Throwback Thursday: Lydia Kerr

Lydia Kerr graduated from the Iowa State Teachers College on June 6, 1916. She was the middle child of five – four girls and a boy – and while each had attended classes at Upper Iowa University, Oelwein Business University, or the Teachers College, Lydia was the only one to complete a degree.

One month after graduation, her parents retired from farming near Elgin and moved to 116 Home Park Boulevard in Waterloo. Lydia lived there for a while, but decided to set out on her own. In the fall of 1917 she took a teaching job in Sioux City, where she would spend the next eight years.

When her father died in 1925, Lydia moved back to Waterloo and took up residence with her mother. In April of that year she was hired as a second grade teacher at Kingsley Elementary. She became active in the First Methodist Church, singing in the choir. She joined the West Waterloo Teachers Association and was an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society.

After her mother’s death in 1939, Lydia remained in the house on Home Park Boulevard. She never married, but was devoted to her nieces and nephews, as well as her Kingsley Students. During World War II, she helped coordinate ration book registration from school, and was proud of her four nephews serving in the armed forces.

On January 27, 1944, she entered St. Francis Hospital for surgery. She remained there for nine weeks, dealing with complications that would cut her life short on March 23, 1944, at age 51. She was buried with her parents in the cemetery outside Illyria Community Church.