A Teacher Sees Her Lessons Come Full Circle

By Marci Narum

A person is always bound to learn a thing or two, when sitting down with someone who is 90-something. I visited Marion Schadewald at Edgewood Vista on Dominion in Bismarck and learned that kids have not changed much since her time as a teacher. They all need some self-discipline, appreciation, and encouragement.

Marion Schadewald

Stories. Marion Schadewald is full of them. And at age 94, she remembers names and details remarkably well, including the names of all the students she knew when she was a teacher. Granted, she taught back when the state was much smaller and so were the classrooms, but Marion taught kindergarten children and high school students, and grades in-between. Third and fourth grade students were her favorite.

“They’re so loveable at that age,” Marion says with a smile.

Marion recalls one particularly feisty little boy named Marty. She says Marty was the only boy in a family of seven girls.

“The girls came in after recess and said, ‘Marty’s fighting in the bathroom!’ So I got up and walked out to the hallway and stood at the stairs where he would have to come, and Marty came running, wiping his hands.”

Marion chuckles as she recalls, “He’d washed them at least. And he looked up at me and stopped and said, ‘Oh, I decided to be good now.’ Because one of the things I told them at the beginning of school was that I didn’t like to discipline them. That was their job. They had to make their decisions, and discipline themselves. And I did say that as a last resort I would sometimes get the parents involved. His mother appreciated that.”

It seems Marion’s students knew she appreciated them, too. She taught school in Barton and Cando, but most of her teaching years were spent in Sykeston, where she taught for almost 20 years. There, Marion was invited to the Senior Tea each year, to share memories of her students.

“There are so many things you notice. Like one little guy that got 100 in his spelling and I said, ‘A-ha, you did it!’ The next time he got 100, he said, ‘Aren’t you going to say A-ha again?’ Imagine! How happy it makes them.”

Marion remembers the satisfaction she felt just knowing her students were making a connection to what they were learning. She smiles as she recalls teaching one of her classrooms the four characteristics of mammals. Afterward, one of her students—Marcy—looking a bit confused, approached her to try to reason with her.

“She said, ‘My mother,’ and then she starting naming the characteristics, has hair on her body, and so forth, ‘but she doesn’t produce eggs.’ She was thinking, wasn’t she? It wasn’t just something she had to learn. She was connecting it to a mammal because mammals are people, and parents, and so on.”

Marion loves to learn. She watches the news faithfully, and when her husband, Paul, was still alive, they spent time learning together in Elderhostels at Dickinson State, NDSU, University of Mary, and the University of Minnesota in Crookston. They also traveled extensively, to Europe, China, and Japan. When she retired, Marion decided she wanted to learn how to quilt.

“Quilting was never my hobby. It was after I retired, when I went to the church group and learned to make the denim quilts.”

And now Marion is known for her denim quilts and other quilting projects. She has two sewing machines in her apartment, and donates many of her quilts to various charities in need. Marion also operates a side business selling the quilts she makes. Her customers? Many of those students whose names she remembers…also remember her. And they come to visit often.

It seems the self-discipline, appreciation, and encouragement Marion offered may have been some of the greatest lessons she taught.