Olive Shadle--School Teacher
LeMars Globe-Post
February 24, 1949
The snows of many winters have blanketed the final resting place of Olive Shadle, a little Iowa school teacher who taught in LeMars schools in the early 1900s. Surviving friends and former pupils of Miss Shadle will remember her as a silvery-haired little woman who was a success in her teaching job and a great favorite in the community. She was an energetic church worker and a prominent member of the P. E.O. Society. Because of her many years as an educator, fond parents often sought her out when in need of help and advice.
Olive Shadle was the third child in a family of thirteen children. To help with family finances, Miss Shadle early in life prepared herself for a teaching job—in those days, about the only work open to women. At that, it was a miserably paid profession, and a good teacher was often paid as little as $500 for a whole year’s work.
When Miss Shadle arrived in LeMars, she was nearing the half-century mark in years. As a teacher, she had earned thrice-over the so called sabbatical year without taking it.
While in LeMars, Miss Shadle saved against the day she would take her year of rest, and which she would spend in travel and further study. Out of her meager earnings, she had saved the cost of a trip to Europe and those little extras bound to occur. Granted a year’s leave from her teaching job in LeMars, she made final preparations for her long deferred trip.
However, before actual start of her long journey, Miss Shadle decided to pay a short visit in the home of her brother, then living in Chicago. It was during this brief visit that Miss Shadle was stricken. Removed to a hospital, she was found to be suffering from an incurable ailment and was given but a short time to live. She died within the year.
