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From the Prairies to the Skies | home
The Family | Growing Up | Life On The Farm | World War II | Evea Jane Applegate Sigle | Like Father Like (Grand) Son | Interview | Letters From Others | Helen Sigle Gossett | Sigle-Sperry Genealogy | Forrest Applegate | Memories of Another War | Letter to Kansas Senators from Gene Koscinski | Lou Alexander, Navigator, Phone Call | Gene Koscinski Memoirs | VMail | Video of Richard Sigle | Our Guest Book
Evea Jane Applegate Sigle
For years I've had some papers from my mother tucked away in a file. I never thought until today, that I should have added them to this website. So here we go. ~Donna
Date of Birth
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September 4, 1922 (at the farm in southern Osborne County)
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Date of Death
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December 26, 2001 (at the farm in southern Osborne County)
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Husband
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Richard B. Sigle
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Children
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Arris A Sigle
Donna D Sigle Bayes Scott
Larry L Sigle
Scott S Sigle
Garry G Sigle
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Graduated High School
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Luray High School, 1940, ranked third in a class of 20 seniors.
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High School Extra-Class Activities
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Girl Reserves, President
Junior Class, President
Band (trombone)
Glee Club
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College Extra-Class Activities
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Quill Club
YWCA
Kappa Phi, Reporter
Little Theater
W.A.A.
Inter. Nat, Rel. Club
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Informal or Youth Leadership
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4-H Junior Leader and later adult leader for 7 years
Teaching children's Sunday School class, later adult Sunday School Superintendent
Cub Scout Den Mother
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Work Experience
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Two years teaching all grades in rural schools - Osborne and Russell Counties
Two months substituting - first four grades, rural school in Osborne County
1 year teaching 6th grade at Downs KS, plus art & PE to 6, 7, 8 girls
18 years teaching 5th grade at Osborne KS (1960-1978)
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Life Events
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1959
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Helped organize Town & Country 4-H Club in Osborne KS
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1971--1973
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Member of Osborne Chapter of AFS
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1972-1973
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Host Mother to Hernan Alfaro from Chili
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1974-1975
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President of Centenniel Bells in Osborne
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1974
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She & her husband, Richard Sigle, won the Bankers Award for Soil Conservation
Became a founding member of the Kansas Limousin Association
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1976
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President of Osborne Education Association, Delegate to National Convention in FL
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1977
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Chosen to join Delta Kappa Gamma
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This is my mother, Evea Jane Sigle, sitting on a stool in her kitchen in the old farm house she grew up in, and where she and my dad lived once the war was over and he graduated from Fort Hays and they came back to live on the farm. They bought the farm from her parents, Forrest and Faye Applegate, who then moved to the edge of Luray, KS, to continue their cattle operation. And he helped my dad farm.
My mom always told me that she built those cupboards and the little display shelves on the end. If so, I'm sure my dad helped her, as he had a degree in industrial arts and woodworking. On the open shelf above the counter, I remember a decorative plate of President Eisenhower. She said that her Tappan stove sat next to the refrigerator opposite the window above the sink.
My family lived here until I was 7 years old and we moved to town to go to town school for a better education. The first year my mom took all five kids to town and lived in a rental house, coming home on Wednesday nights and weekends. The next year they bought a house, directly across the street from the hospital (the second house from the corner on West New Hampshire). After that, my dad drove back and forth the 20 miles to and from the farm to work.
Another tidbit I remember my mom telling me was that when she was a girl going to school in a one room school, they would have a day in the spring when all the county schools would get together for a field day. She said she won the running races, being the fastest runner and also won the "nail hammering contest." I'm sure that wasn't what it was called, but they had a board and some nails and the fastest one to hammer them all in, won. And she won!
I believe the following essay was for a class in college at Fort Hays State College. As you'll read, she was able to start teaching with just 60 hours, but when I was about 14, probably around 1964, the laws changed and she had to complete her degree in Elementary Education to keep teaching, which she did over a few years of summer school, driving back and forth from Osborne to Hays every day in the summer.
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A farm in the south part of Osborne County has been "home" to me since I was born there September 4, 1922. I lived there with my parents and one younger sister. I attended a rural school nearby, the United Brethern Church on the hill, and high school in Luray. I left to attend college in Hays KS in 1940. After my husband, Richard B. Sigle, a B-24 pilot, was discharged from the service and had finished his education at Fort Hays College, we moved to Osborne to give our five children better educational opportunities.
My husband drives the twenty miles every day to care for cattle and sheep, and to farm the land which we now own. Our four sons help him on Saturday and during the summer. We live in Osborne in the home we built in 1963. My husband is an industrial arts major, and he built all the cabinets in the house. We share his hobby of working with wood and we helped finish the cabinets and the floors and painted the walls.
Our son, Arris, is graduating from high school this spring. He was one of the seven District Star Farmers in Kansas, and has received numerous other FFA awards. Our daughter, Donna, is a sophomore and is as busy as most girls are who are in Scouts, 4-H, Candystripers, FHA, and all school activities. Three younger sons, Larry, Scott, and Garry, are in the eighth, sixth, and fourth grades respectively. They help to keep our family life exciting and wonderful. All together they play the piano, accordion, organ cornet, flute, tuba, guitar, and drums.
My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Forrest Applegate, live at Luray, and are still actively feeding cattle and farming. My sister and her husband own and publish a weekly newspaper at Johnstown, Colorado.
When a 4-H Club was organized in our community, I was the first president. When I became old enough, I was a Junior Leader and was project leader for a cooking class. Later I helped organize three more clubs. My husband and I were community leaders of two fo those clubs for a total of seven years.
In Sunday School at different times I have worked with groups of all ages. At one time I was choir director of a young people's choir in our rural church, and later I was pianist for a group of younger choir members in our Methodist Church in Osborne. I have been a Bible School teacher in both churches
After receiving a Life Certificate (60 hours) from Fort Hays in 1942, I taught in rural schools in Osborne and Russell counties, teaching all eight grades. Later I was a substitute for two months in a rural school where I taught the first four grades. In 1960 I returned to teaching. At Downs KS, I taught the sixth grade and girls' physical education and art for one year. Since then, I have taught the fifth grade here in Osborne. This included, until this year, a girls' physical education class.
Because I believe the home has some responsibility as the children's teacher, and that appropriate books in the home are invaluable aids, I became a representative of The Volume Library, selling it in Osborne and Russell counties in 1946 and 1947. We have in our home now the Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Golden Book Encyclopedia, and other informative and entertaining books. The newest addition is the Children's Bible, published by the Golden Press.
My travels have taken me to every state west of the Mississippi except Arkansas and Louisiana. We have traveled to Wisconsin by different routes three times, to Seattle, Washington, and into Canada twice.
When I was 9 years old, I traveled with my family to Southern California. I was much impressed with the Grand Canyon, the vast Pacific Ocean, and Old Mexico. We have been camping in Colorado and Wyoming several times. The Mount Rushmore Memorial, the open pit iron ore mine at Hibbing MN, the Grand Tetons, and the Yellowstone National Park are a few of the scenes which stand out in my memory. But it was always nice to return to the beautiful wheat fields and grasslands of Kansas.
One of my hobbies is reading, but with my family to care for, my class to teach, a correspondence course just finished, and this college work to do, I do not have time for much reading for pleasure. I also enjoy cooking, sewing, photography (I have developed pictures), and I enjoy writing, though I am not fast at it.
I wrote a Student Guide to Better Oral and Written English and the Osborne High School office printed it into a booklet format for all the students from fourth grade to ninth grade. It contains instructions and suggestions for taking part in a conversation, being a good listener, studying a word for spelling, giving book reports, proofreading written work, giving oral reports, taking notes, and writing a simple, advanced, and sentence outline. The sentence outline tells how to prepare written reports from searching for material to organizing the report and preparing the bibliography. Miss Kuhn suggested, and I agree, that a better title would be "Student Guide to Better Oral and Written Communication."
When I started to college in 1940, I thought that I wanted to be a high school English teacher, and I proceeded to work on an English major. I have it except for one course. Then we moved to Osborne because our son, who was ready for the fourth grade, had not been taught to read. That winter, with the approval and cooperation of his teacher, I taught him to read and study. I began to realize that children cannot do well in high school if they are not taught properly in grade school, and I decided that was where I wanted to teach. After having had experience with all grades, I think I am happiest with the 5th grade. I enjoyed very much my seventh and eighth grade students in the rural schools, and I especially like the subject matter in those grades, but I would not want a roomful of that age group.
I try to teach my students that they live in a wonderful country, under God, where there is liberty and justice for all.
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The picture above is of The Volume Library like we had as kids. I loved that giant 2400 page book with a leather cover. One of my favorite pictures in the giant enclycopedia was of the human body showing the different systems, but in a robotic sort of way. I can't really describe it, but it was very cool! I bet we still have this book out at the farm!