Yes, I'm writing the story of my life. I haven't done the things that make the newspaper. My life is made up of a lot of the "never" things - well, it's like straw in a way. S - I never saw a real live opera, dressed all up in a long dress with a bare bosom. T - I never traveled abroad. R - I never ran a nightclub. A - I never acted in a movie. W - I never worked in a bar in a topless dress. But it has been my life, and I have rather enjoyed it for 83 years.

My Early Home

On December 9, 1890, I was born in a little house in the country about a mile from Whiting, Iowa, a small town near Sioux City. My mother was Lura Sisson, a wonderfully good woman. She did not have advanced education, but her excellent common sense made her capable of many, many things.

My father, Grant Stephenson, for some reason which I never learned left my mother. She received a divorce when I was so young I didn't know about it. She retained her maiden name, and I was also called by that name - Elsie Sisson.

Elsie's parents, Grant Stephenson and Lura Sisson, Monona County, Iowa ca 1888

The doctor who brought me into the world was Dr. Kerlin, a young man just out of medical training. He always made a big fuss over me, and for years I kept a doll which he gave me. Mom named it Caroline, as near Kerlin as she could.

Since I can remember, I lived in the town of Whiting with my mother and grandmother. We had a comfortable home, not fancy. In those days furnaces were not in vogue in Whiting. We had a big, old, hard-coal stove with isinglass in the sides, so you could always see the fire. On one side there was an engraved picture of a boy stealing apples. Mama said I called the apples "rounds" when I was little. We lived two blocks from Main Street and three blocks from the school house. We used kerosene lamps and a black cook-stove which had a reservoir on the back, where water was heated. The water was carried to the house from a pump a short distance away. As I grew old enough to help, my evening chores were to bring in hard coal, soft coal, cobs, wood and water. I used to recite the list so I wouldn't forget anything.

Elsie as a young child

We took a bath on Saturday nights in a wash tub. In the winter we wore long underwear, which Mom made me wear each year until the last day of school in the spring. I hated that long underwear. Don't think I didn't.

When I started to school, I was a bit disappointed the first day. The teacher, Miss Ramsdell, made me stand at a table just my height and write the letter C. It must be made this way "C". Oh, how tired and discouraged I was that first day.

Sometimes I had a little trouble. One day Sidney Dudley, who sat in front, reached around and grabbed my pencil. I made a dive for it, and Miss Ramsdell saw me - not Sidney. She made me sit for a week at a desk up in the front of the room. I never felt that punishment was justified, but I got used to sitting in the corner and before my week was up, I really enjoyed it.

Another time I was punished because I disagreed with the teacher about spelling. I had always heard a word pronounced "Apern" so I told her that was the way you spelled apron. For some reason she didn't believe me, and when I insisted she made me sit on the bottom step of the long flight of stairs leading to the second story. Toilets were out doors, and whenever one of those big boys from high school left the room, they had to come down those steps. They seemed so big, and I was just plain scared of them. I suppose they had a lot of fun kidding me.

I had two pals all through school. Verna Lane was born the very same day I was, so we were the best of twins. Bernice Patterson was three years younger. The three of us had fun, although usually two of us were mad at the other one and scrapped unmercifully. That was fun!

In summer the neighbor kids and I had enjoyable times putting on shows. A fire well was on our corner, and it had a good-sized platform, which served as a stage for all our programs. A park was "catty wampers" from us. There we used to play in the fallen leaves in the autumn. Many a leaf house we made with rooms enough for a mansion.

High School

In high school Fred Stewart was the superintendent for a while. I adored him. Miss Leathers was the pretty teacher who taught us poetry. I took Latin all four years and loved it. That teacher was very particular, and thanks to her I learned a lot of good study habits, etc. The only time my mother ever went to school was when I couldn't get geometry. Oh, well, it all finally dawned on me one day in spring.

Our school had only eleven grades until the time when I reached there. Then they decided to add a twelfth grade. The kids could graduate from the eleventh, or wait and take the next year. Bernice Patterson, my pal, and I both wanted to teach. To enter college we would need that year. The rest graduated, which left Bernice and me as the only seniors who graduated in 1909. For our commencement program we each gave an oration. Then we had a short play. My oration was on "Monona County." It took considerable work to get all that history. Then we practiced every day for weeks. When the night came, I forgot the best story in my whole speech and never realized I had omitted it until later.

Our play was called "The Sweet Girl Graduate." I was the "sweet girl" and Bernice played the part of the mother. Some of the eleventh graders played other parts to help us out. I think my "head" was the biggest then that it ever was. I was so proud of graduating that it swelled my head far too much. When I got older, I could understand teen agers whenever I would think back.

We girls had "cases" on some of the boys in those days. We didn't have dates as the young folks do now. In our little town there were no picture shows then, so the only entertainments we had were parties at some of the homes. Then the boys would take us home, and we were proud of those times for many a day.

When I was in high school, I worked as relief operator in the telephone office. I loved to do that. Practically everybody in town and country on that phone exchange knew me. That was the reason why I had what to me was a delightful special honor. A medicine show was in town. With each ticket bought a vote was cast for the most popular lady. I won the contest, and my prize was a rocking chair. I kept that for years until Mom gave up house keeping and came to live with me when I was married.

First Teaching Experience

Bernice and I each taught a country school our first year out of high school. We had to take examinations at the court house in Onawa. I was a good high school student and my grades were high. We did not have physiology in high school, which meant when we took the exams that I got 99 in arithmetic, 98 in grammar, and 55 in physiology. I think they just gave me the 55 because my other grades were good. That meant I got only a third grade certificate. Mom had a girl tutor me, and when I took the exam again, I was able to have a second grade. You couldn't have a first grade certificate until after you had taught.

My first school was about 3 1/2 miles from Whiting. There weren't cars, so unless I was lucky enough to catch a ride in a buggy with someone, I would have to walk. I stayed with some lovely people during the week. Then I'd go home over the weekend. I had a boy friend in Sloan who drove a horse, and that way I often got a ride out on Sunday nite.

The country schools usually had a two month term, after which there was a vacation to give the older boys a chance to help husk the corn. I asked Mr. Hook, the director, if I was to have the school the next term. Big blow to Elsie -- first school and I got fired! He said, "They say you can't work the arithmetic." If ever I was mad, it was then, for arithmetic was my strong subject.

Right away I got a school for the next term. After church the day before I was to begin there, Mr. Hook, who belonged to our church, waited for me in the church entry and said, "Elsie, are you coming to teach in the morning?" I said I had another school. Do you know what he said? His niece from Illinois was coming to teach their school, but now she couldn't come. Hooray! That was what was the matter. They couldn't get a teacher and had to send the pupils to town and pay tuition. I gloried in that.

The new school was farther from home, and I was worried all week lest I won't get to go home. I got so homesick in the country. The family with whom I lived were good to me. Every morning the father took his children and me to school in the bob sled, for there was snow all winter. When the snow quit the roads were muddy. Oh my! I hated to stay there so much that I found a horse and buggy in town that I could hire. One day the mud got so bad that I had to ride the horse. In a field near the road, some horses got to running, and I barely escaped with my neck while riding that pony side saddle.

Before the term was over, the people were having trouble with the phone operator and asked me to take over. I got a teacher to finish for me and took the phone job because I could have work all summer, and I had been planning to go to college in the fall.

Here ends the autobiography, unfinished. Elsie's son, Richard "Dick" McFarland, wrote the following story upon Elsie's death in 1982:

Elsie McFarland Chavannes was a remarkable woman.

She was born in Whiting, Iowa, Dec. 9, 1890. Her father left her and her mother about the time she was born. Her mother, Lura Sisson, took in washing and sewing jobs to support them. That was in the days when you washed clothes in a tub, rubbed them on a scrub board and ran them through a ringer. But they were happy people.

Elsie loved school -- as a student, and then as a teacher. It showed in her school report cards, which she saved over the years. In 30 classes through junior high and high school, she had 29 A's and one B.

She attended Iowa Teachers College (now Northern Iowa University) in Cedar Falls...then the University of Iowa.

She taught in six Iowa high schools -- Whiting, Salix, Oelwein, Blockton, Clearfield and Mt. Ayr -- and in Brookings, S.D. Later she taught at the American Institute of Business in Des Moines.

She majored in Latin, but also taught all kinds of math, English, grammar, history and other subjects. Her first husband, William Harold McFarland, also an educator, said with pride, "Elsie can teach everything but manual training."

William Harold McFarland

She was married to McFarland in 1921. He was school superintendent in three Iowa communities, northwest supervisor in the Iowa Department of Public Instruction (1944-48) and chairman and editor in publishing a new Iowa high school curriculum before his death in 1948.

In 1950 Elsie was married to Arthur E. Chavannes, who was in the printing business in Des Moines. He died in 1969.

Since then she lived with me and my family -- in Detroit, then Roseville.

She retired as a full-time teacher in the 1940s, but she tutored students in Roseville schools as a volunteer as late as the age of 85. She tutored in Parkview Junior High and Lake Owasso Elementary School, and Parkview gave her a certificate of appreciation.

Shortly after then she suffered the first of several strokes that led to her death Monday, Jan. 25, 1982.

A few comments help tell the kind of person she was:

A letter by F.C. Eastman, head of her department at the U. of Iowa, to the Iowa Education Department: "She is bright, versatile; has uncommonly good initiative; a wholesome winning personality; has a cheerful disposition; is an indefatigable worker; will carry a fine influence into both school and community. She will give the best that is in her."

C.M. Duff, school board president in Blockton, said in a letter: "She ranks with the best; an excellent lady who has a smile for all; I have never heard anything but a good word for her."

Son, Dick: "She was a great mother, patient and encouraging. Off-hand the only time I recall her getting angry with me was when my cousin Jim and I disobeyed her orders and went swimming in a farm watering hole called "Guy's Pond," -- a mixture of muddy water, a few cow droppings and a little barbed wire."

Richard "Dick" McFarland

Last Christmas said something important. She was 91. Many of her friends were gone. But more Christmas cards came for "Grandma Elsie" than anyone else in the family.

- Dick McFarland        

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