down for eating and put back up when it was time for PE (physical education) or other such activities. The hallway outside the nurse's office used to be where spectators sat on bleachers in the balcony looking down on the recessed gym. At the time my office was moved there, a new gym had been built on the south end of the existing school building. The old gym still served as the cafeteria and the stage was the cooks' kitchen. The stage is currently the learning resource area. The old gym and cafeteria are presently the weight room.

The third move was in 1979 when the elementary lunch room addition was built. In addition to the lunch room, there were the superintendent's and secretary's offices, board room, and nurse’s office. That was all part of the contact area. There was also the kindergarten, first and second grade rooms. That was the arrangement I found handiest of the various nurse's offices, because of the proximity to rest rooms and other facilities. The most recent move was when the elementary library addition was completed in August 1995. The new addition also included classrooms for third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades, a room for the learning resource and remedial reading teachers, and a large community room. That was petitioned off and is now the ICN satellite room and an additional first grade room. The present nurse’s office is the largest of the four in which I have worked.

I have had the opportunity to serve fewer than seven superintendents. Mr. Eugene Hess from 1966-1972, Cecil McGinnis from the fall of 1972 to spring 1980, Phil Wainwright, 1980-1982; Dan Roe, fall of 1982 to spring 1986, Mr. James Paulsen 1986-1987, Mr. Lynn Padellford 12 years, 1987 to 1999, and Dr. Dennis Bishop from 1999 to the present. Each one was special and unique in their own way, and all of them wanted to do the very best for the Murray School system and the community.

My education has been ongoing. In June 1956, I graduated from the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing. For 2 1/2 years Loretta Eckels, Virginia Ogan, and I attended night classes in Des Moines once or twice a week to attain our degrees. In 1979, I graduated from the College of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois having earned a Bachelor of Science degree, with a health-art major. This was the same year my daughter Cheryl graduated from high school and I thought it kind of neat that we graduated at the same time.

In 1988 I received a teacher's certification from Graceland College in Lamoni to teach health from seventh through twelfth grades. At that time the state mandated that schools offer health classes, so in 1989 I started teaching health classes in grades nine and twelve at Murray Community School. Because I currently have a vocational occupation teaching endorsement, for the past four years I have been the health occupational teacher. In the first semester of the course, classes on health occupation are offered to show the various health careers available, and the second semester is for learning about CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation), First Aid, then going on to become a Certified Nurse Aide. At that point students are ready to go to the hospital to practice the skills required to become a CNA. After they have completed the course, they can take a test at Southwestern Community College, and if they pass the skills and written tests they are qualified to be a CNA in a hospital or nursing home setting.

Even though lots of things have changed over the years that I have been teaching and students are more often confronted with decisions we of past generations didn’t have to make - some of a serious nature - one thing has never changed: students still need lots of TLC (tender loving care), lots of encouragement, and they need to know that someone cares for and is sincerely interested in them. They often come to my office; sometimes they need change of pace, sometimes just a break, before they go back to their work refreshed - like the rest of us.

Many duties of 'a school nurse has remained the same, and some have been different. We still do yearly vision screening, height and weight measurements, and take care of emergency needs. What has increased is record keeping, charting, and more requirements to stay qualified for nursing and teaching. There are more responsibilities, involvements, and meetings. I serve on various boards; attend meetings of Family First, Empowerment, Rural Iowa Crisis Center, Clarke County Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Youth First. There are committee meetings dealing with kids at risk, the School to Work program, Main Street, Human Growth and Development - which is part of the science curriculum- and lots of school related meetings.

There are more educational programs such as seat belt, school bus, and bicycle safety, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, AIDS, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), and many other current issues. There are more head lice problems. When I started and for several years afterward, I didn't know what they looked like. Now I know quite well. It continues to be an ongoing problem in all school systems. All of these increased responsibilities coincide with the cuts in state support and services.

In early years of school nursing, one of my responsibilities was to do the hearing screening of all students. I was able to borrow the county’s audiometer, but now Green Valley ABA (Area Education Association) does all the testing and I help to coordinate it. School nurses for years used to test for t.b. (tuberculosis), but we no longer do that. When polio, red measles, and German measles vaccines were first perfected, they were offered by Clarke County Public Health. Now, when asked to do so, we serve as clinics for Public Health, and they come to our school to do this, offering flu, tetanus, and hepatitis vaccines, so that more students can be reached.

In 1966 there was no Clarke County Public Health Service or Mental Health Service. Andrea Lorenz, county psychologist, saw the need for mental health service in Clarke County. She called together the school nurses - Virginia Ogan, Beverly Edwards, and I - and we became involved in trying to raise a county-wide awareness. Richard Hill of Murray was a county supervisor and he, too, saw the need. It took close to three years to get organized, during which time Richard and I went to many local meetings trying to get people interested. The only county that responded was Union. Richard informed them that with or without them, we in Clarke County were forming our own mental health service. Their supervisors agreed to go along with us.

We chose the name Crossroads Mental Health for several reasons: (1) At that time we thought Osceola would be the main office, and Osceola was the crossroads of Highway 34 and Interstate 35. (2) We noted that sometimes people seeking mental health assistance are at crossroads in their lives and need help and guidance in decision making. Our first director was Mary Chase, a graduate of Murray Community School and a former classmate of mine. I was not aware of this until after she was appointed and it was a pleasant surprise. I have always felt fortunate to have been able to help with the creation of Crossroads and to serve on the board for many years.

Another project that I became involved in is CRD (Community Resource Development) which was formed in 1975. The goal is to take resources that are available in your particular community and improve life styles in the area. It was the result of a grant through Iowa State Extension Service, which allowed money for college students to work in the summertime to organize youth in the communities surrounding Creston to help improve their communities. In that year and every year since, Murray has entered the Iowa Community Betterment program, with a variety of projects to enhance and improve our community. Complementing the broader program, in the same year we formed the Murray Community Betterment Organization. This is mainly a youth organization with adults lending advice as needed. The main adult advisors for many years have been Faye Leeps, Eva Mae Shannon, and myself. Carolyn Crabb has been a wonderful helper the last couple of years.

Iowa Community Betterment is a state-wide contest that requires a scrap book entry. In 1975 the book was compiled by Beta Sigma Phi Sorority's service committee, of which I was a part. This entails a lot of work, but since 1976, I have been able to get volunteers from adult advisors and others to help with the scrap book. More communities have submitted entries but since 1975, we are the only youth group in Iowa that has consistently done this. The reason we continue is because we see the value to our community to enhance, improve, and restore our various existing facilities and add new ones. Although not strictly confined to youth from second through twelfth grades, it is primarily their work, with some older and younger people assisting. Also many adult volunteers have offered their assistance and expertise. The grant to college students only lasted two or three years. After that it was strictly local volunteer involvement from the Murray community.

Through the years other grants have been obtained, to accomplish such projects as painting fire hydrants, lowering the ceilings in the Community Center and later insulating it. We have installed insulation in several homes, winterized windows, etc. We have put up street signs. In Mallory park, we built rest rooms, a multi-purpose tennis court complete with lighting, made a sandbox play area complete with a little digger, and installed a merry-go-round, a spiral slide, and a bronco rider. We restored a park shelter house, a bench for the adults to sit on, and have twice restored the historic band stand. We have also landscaped around the various buildings at the park, at a Murray mini-park, and the Community Center.

Our most recent ongoing project is "Brush College." This was a rural school - Madison Township #5. In 1993 this little school was located five miles north of Murray on R15. After the country schools in Clarke County were closed in 1952, this little school house served as a township voting place until 1990. After 1990 the voting was moved to the town of Murray. There came a time when the school building was going back to the owner of the land. Several of us from CRD investigated the situation and decided it was worth saving. We applied for a grant, which we did not receive, but enough interest was generated to encourage us to do it on our own. Fund raisers were started by CRD and by May of 1996, we were able to move the building into town. There were many complications in acquiring the land, which belonged to the county due to unpaid taxes. Much credit must be given to Steve Smith, a Clarke County Supervisor that the building now stands beside the log cabin on the comer of Maple and Fifth Street.

The building had structural complications. The chimney had to be rebuilt and a large beam on the south side had rotted and had to be replaced. Beams of that vintage were no longer available, but fortunately we were able to obtain one of the beams from the Murray Baptist Church, which had been demolished. This was a dangerous undertaking and it is due to the efforts of Danny McNeal and Merle Klein that it was accomplished. The interior has also been restored, keeping in mind our goal of honoring the 1900 vintage as closely as we can.

The project involved many people. Replacing the old shingles with wood shingles, as it was originally built, required several days of work by my son David Klein, and Danny McNeal, my son-in-law. Les Pearce power-sprayed the old paint, and CRD members and volunteers applied several new coats. Don Reasoner and Harold (Junior) Allen replaced the old wiring charging nothing for their labor. Young people of CRD annually plant and maintain several landscaping beds at Brush College and throughout town (two parks and the Community Center).

For the Murray CRD Youth entry in the Iowa Community Betterment contest for 2003, we held a bake sale at Wal-Mart in Creston, for a matching funds grant up to $500. We applied for a second matching grant from the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) called "Operation: Green thumb by Murray CRD Youth." With the resulting $2,000, plus other money from CRD fund-raisers, we were able to plant a total of 31 trees at the school, and the two city parks. They were planted, mulched, watered, and staked, by children pre-school through eighth grade, FFA (Future Farmers of America), CRD, and other student and adult volunteers.

When I think back over the years, I am reminded of so many ups and downs, happy moments and sad. When I first became the school nurse, many of my friends thought school nursing would be boring. I have found it to be anything but that. It is a pleasure, with each day being different, unique, and special. One of my saddest experiences was many years ago, helping a very special family with three children. They had been living in a barn but because of intervention by DRS (Department of Human Services), they moved into a small shed. I became involved when a teacher called my attention to the lack of personal hygiene of the oldest child. I began helping her at school, with the parents' permission, of course. The involvement escalated to a point that Merle and I moved a hog house to their farm and cleaned it, so they had an additional dwelling. Later with the help of volunteers, we moved a farm house that Syd Gross donated to the family. Tragedy followed tragedy and I was on hand to bandage the youngest son, one year of age, for a time after he sustained severe bums, which required several weeks of hospitalization at Iowa City. For approximately six months, Merle and I served as foster parents for the two little boys. The little girl, age 10, died of a ruptured appendix, and several years later, after they had moved from the district, the entire family perished in a house fire.

The happy memories are numerous, and each day that I work at school more are added. A very special and pleasant surprise came last March when I was presented with the "The Golden Apple" award from WHO TV. Beth Gilbert and Darcy Aschan, two of my health occupation students, had nominated me for this prestigious honor.

Just now I am fortunate to see six of my 13 grandchildren every school day. It is a joy to see all the children and help them with their health needs and problems. It takes so little to make a child happy. Each one is special and unique. We must always remember they are our most precious resource and take care of them. They are our future.

Many of the things I do have future implications. I currently serve on the Clarke County Resource Conservation and Development Board, the Southern Iowa Resource Conservation and Development Area, Inc., and I serve as a commissioner for the Clarke County Soil and Water District. All three of these boards have a common thread of enhancing, preserving, and protecting our natural resources of soil and water, not only for current use but for future generations to come.

This story was begun primarily as an attempt to tell about the Murray school and the position of school nurse. I am conscious of having used "I," "me," and "my" too many times, but it goes without saying that I have done none of this alone. In all our married life, Merle has played the role of helping me dig out of whatever I have gotten myself into. We have been extremely blessed with four children, their spouses, and 13 grandchildren. The youngest is a baby girl born on Mother's Day, May 11, 2003; the oldest is our granddaughter, 19 years of age, who will be wed in December 2003. And so the circle of life continues, and what is so great is that Merle and I are still living and enjoying every minute. As the movie with Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart says, "It's a wonderful life!"