Mrs. Wm. Bates) had homesteaded and Laura (Hurford) Tanner taught the school.

"Terms" then may have meant a "spring term" and a "fall term." "Terms" then did not run through the winter months. Therefore, a teacher may have taught two terms in one year.

Others who taught in those first years included Anna Hughes, daughter of Philip A. Hughes. She later married Jim Orr, who had homesteaded the SW 1/4 of Section 31, Twp. 24, Range 2, and was to become the mother of Jos. Orr whom many of the old timers of this day remember. Mrs. George Rouse taught for a time and her son Ed Rouse was a student. Ed Rouse later owned the land now owned by Mrs. Pete Glandt.

Alberta Light, W. C. "Deb" Wilberger, Dave Whitla and Joe Brechler, also taught at some time. Joe Brechler was instrumental in purchasing the old school bell which now graces the front of our high school. When Mr. Brechler died of appendicitis May 8, 1888, the bell was tolled as the funeral procession wended its way to the cemetery south of town.

Students by this time — the late seventies and early eighties — were the youngsters who had come with their parents, or who were indeed, the first babies born in the settlement.

This would include Willie, Rudy, and Andy Tiedgen and their sisters Carrie (Mrs. Chas. Hale), Dora (Mrs. Fred Brechler who was in fact, the first white baby born in the settlement or area of Battle Creek, Oct. 11, 1870), the Lucht children, Mary, Anna (Mrs. Chas. Schroeder), John Jr., and his younger sister Rose (Mrs. Reeker now residing in the Rest Home in Tilden). The Barnes, O'Neill, Hale, and Tomhagen children; also the Edens, Gardels, Avery, Beck, and other children, even Mollie herself, as the Taylor family came in 1882, and attended this school.

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