By Fred Steiner
Bluffton Icon and Ada Icon founder
www.BlufftonForever.com
Adella Steiner Oyer
Dec. 6, 1900 – Nov. 27, 1964
Bluffton High School class of 1920
Adella Steiner Oyer’s teaching career begin at age 21 in a one-room rural Richland Township school, driving a horse and buggy to school each day. By the end of her career she had attained an impressive 37½ years of teaching, which at the time was the greatest number of teaching years accumulated by any Bluffton teacher.
Of her teaching years, three were in Richland Township rural country schools–one year at Hillville school and two at Phillips school.
Those teaching duties included:
• arriving prior to school to light the potbelly stove
• cleaning the school room after students left for the day
• a combination of miscellaneous responsibilities including playground duty
• teaching eight grades at once–with up to three dozen students in the room
CONTINUES