Author Terry Lee Marzell shares the remarkable story of Olive Mann Isbell, pioneer teacher who taught her students in a school established in California’s Santa Clara Mission while the Mexican American War raged all around them.

Frontier teacher Anna Webber of Kansas leaves a diary that describes her classroom experiences and conditions in her prairie school.

There are many fascinating stories in American history of remarkable young women who taught school on the Western frontier. One of these was Anna Webber, an elementary school teacher from Kansas. Anna left behind a diary of her classroom experiences which describe the typical conditions of prairie schools.

Anna Webber was born in Breckenridge, Kansas, on September 16, 1860. Her parents, William Ellsworth and Thankful Delila Webber, moved to Iowa shortly after Anna’s birth because of economic pressures. They lived there until Anna’s mother passed away in 1872.  Anna’s father remarried and moved his new wife and children back to Kansas the following year.

Not much is known about Anna’s childhood. Historical records show that she attended school in Mitchell County, and in the spring of 1881 she travelled to Beloit where she passed her teacher’s examination. 

The young teacher inaugurated her professional career in 1881 in a small town in Mitchell County, Kansas. The town was was a growing community of farmers and railroad workers. Eleven boys and five girls were enrolled on her first day at Blue Hill School. Her students ranged in age from six to thirteen years, and the school term was three months in  length. Anna’s one-room school house was constructed from sod, and the furnishings were sparse. There was one chair for the teacher, and the students sat on benches made of lumber boards balanced on rocks. 

Anna taught school in Blue Hills and in two nearby Kansas counties throughout the 1880’s. In June, 1890, she accepted a position at the Kansas Industrial School where she taught home economics courses. That same year she met Robert Gravatt, and the two were married on February 5, 1891.

Anna kept a diary of her experiences as a frontier teacher which has been edited by Lila Gravatt Scrimsher. The diary was published as “The Diary of Anna Webber: Early Day Teacher of Mitchell County” in Kansas Historical Quarterly in 1972. You can read the publication online at Anna Webber’s Diary.

You can read more about this remarkable teacher in the book Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West by Chris Enss. You can also read the article “Wild Women of the West: Anna Webber,” also by Chriss Enss, published online at Cowgirl Magazine.

Oregon Territory teacher and pioneer teacher Mary McLench in her Tualatin classroom (circa 1852).

Mary Almira Gray was born in the Green Mountains of southern Vermont, the oldest of four children. Mary had already been teaching students to read and write at a one room school house in the village of Grafton, not far from her home. As a young woman, Mary helped her siblings with their lessons, and when she was old enough she decided to turn her knack for teaching into her profession.

Although she had never ventured far from her home town, Mary was full of pioneer spirit. She was 25 years old in 1850 when she ventured into the Wild West to teach on the frontier of Oregon Territory. She was one of five young women from all over New England that had been recruited for this work by Vermont Governor William Slade. In addition to serving as governor, Slade was an agent with the National Board of Popular Education.  The organization was created to train and sponsor teachers and encourage them to go West.

In April, 1851, Mary finally arrived in Oregon Territory after a long and arduous sailing to Panama, a grueling overland trek to the Pacific Coast, and then another sailing north to her final destination. At the time, Oregon Territory included what is now Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and the total population was only 14,000 people. Mary was assigned to inaugurate a school in Tualatin, a town 13 miles south of Portland. There she taught five terms.

While teaching in Tualatin, Mary met and married Benjamin McLench in 1852. Through the Oregon Land Donation Act, the couple established a farm on 160 acres of land in the Willamette River Valley. There they raised their children, along with wheat, apples, onions, potatoes, and honey bees.

You can read more about this pioneer teacher in the book Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West by Chris Enss. The volume is available on amazon. You can also read an online article published in Cowgirl Magazine, also written by Enss.