Readin’, Writin’ & ‘Rithmetic with a Fearless Female

N THE LATE 19th AND EARLY 20th CENTURIES thou­sands of women across Canada & the U.S. sought a mea­sure of inde­pen­dence and finan­cial secu­rity in one of the few avenues open to them — teach­ing. Among them were sev­eral Switzer-Merrill ances­tors includ­ing my grand­mother & both great-grandmothers. For the lat­ter, their careers began after pass­ing a coun­try schoolteacher’s exam, were spent within their home com­mu­ni­ties, and came to an abrupt end when they married. In my grandmother’s case the road to the class­room, and her expe­ri­ences there, were quite dif­fer­ent.1

Nor­mal Schools: From the Class­room to the Classroom

Apgar School­house
Apgar, Mon­tana
Photo pro­vided by V. Shulmeister

By the time Grace Mer­rill decided to become a teacher for­mal train­ing was required and after grad­u­at­ing from West­ern Illi­nois Nor­mal School at Macomb she began her career in 1913. Her first posi­tion was in Viola, Illi­nois where she was paid the princely sum of $55 a month — about half of what male teach­ers earned2 — and had no pen­sion or job secu­rity. Over the next 4 years she would change posi­tions 3 times in as many states, before return­ing to Illi­nois in 1918.

These gypsy-like move­ments may have been the result of that poor job secu­rity or just a desire on my grandmother’s part to exer­cise her inde­pen­dence and see a bit of the world. Regard­less, wher­ever she worked she was ruled by admin­is­tra­tions that were almost exclu­sively male and her con­duct in and out of school was closely mon­i­tored and rigidly con­trolled. Liv­ing arrange­ments were either with the fam­i­lies of her stu­dents — some­times mov­ing from one home to another — or per­haps in a teacher­age which was often lit­tle more than a shack lack­ing even basic comforts.

Franklin School
Rock Island, Illi­nois
Photo pro­vided by V. Shulmeister

After fin­ish­ing a two-year con­tract in Stephen, Min­nesota she spent the sum­mer of 1916 in Air­drie, Alberta with her par­ents3 (who had emigrated the year before) returning to the U.S. in the fall to teach in Apgar, Montana. The following year she was in Sandpoint, Idaho and the year after that, Rock Island, Illinois. By then her pay had risen to $90 a month and she'd moved from one-room schoolhouses to a large departmental school but little else had changed. It was during this time she renewed her friendship with my grandfather and the prospect of marriage entered the equation. A situation that still had a profound effect on most female teachers' careers4.

Transitions...

After marrying on March 4, 1921 my grandparents rented a farm located a stone's throw from the Pleasant Hill country school in McDonough county, Illinois. Here my grandmother finished out the school year in what would be her final teaching postion. She was excited to be earning extra money by taking on the janitor duties but must have known her days in the classroom were numbered. By the time summer rolled around she was pregnant and while the local school board may have tolerated a married teacher, a pregnant one was a different story entirely. Her teaching days were done. Or were they? With six children arriving over the next 10 years and decades of child-rearing ahead of her, maybe her most important teaching had only just begun.

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Fearless Females: 31 Days of Blogging Prompts
All March posts are in celebration of Women's History Month and inspired by Lisa Alzo's 31 inspirational writing prompts. Visit her blog at The Accidental Genealogist.