A Teacher's Teacher - Lulu (Petty) Eicher (1877-1972)

You never know when doing family history research where the road will lead.  A few days ago I was going through pictures and artifacts left to my mother by my great aunt, Mary (Miars) Best.  I found this picture that was not familiar to me.  Thankfully, when I turned the photo over there was helpful writing!!

In pencil on the back of the photo it says "To Mary From Mrs. Eicher".  But who is that? I have never heard this name. Below that writing in pen and in different handwriting it says "My 1st Grade Teacher".  Now my first question was answered - this is a photo of Mrs. Eicher who was Mary's first grade teacher.  But who is Mrs. Eicher and which Mary (there are several in my family!)?

Thankfully, very quickly I recognized the handwriting in pen as that of my great Aunt Mary (Miars) Best. (See related post below for link to a post about Aunt Mary.) She was an elementary school teacher in Peoria County, Illinois for most of her adult life.  How cool is this to find a picture of her teacher!!  But I still didn't really know who "Mrs. Eicher" was or where she taught.  Aunt Mary Best would have attended elementary schools in Elm Grove, Tazewell, Illinois as well as Jubilee, Peoria, Illinois.  It didn't take long to get the answers I was looking for.

Some fellow family history researchers are going to cringe when I say that my first stop was Find A Grave. (1) I searched for anyone with burials in Tazewell County, Illinois and the last name "Eicher".  I came up with a list of several people but when I excluded the males from the list I only had about three female names remaining. I had no first name on the photo to go by so I looked at each of the memorials to see if there were any clues in them.  One of the memorials had an obituary included which after reading it I knew that this was not my person.  Also, all but one of the remaining people were born in the 20th century so I excluded them as well.  Aunt Mary was born in 1906 so no person born after 1900 was going to be who I was looking for.  That really left me with two potential people left.  There was nothing on their memorial page to indicate that they were or were not my person so I had to keep looking.

Next I turned to census records and started with a global search on Ancestry of females in Tazewell County, Illinois in 1910 who's last name was Eicher.  I chose 1910 because I knew that Aunt Mary would have attended school there in the early part of that decade.  By 1920 her family had moved to Peoria County.  This search yielded several different kind of records for a "Lulu Eicher".  There were records for the census for several different years as well as an obituary.  One of my remaining possible memorials on Find A Grave was named "Lulu Petty Eicher"!  How exciting!  Could this be my person?  I opened up the census image for 1910 in Ancestry and saw this person had an occupation listed as "Teacher"!!!  (2)

One thing I have learned as a researcher is to look at the pages before and after the subject family.  Many times our ancestors lived close to other family members which could be listed on census pages close to our family. Well...sure enough when I turned to the census page before the one I found Lulu on there was the enumeration for my great grandparents, Frank and Katie Miars with Aunt Mary listed in their house. Mrs. Eicher and her husband, Jacob, lived just a few houses/farms away from my family!! 

I reviewed the other documents I found in my ancestry search just to be sure that I had really found my teacher.  There were census records for other years, city directories for this couple and Lulu's obituary. 

The Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL) 8 Jun 1972. See (3) in Bibliography below for citation details.

After the review of the 1910 census, other records on Ancestry, and her obituary I am sure that I've found Aunt Mary's First Grade Teacher - Lulu (Petty) Eicher.

While living in Elm Grove Township in Tazewell County, Illinois, Aunt Mary and her siblings attended Elm Grove School.  It was just north of their family farm where they were living until about 1917.  After that the farm was sold and the Miars family moved to Peoria County.  It is possible that Mrs. Eicher also taught Aunt Mary's older siblings.  But it seems that she and Mrs. Eicher connected as she kept this picture for many decades.  Maybe it was a farewell present from Mrs. Eicher when the Miars children moved away from the Elm Grove school. I also wonder if Mrs. Eicher and Aunt Mary ever crossed paths again in later years or if Mrs. Eicher knew that one of her students had gone on to be a teacher too.

I do not know the whole story or the details of why Mrs. Eicher gave a picture to her student who then kept it for the rest of her life.  But how nice it is to find this now over 100 years since the photo was likely taken and what great details we now have about the lives of Aunt Mary and her siblings in Elm Grove.  These memories are truly priceless.


Related Blog Posts -
Mary (Miars) Best - Happy Birthday!

Bibliography -
(1)Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 22 October 2019), memorial page for Lulu A Peltey Eicher (13 Jun 1877–6 Jun 1972), Find A Grave memorial no. 76569860, cemetery marker in Mackinaw Township Cemetery, Mackinaw, Tazewell County, Illinois, USA; maintained by "Alvin Oglesby," contributor no. 47049777.
(2) 1910 U.S. census, Tazewell County, Illinois, population schedule, Elm Grove, Enumeration District (ED) 0134, sheet 13-B (penned), p. 61-B (stamped), line 60, dwelling 151, family 152, LuLu  A Eicher; digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 Oct 2019), citing National Archives microfilm publication T624, roll T624_328,  FHL microfilm 1374341.
(3) "Mrs. Lulu Eicher," obituary, The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois), 8 Jun 1972, p. D-10; digital image, Publisher Extra collection, Newspapers.com (http://www.newspapers.com : accessed 22 Oct 2019).