Thought you might like to read an article I wrote back in 1991 for Heritage Quest Magazine:

A short while back I visited my sis-in-law in Kansas City and we visited the old Union Cemetery. This toppled-stone-not-well-cared-for place has quite a history.

In the first half of the 1800s, Westport (8 miles from Kansas City, Missouri) was “quite the metropolis. It was the final “civilized” stop for those setting out on the Santa Fe Trail or the Oregon Trail.” As the town grew, churches sprang up and with them, cemeteries. Soon it was apparent that the church cemeteries would not suffice for burying grounds.

Meanwhile, north of Westport a settlement was growing where river boats unloaded goods found for Westport. This little town grew and by 1840 the Town of Kansas (later to become Kansas City) had a population of several hundred.

An event occurred in 1849 that changed both towns forever. That spring, some 300 settlers arrived on a steamboat from New Orleans. That steamboat also carried cholera; soon over 200 of the settlers had perished.

Union Cemetery was the answer.  In 1857 it was so named from an amiable agreement between Westport and the Town of Kansas, not for anything connected to the Civil War.  There are fifteen Confederate soldiers buried there in a mass grave who died as prisoners of war after the Battle of Westport in 1864.

One especially tender moment came when I spotted the grave marker for 8-year-old  Little Miss Mata Erath who died in 1885. (I had a photo but dang! It won’t upload for me today. Bad computer!)

(Reference: Recent book compiled and published by the Union Cemetery Historical Association.)

Did an ancestor graduate from a Normal School? With a teaching degree or certificate?

Smithsonian Magazine, J/F 2019, provided this explanation: “Thank France; the phrase is derived from “ecole normale” which was used for institutions designed to instill standards of pedagogy and curriculum in teachers-to-be. America’s first state-sponsored normal school opened in Massachusetts in 1839. By the 1930’s most normal schools were calling themselves “teachers colleges.’

Near Spokane, Eastern Washington University began as Cheney Normal School. My mother-in-law graduated from Cheney Normal School in 1930 and at age 17 was sent out to teach English.

Cheryl Elder of Cheney was searching for more information on her great-aunt who attend this school in 1919. Charles V. Mutschler, PhD at EWU, answered her. (He is recently deceased.) His 2015 reply to her gives a good picture of what the curriculum was like:

“I have search the records we have, and only found one entry for Alice Elder of Garfield, Washington attending during the summer session of 1919.  The entry is on page 89 of the 1920-1921 catalog, in the list of students for the Summer, 1919 term.  The catalog carried a list of students for the previous year (occasionally previous two years) and a list of graduates, and the type of certificate they had received.  I checked the catalogs for 1916/17 through 1927/28 and only found the one entry.  The course of study at the normal schools in 1918 was a two-year curriculum leading to a teaching certificate which allowed the person to teach in what were called “the common schools,” meaning grades 1-8.  A teacher could continue her education and upgrade her certificate to what was called a Life Certificate by completing additional course work.  Many teachers did this, and often these women were the majority of the students enrolled in the summer term.  From 1923 through 1971 there was a yearbook, published each spring, called Kinnikinick.  The Kinnikinicks are nearly all on line at our digital commons site, but I have not attempted to search those, as they are readily available to you.  Go to:  dc/ewu.edu/yearbooks  and you should be able to reach them.

Now you know more than before about your ancestor’s attendance at a Normal School.