Dear Members of the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame Selection Committee:
I am very pleased to write in support of the nomination of Sarah Gillespie Huftalen to the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame. As the editor of “All Will Yet Be Well”: The Diary of Sarah Gillespie Huftalen, 1873-1952 (University of Iowa Press, 1993), I am in a unique position to describe and assess the life and writing of this strong and influential Iowa woman.
Sarah Gillespie Huftalen led an unusually active life for a rural Iowa woman of her time. Born in 1865 near
Manchester, Iowa, she was a farm girl who became a highly regarded country school and college teacher; in fact, Sarah was instrumental in founding the rural section of the Iowa State Teachers Association and in ensuring its growth and survival over several decades. A gifted writer, she crafted essays, teacher-training guides, and poetry while continuing to write lengthy, introspective entries in seventeen volumes of her diary. Finally, as a historian, Sarah garnered extensive information about the life of her mother, Emily, and worked to preserve her mother’s and her own detailed diaries for future generations of Iowans.Sarah Gillespie Huftalen’s lifelong diary began in 1873, when she was eight, and continued throughout her adult life. The extensive Sarah Gillespie Huftalen Collection at the State Historical Society of Iowa includes not only Emily Hawley Gillespie’s diaries but also seventeen volumes of Sarah Gillespie Huftalen’s own diaries:
Huftalen, Sarah, 1865-1955. Papers, 1838-1952.
Delaware and Page County teacher. Includes diaries of mother, Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1838-1888.http://www.iowahistory.org/archives/research_collections/special_collections/manuscript_listing_ic.html [URL accessed on 24 April 2004]
In her diaries, Sarah discussed her childhood on the family farm, the conflicts in her parents' marriage, their effects on Sarah and her brother Henry, Sarah's fifty-two-year career as a teacher, her twenty-two-year marriage to Billie Huftalen, and her unhappy retirement years on the family farm with her brother Henry
Throughout more than 3,500 pages, Sarah chronicled her multiple roles as daughter, sister, wife, teacher, family historian, and public figure. Not only do her diaries embody the diverse strategies used by one woman to chart her life's course and to preserve her life's story for future generations; these diaries also offer ample evidence of the diary as a primary form of private autobiography for individuals—particularly women--whose lives do not lend themselves to traditional definitions of autobiography. Sarah Gillespie Huftalen’s life story, as told on the pages of her diaries, constitutes a unique chronicle of daily work and thoughts as well as interactions with neighbors, friends, colleagues, and students.
Just as important, Sarah’s diaries foreground the importance of female kinship networks in American life; the valued status of many women as family chroniclers; and the fine art of selecting, piecing, stitching, and quilting that characterizes the many shapes of women's autobiographies. Recently, I have been pleased to learn that
Judy Nolte Temple’s edition of Emily’s diaries and my edition of Sarah’s diaries are included among those works designated by the State Historical Society of Iowa as the “most important works in various areas in state history.” http://www.iowahistory.org/publications/annals/recommended_readings_iowahistory.htm [URL accessed on 24 April 2004]As a scholar who specializes in the study of diaries as forms of life writing, I can attest to the socio-historical importance of Sarah’s diaries, which reflect the process by which she was socialized into specific roles as well as her need to expand and subvert traditional female roles. For example, Sarah was one of exceptionally few women who continued a teaching career after marriage. Not only did she continue teaching, she also became a highly recognized leader in Iowa educational reform as well as a respected instructor of future Iowa teachers.
As a young woman, Sarah taught in a number of country schools in townships throughout Delaware County. On June 22, 1907, she wrote in her diary, “The Common School graduates from the Rural Schools deserve recognition in a public manner and I want to do my part—in behalf of the educational interests and moral benefits that our boys and girls merit” (“All Will Yet Be Well,” 160). In 1908, while teaching at the Arbor Vitae Summit School, Sarah defined her vision of education: “The parent, the pupil and the teacher form the trinity of the schoolroom—of excellence. Let us work together to raise its standard of excellence” (excerpt from an unpublished essay, SHG Collection, SHSI).
In 1913, Sarah Gillespie Huftalen became the
Page County superintendent of schools. Subsequently, she earned her bachelor’s degree from Upper Iowa University (UIU) and began teaching in the Rural Education Program there. While teaching at UIU, Sarah went back and forth to Iowa City to gather data for her master’s thesis, which she completed in 1924. By 1931, Sarah was the head of the Normal School in Muscatine, Iowa, where she was a respected instructor for future Iowa teachers. During these years, she contributed numerous articles to Midland School: a Journal of Education and led the rural schools delegation at annual meetings of the Iowa State Teachers Association.One of the most difficult periods of her life began in May 1935 when, at the age of seventy, she faced mandatory retirement and returned to live on the family farm near Manchester. In her essay, “Why a Teacher?”, written upon her retirement, Sarah reflected, “Whenever we come to the signboard that tells us we are at the crossroads the mind is prompted to reflect as well as to project. So at this glad June time, I want you, individually & collectively, to know that I’ve stored up & am treasuring the good will & good fellowship you have so generously & graciously given. I do not know which road to take nor where it may lead but the pleasantest of memories will abide and make the burden light . . .” (“All Will Yet Be Well,” 216).
During the final twenty years of her life, when she lived on the family farm near Manchester, Sarah Gillespie Huftalen turned her attention to chronicling her family’s history and her fifty years of work as an
Iowa educator. Not surprisingly, the Sarah Gillespie Huftalen Collection at the SHSI contains not only her many diaries but also detailed notebooks and scrapbooks about the country schools where she taught, along with photographs, letters from students, copies of her published essays and speeches, and a wealth of additional information about the history of rural education in the state.In my judgment, Sarah Gillespie Huftalen’s entrance into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame is long overdue. I hope that you, too, will recognize the importance of her contributions and that you will select her as a member at this time.
Sincerely,
Suzanne L. Bunkers, Professor of English
Minnesota State University-Mankato
The Iowa Women's Hall of Fame is at this URL: http://www.state.ia.us/government/dhr/sw/iafame.html