Lila Wade of Horse Island, teacher in Arbon's one-room schools

In September 1925 Power County's list of teachers named Lila M. Wade as the teacher of District 12's school at Arbon Center, in the Arbon valley. The American Falls Press noticed her in a handful of short items over ten years, and almost seventy years later her obituary remembered her as a teacher in Arbon's one-room schools. This is what those papers say, and where they leave gaps.

A girl from Horse Island

Lila Wade was born on August 5, 1900, at Stone, a few miles southwest of Buist, the daughter of Clarence B. Wade and Marion Minerva Driscoll Wade, as her obituary records.

Horse Island was a settlement on the Snake River above American Falls, outside the Arbon valley. In September 1911, when about seventy Latter-day Saints from American Falls chartered the boat Power City and went some twelve miles up the river to hold a Sunday service there, the address of welcome was given by C. B. Wade, very probably her father.

In January 1916 the Press's notes on the country schools included this:

Two girls from Horse Island, Lila Wade and Ruby Hoff took the eighth grade examination in American Falls last week. Miss Jessie Sperry is their teacher.

Her obituary says that she attended the Arbon elementary schools. This item places her, at fifteen, at Horse Island as a pupil of Miss Sperry, and the papers read for this post do not show whether she had gone to school in the Arbon valley before that.

In November 1922 the Press reported that students at the Idaho "Tech" in Pocatello, the school that later became Idaho State College, had honored two American Falls girls. The scanned text names them as Maria Schild and "Ula Wade"; the second was probably Lila. Miss Wade had been elected "secretary of the senior vocational group," and the paper explained who those students were:

Some of the Senior vocationals will enter the college departments next year and some will take up their trades. In each of these groups are students who have lacked the previous opportunity of taking up high school work earlier in life.

Her obituary says she graduated from high school and later earned a degree in elementary education from Idaho State College, but it gives no years. In December 1923 the Horse Island news column had her going with friends to a dance at Sterling.

The school next door to the oil well

On September 17, 1925, the Press printed the county superintendent's list of teachers for the coming year. Mrs. Darling named Edna Bailey for District 11's Valley View school and, next, "District No. 12—Arbon Center. Lila M. Wade, teacher." The Arbon Center school was probably the Central school that the valley's family histories call Green Top; the Arbon area history lists the Central (Green Top) school as District 12.

A few weeks later Mrs. Darling made an inspection visit to the rural schools of the Arbon valley, and her report ran on the Press's front page on October 29, 1925. She found the trustees, clerks and people of the valley "very much aware of the value of good rural schools." The District 12 school, she wrote, was "next door to the Arbon oil well"; the valley's oil tests had begun in 1921. The scan blurs the teacher's first name and her home, but the September list shows who Miss Wade was.

Mrs. Darling found pupils and teacher as interested in their work as at Valley View, and the building made ready for the opening of school: the walls clean, the "floor nicely oiled and blackboards in good shape." There was a large room where the children could play basketball when the weather kept them indoors, and a good barn for the horses. At Valley View, she had noted, the pupils' horses stood tied to the fence with no protection from storms.

That is the last the papers read here say of her at the Arbon school. How long she taught there, and at which other valley schools, they do not record.

Remembered in 1994

Lila Wade Evans died on March 19, 1994, in Roy, Utah, at the age of 93. Her obituary in the Ogden Standard-Examiner called her a former teacher in Arbon Valley and Lava Hot Springs. It says she "taught in one-room schools in Arbon," and afterwards taught the second and third grades at Lava Hot Springs for many years; its sentence on her retirement is muddled, giving both the early 1960s and 1968.

In 1944 she married David V. Evans; they later divorced. The obituary says nothing more about him. He was probably David Voile Evans, born in 1904 to Dave and Hannah Evans of Arbon; the site's family research notes list Lila Wade as his wife, married in 1944, though no newspaper read for this post makes the link.

The obituary remembered that she loved to sing and enjoyed drawing, and added: "Her school students were recipients of her talents in music and poetry." Her funeral was set for March 22 in Pocatello, with burial there in Mountain View Cemetery.

Other teachers the obituaries remember

Two more Standard-Examiner obituaries of the 1980s recall teachers who taught in Arbon Valley, though neither says when. Both trained at the state normal school at Albion, Idaho, which prepared teachers.

Edith May Stuart Harris of Stone, who died on December 22, 1988, at 87, had grown up and gone to school in the Arbon Valley area and graduated from Malad High School. She earned her teaching certificate at Albion and later a degree in education at Utah State University. She married Charles Edwin "Ted" Harris in the Logan temple on May 29, 1924, and taught in Arbon Valley, Stone, Malad and Snowville until she retired in 1963.

Waldorf "Wally" Evans Morse of Samaria, who died on May 17, 1986, was a Malad High School graduate and served in the Army in the Philippines during the Second World War. He taught in Arbon Valley, Samaria, Cobalt, Patterson, Salmon and Blackfoot, and farmed near Samaria in the summers.

The article as printed

American Falls Press, October 29, 1925, page 1. Transcribed from the page scan.

HIGHLY PRAISED BY [illegible]
MRS. DARLING INSPECTS FIVE DISTRICT SCHOOLS, BRINGING BACK ENTHUSIASTIC REPORT OF WORK ACCOMPLISHED.
GOOD ADMINISTRATION
Capable Work by Trustees Responsible for Good School Buildings and Equipment—Teachers Interested in Work.
School trustees, clerks and people of Arbon valley are very much aware of the value of good rural schools and have shown by their cooperation with the teachers, by their interest in repairing school buildings and equipment and by their support of all activities pertaining to the schools, the appreciation of these educational faculties, was the report of Mrs. Darling, county superintendent of schools who has just returned from making an inspection visit to the rural schools of Arbon valley. Mrs. Darling's report in full follows:
District No. 11, Arbon valley school in charge of Miss Edna Bailey was well pleased with the interest displayed by both teacher and pupils. The board has supplied the teacher with an abundance of material to do with, which is not often the case in rural schools. The two great needs of this school are water and a barn for the horses. Many of the pupils ride or drive and the poor horses are tied to the fence with no protection from storms.
The clerk of this district is Eddie Davis, chairman, C. C. [illegible] and Bruce [illegible]
District No. 12, Arbon school—This school is next door to the Arbon oil well. Miss [illegible] Wade of Horse Island is in charge of the school. The same interest of pupils and teachers is manifest here. Everything had been done to prepare the building for the opening of school: walls were clean, floor nicely oiled and blackboards in good shape.
This school has a giant stride on the grounds and a large room for basketball when the [illegible] not permit play out of doors [illegible] a good barn for the horses. Lew Carter is clerk here. Melvin Bailey, chairman and Wm. Allard, third member.
District No. [illegible]—Pauline [illegible] Pauline school is in charge [illegible] Delbert [illegible] grades; Miss Muriel [illegible] who taught there [illegible] of the lower grades [illegible] has taken [illegible] amount of [illegible] in repairing the house and grounds in preparation for [illegible]
District No. [illegible] This is a very small building [illegible] it makes up [illegible] been given a [illegible] the floor had received [illegible] of floor oil, the wainscoting has been freshly varnished; desks, tables and bookcase had [illegible] When I commented on the inexpensive playground apparatus [illegible] out of poles from the hills, the clerk reminded me that he and another gentleman had walked in snow to [illegible] to get the poles to make this [illegible] simple swing pole and teeter-totter. They have balls to play with and a gentleman teacher, Alton [illegible], who is ready to play with them at noon and recesses. The only things they are in need of, a well and more pupils. The [illegible] but seven boys and girls, with [illegible] above the sixth grade. Hyrum Lewis is the clerk of this district, Bill Richards, chairman and O. Armstrong, third member.
District No. 14—Crystal school. Here I found an unusual amount of pride taken in making things attractive to teacher and pupils. The school house inside and out had received a new coat of paint. The building is large and airy. There is a barn, protected from the storms by hills. I found the teacher well supplied with material for constructive work, but with a very small library for so awake a school.
Miss [illegible] of Downey is in charge and was making preparations for a Hallowe'en party to which the whole community was to be [illegible]
This district is preparing to open another school for a group of children living a distance of seven or more miles from this school house. The group of children attended this school last year, but the exposure and discomforts were too great, so a temporary school will be established for the winter. They hope to begin on Monday, November [illegible], Mrs. [illegible] Wright is clerk of District 14; Frank Blair, chairman and John [illegible] third member.

On this site: the Stories entry on Maude Evans, the valley's first teacher; the schools of Arbon Valley and the school memories with their class photographs; and two later Arbon Elementary teachers, Lois Anne Stewart, who taught the lower grades from 1964 for eight years and was probably the "Mrs. Stewart" of the 1966–1967 class photograph, and Cindy Pierce, who retired in 2010 after 22 years.