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Happy Anniversary and God's Blessings, Paul and Kris! |
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Kris with Kris Kringle |
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Is it possible that Kris posed for this ad? Ovaltine has helped them through many a brutal Denver winter storm. |
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Happy Anniversary and God's Blessings, Paul and Kris! |
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Kris with Kris Kringle |
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Is it possible that Kris posed for this ad? Ovaltine has helped them through many a brutal Denver winter storm. |
Here are memories from the Coolidge Facebook page, posted with the family's permission -
Greg Etzel
Hello all. I am new to this group. While I am not an alumnus of the school, my grandfather taught there. Sam Etzel. My family and I enjoy hearing various stories about Sam. I will pass them on to all of us around the nation. Also I saw my aunt, Linda, mentioned. My dad is Gerald. I do want to thank a family friend for introducing me to your group.
I can even offer a story of my own. While Sam did not formally teach me in the classroom, I did have a variety of teachers who had him or worked with him. One particular industrial arts teacher observed some of my behavior in his classroom. He called me over and said, "If your grandpa Sam was teaching this class, he would have kicked you out a while ago." There you have it.
Rod Peterson
Sam was a very nice man and our neighbor, he introduced me to kohlrabi and when I liked it, he always left several on our porch for me to eat from his very large garden.
Guy Johnson
I watched Sam grab a kid by the collar and throw him out the door and bounced him off the far side hallway lockers. He was an excellent teacher who would not tolerate any foolishness...he knew his job and did it well...I liked him a lot....taught me many skills I still use to this day. His daughter Linda was a classmate, really sweet gal.
Jan Randall
Greg, I knew your Dad as a teen. We were in the same youth group at ALDERSGATE Methodist church on 41 st street across from MHS.
Also knew your grandfather Sam. Two of my brothers worked for him when he built a couple of houses on 26th Ave. behind MHS. He taught them in his classes but also taught them a great deal as his helpers. One of those brothers built a home of his own years later and had skills the average man didn’t thanks to his time with Sam Ethel. He was a tough teacher in both class and on the job but was liked by his students.
Greg Etzel
Author
Jan Randall you obviously know I come from a line of trouble makers. Lol.
Jan Randall
I think that’s why Sam Etzel hired my two brothers as they seemed to always find trouble.
Russ Minard
I was in Sam's class in the mid 50's
Don Schneider
Russ Minard so was I
Craig Sanders
My uncle was a carpenter from the late 30s ( I think) to the mid 60s. I told him about my wood shop class with Sam Etzel. He smiled and said, “Oh, Safety Sam.”
I’ve always wondered, was Sam a journeyman carpenter who trained apprentices? Or was he a shop teacher way back in the 30s when my uncle would have taken a shop course at the old Manual Arts building near the old high school?
Greg Etzel
Author
Craig Sanders good question. I would need to check on that. I know he taught a long time. Hopefully I can get you some better feedback when I talk to my dad.
Greg Etzel
Author
Craig Sanders my grandpa earned a Master's degree in Industrial Arts from Iowa State. So he was most likely and journeyman carpenter. And he taught it as well.
Craig Sanders
Greg Etzel wow! Sam had some impressive credentials. I’m thinking his students numbered in the thousands.
Greg Etzel
Author
Craig Sanders from what I understand he earned the Masters and ended up with nearly enough for a terminal degree. He and my dad built several homes in the QC area. Two of them are in the family still. He would have been about 113 years old now.
Jan McKenzie
Tell Linda that I said hi. In about 7th grade, her dad, Sam, made a lucite pin, with a rose cut into it, and Linda brought it for me. Tell her that I still have it. I always thought it was wonderful.
Gregory L. Jackson
Admin
When I saw your last name, I thought, "Has to be Etzel's kin." I remember him especially. No teacher in shop had any hope for my future in their craft, but I have employed many of their star pupils.
Michael Collins
We built footstools and upholstered them. I still have the stool and have been an upholsterer for 47 years.
Rock Johnson
Michael Collins I still have my pencil holder. The rest i have no idea what happened..
Ronald Herstedt
I had him back in the 50s for woodworking and I think also drafting. Remember his " gather around for a demonstration "
Roger Reinke-Musician
Sam was my woodshop teacher there 1964- 1966
Richard Rose
I really enjoyed shop classes at Coolidge, and use those skills to this day. Sam was my teacher around 1963 or 64. I still have a lamp I made in his class. I remember trying to work with very used sand paper. He made me keep sanding until the pine had a sheen, even without varnish. He was a stickler for taking care of our tools. I’m grateful for what I learned from him.
Betty Spore Boon
Did he, also teach drivers ed??
Greg Etzel
Author
Betty Spore Boon my dad says Sam may have taught driver's Ed a little. Maybe more of a sub.
Thomas Marckese Jr
Safety Sam...saved my fingers many times..
Donavon Hardesty
I had him for wood shop. I was in 10th grade and the class was so full that half was sent over to Coolidge.
Donavon Hardesty my dad is only 19 years older than me so he had Sam at Coolidge too.
Rob Harrington
I still have my pump handle lamp that I made in Sam's woodshop class in1962.
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Craig Sanders - Etzel lamp. |
Todd Sanders
Craig Sanders Wasn’t that in our bedroom?
Craig Sanders
Todd Sanders yep and the clubhouse.
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Michael Collins - My footstool |
Craig Sanders
Michael Collins those stools must have been for the 9th graders who took a semester-long class. Nice heirloom and memory.
Michael Collins
Craig Sanders made mine in 8th grade. Had no shop classes after that!
Doug Dailing
I remember your Aunt Linda from orchestra 64-65. I was in 7th grade and played cello.
Greg Etzel
Author
Doug Dailing there is a lot of music in our family. Linda, her husband and their kids. Sam did a lot with music. My mom and dad to an extent. I earned multiple degrees in music and my children are all very musical. I married into a musical family.
Richard Engstrom
I got sent "up to the office" a favorite saying of his a few times!
Jim Benson
One time, in woodshop class, cut a board to short, checked with SAM, FIND wood stretcher machine, NEVER found machine.
Craig Sanders
I remember a pencil holder. Is this very quick sketch familiar to anyone? I remember learning how to use a chisel and saw to make a mortise and tenon joint to hold the vertical piece in place. I thought that was so ingenious.
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Craig Sanders - sketch of the pencil holder made in the shop. |
Jan Randall
Craig Sanders my brothers made those in the 50’s.
Katherine Kay Polito
Mike that’s cool that you still have your foot stool, it really meant something to you 👍 I still have my dresser hope chest that all the girls got. I will have it until the day I die. I also have and display the piece of pottery that had to be completed by 2 o’clock for my son to graduate I will also have that til the day I die and hope he will take it from there and appreciate and enjoy the meaning of it.
Nancy Russell
Katherine Kay Polito I still have my hope chest too. I found it when I was packing to move and my boys wanted to know what was in it. Luckily I couldn't find the key at that time. Later, when I found the key, I found my diary about my college boyfriends. I haven't shown it to them yet!
Katherine Kay Polito
Nancy Russell Fun to find stuff like that. To take us back to those wonderful days . Oh what fun! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Kent Service
I remember Sam 2 other arts teachers. They were characters. Sam once asked the Boys during class. OK Boys. “Who just cut the cheese”. Class laughter followed!!!
Michael Collins
Kent Service Mr Klier, Mr. Case
Todd Sanders
Yeah!!!!
Terry Reeder
I always enjoyed his class.Fun
Randy Komadino
I made the same book and still have it ... that Drafting and Design class was AWESOME.... Mr Etzel at Coolidge Jr. High!
Michael Riddle
He was a great wood shop teacher. If you brought up a project to him you thought was ‘done’, and he thought you could make it better, he would critique it and give it back to you to work on it more. If it was truly finished in his eyes, he would give you an ‘A’. My mom used the wooden salad tools I made in Mr. Etzel’s class for years! I learned a lot from him.
Mayor Debbie Gahan
Glad to have you join us. You are very welcome.
Greg Etzel
Author
I was able to talk a little bit with my mom and dad about these memories and questions. They can see them. So hoping to get some more info on here. There are various items around our homes that are those projects. If I am really ambitious I can post some pictures of those things as well as others Sam made.
My home town was conservative - or at least Republican. All the schools were named after Republicans, except for Wilson Junior High, the newest of the three. One junior high was John Deere, and the other was Calvin Coolidge. When the class of 1966 graduated, we scattered all over for college. Our generation was the first to be lobotomized by Left-wing propaganda, and the effect was permanent, as I can see on many Facebook discussions.
Deep into the last century I was struck by the way the word "conservative" was used and often avoided. Without evidence, anything bad was conservative or Right wing. Everything good was liberal and nothing was Left-wing. The English language death squads were already patrolling American speech patterns and telling people which words to use and avoid.
Rush Limbaugh established a beachhead in the midst of America's death-by-a-thousand-cuts socialism. He spoke in favor of common sense, conservatism, and the US Constitution. He favored individual accomplishment rather than socialistic solutions.
Oddly enough, Jay Webber, OJ Stormtrooper - whose first call was in Cape Girardeau, Missouri (Limbaugh's home town) - introduced me to the Limbaugh show. From that point I enjoyed many people telling me they found this new radio show, had I ever heard of it? They were overwhelmed by the different style and humor of the Rush Limbaugh show.
Growing up in Moline was a history lesson, because my mother and father were at least 10 years older than my friends' parents. My parents became adults during the Great Depression, when work was dear and wages were in pennies. Dad said, "I was a pin-setter at the bowling alley for 2 cents a game, later raised 3 cents." During WWII, he legally piled up bakery supplies but he also shared them with his competitors. My mother taught in one-room country schools and opposed the consolidation of school districts and the loss of those rural schools. She seldom liked what the system imposed on her for textbooks but knew she could not complain too much.
Rush Limbaugh, about the same age as I am, echoed the training of his parents, and questioned the improvements being foisted upon America in the name of a better society for all. He did such a good job in the midst of opposition and slander that the word conservative began to have some luster - and meaning - again. The Left fought back. After Reagan's terms were up, the two political parties served up 28 years of American-Socialist-Party, or ASP. The presidential candidate's party did not matter, because each opposition pair represented the same ideology of war, higher taxes, and *gubmint meddling -
Suddenly in 2015 - for most of us - a candidate appeared without a terminal case of MeTooism. FDR made fun of Republicans who parroted his ideas with "Me Too!" Candidate Trump spoke directly to the people, as Reagan did, and overwhelmed all opposition.
Even with Trump's long history of success in the midst of opposition - often obscured by his bouts of self-praise - The Donald would be the first to concede that Limbaugh opened up and secured a place for Constitutional conservatives to occupy.
I remain confident that America will renew itself with the help of a much larger group of Constitutional Conservatives, no matter what their label may be. Whatever has been set in motion will complete the work that needs to be done. Long ago, Aristotle write, "Patience and courage are so close to each other than one is either the mother or the sister of the other." For an old guy, barely remembered, Aristotle was pretty smart - and still is.
Here is one more Greek.
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"Give me a lever and I can move the world." Archimedes. That lever is the Word of God. |
* Reagan always said gubmint with intent, since he had perfect diction.
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From Rush Limbaugh's Father
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Roland Bainton, author of Here I Stand, A Life of Martin Luther. |
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Campanologists love the Harkins bell tower. |
National Review has a report on universities, which prompted the nostalgia above. Yale College costs $57,000 for tuition and fees. Add on room and board! The top rated universities were in the same category, $50,000+ for tuition and fees.
Every college and university (with rare exceptions - like Purdue) raised prices as if the debt engine would never run out of gas.
Sherry Kay Johnsen, MHS 66 |
Sherry Kay Johnsen
July 15, 1948-December 17, 2020
PORT BYRON-Sherry Kay Johnsen, 72, of Port Byron, Illinois, died Thursday, December 17, 2020 at RML Specialty Hospital, Hinsdale, Illinois. A public visitation will be from 4-7pm on Monday, December 21st at Gibson-Bode Funeral Home, Port Byron. Masks and social distancing required. Services and burial in the Fairfield Cemetery will be private. The service may be viewed on Wednesday by going to her obituary at www.gibsonbodefh.com. Memorials may be made to Fairfield United Methodist Church or to the family for a fund to be established.
Sherry was born July 15, 1948, the daughter of Ray and Ruby (Hiler) Kelley. She graduated from Moline High School in 1966, then Black Hawk College nursing program as a registered nurse. She married Ken Johnsen on July 17, 1971 at First Presbyterian Church, East Moline. He passed away March 8, 2014. She worked for a doctor's office and hospital, became a stay-at-home mom, helped on the farm, then became the school nurse for Riverdale Schools, retiring in 2013. She continued to substitute until this year, caring for many students through the years. She was a member of Fairfield United Methodist Church.
As a dance mom, she traveled with her daughter, Kelley, to shows and competitions. She never missed an event for her daughter and helped her daughter out in later years with Jr. Rams, Boosters, and River Cities Rotary events. Her grandchildren were her pride and joy and she was their #1 fan.
Sherry is survived by her daughter, Kelley (Ted) Doty, Port Byron; grandchildren, Kelsey and Trent; brother- and sister-in-laws, Larry & Bonnie Johnsen, Fred & Dorothy Johnsen; several nieces and nephews; and her loyal cat, Charlie. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, Ken, brother at birth, and sister, Terry. Share a memory or condolence at www.gibsonbodefh.com
Louis Nachbauer, Gym Teacher and John Deere Principal |
Louis (Lou) Joseph Nachbauer, 93, formerly of Rock Island, passed away November 13th, 2020, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Lou was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Janice (Brotman) Nachbauer. He was the son of Ludwig Franz Nachbauer and Anna Klara Essig Nachbauer. He is survived by daughters Rebecca (Robin) Drechsel of Charlotte, NC. and Roberta (Len) Kelinson of Le Claire, Ia., granddaughters, Rachael (Colleen) Drechsel, Rena (Peder) Skoog, Hannah Stutts and Hannah’s former husband but always Lou’s son-in-law, Jack Stutts, as well as two great-grandchildren, Cora and Erik Skoog.
Lou loved his family and was so proud of all that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren accomplished in their lives. Lou and Janice were there through many softball games, dance recitals and swim meets.
Lou was born in Weil der Stadt, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in November 1928 as a one-year-old with his parents, entering the United States thru Ellis Island. He became a citizen when as a minor child his parents were naturalized as United States citizens in Chicago, 1935.
Lou was a proud veteran of WWII, enlisting in 1945, where he served his country as a Merchant Marine aboard the U.S. Army Hospital Ship, “Seminole”, which traveled in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. He was then drafted and served with the U.S. Army Air Corps. until 1948, including one year in occupation duty in Japan. All of his adult life Lou carried a memento of his military service, a Japanese yen covered with signatures of those men he served with.
After completing his military service and finishing high school, Lou enrolled at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. It was while attending college that he took an evening walk to a local movie theatre, The Ritz, where he met Janice. Only months after their first meeting, they eloped and subsequently enjoyed 55 years of marriage.
Mr. Nachbauer dedicated his life to Junior High School education in Moline, Il. influencing many young lives over his 35 years of employment there. Lou was hired by the Moline Board of Education in 1953, first serving as a teacher, coach, and assistant Principal at Coolidge Junior High for 17 years followed by 18 years as Principal at John Deere Junior High - Middle School, retiring in 1988. Upon his retirement, John Deere Middle School created a yearly award given to a student who excels in academics and sports, named The Lou Nachbauer Achievement Award.
Over the years as an educator, he received many awards and honors, including Illinois Congress of Parents and Teachers Honorary Life Membership award 1970, Book of Recognition award 1977, National Congress of Parents and Teachers Honorary Life Membership award 1988, Secondary School Teacher of the Year award presented by the Moline American Legion 1969, with his biography published in “Who’s Who in the Midwest, 20th and 21st Editions, 1986 and 1987.
Lou became an avid golfer following his introduction to the game as a caddy during his elementary school years in Morton Grove, Il. He was a founding, charter member of Mill Creek Country Club in Milan, IL, one of many men that physically built the course, which is now Pinnacle Country Club. He had two holes-in-one as a golfer. The first at Saukie Golf Course in Rock Island on hole #5 in 1952, and the second at Port Byron’s Byron Hills Golf Course, on hole #7 in 1999 at the age of 72.
An avid Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears fan all of his life, Lou was over the top when his Cubbies finally won the World Series when he was 89.
Private family services for Mr. Nachbauer may be viewed via livestream broadcast at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, November 18, from Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home, Rock Island, (wheelanpressly.com/live-stream-rock island). Burial following services will be at Rock Island National Cemetery on Arsenal Island, with full military honors presented by Moline American Legion, Post 246. Condolence messages can be sent to the family by visiting www.wheelanpressly.com. In lieu of flowers the family asks that any donations be made to the Gary Sinise Foundation, an organization that honors and supports our veterans, or the Alzheimer’s Association. The family would like to thank the staff at Brookdale South Clare Bridge Memory Care unit and Levine and Dickson Hospice & Palliative Care (both in Charlotte) for their loving care. Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home of Rock Island, Il. is serving the family of Mr. Nachbauer.