Schools mourn death of veteran teacher: sustain great loss in passing of Miss Viola Casswell, Byron Stolp instructor

The schools of Wilmette have sustained a great loss in the death of Miss Viola Caswell, a teacher in the seventh and eighth grades of the Byron C. Stolp school.

Miss Caswell was the oldest teacher in point of service on the teaching corps. She came to Wilmette in 1904 at about Thanksgiving time to fill a vacancy created by a resignation.

For a number of years she taught in the intermediate grades. The Board of Education early recognized Miss Caswell's unusual abilities and, in addition to her regular duties as a teacher, she was given general supervision of the art in the schools. Miss Caswell exercised the same tact in handling the teachers under her as was manifest in her room. The teachers came to her as to a friend for the help that they needed.

When the departmental system was introduced into Wilmette in the upper grades, Miss Casswell, because of her superior teaching ability and her skill in handling pupils of this grade, was promoted to the upper grades, and for a number of years she has been the home teacher for an eighth grade group and the special teacher of art in the departmental work. The art work did not occupy all of her time and she taught, at times, other subjects, especially English.

For the last two years, Miss Casswell's health has been failing and because of failing strength she was not able to give the time and attention to her school duties as in former years, but she never gave up, and until near the very last, talked and planned for a return to her work.

In August she went to Jefferson, Iowa, to visit an aunt. Failing strength made it impossible for her to return and she passed away Saturday, October 8. Her body was laid to rest in her old home at Mendota, Ill.

Miss Margaret C. Hayes, principal of the Byron C. Stolp school, and J. R. Harper, superintendent of schools, attended the brief service that was held in Mendota Tuesday morning.

"It is difficult to estimate the value of the service rendered by Miss Caswell," a leader in the public schools said this week. "She had all the qualifications that enter into the makeup of an ideal teacher. She was conscientious, devoted to her work and had that sympathy for childhood that enabled her to get the best from those she taught. She taught art and hundreds of children through her teaching had their eyes opened to the beauties of form and color, but after all the best art that she taught was the fine art of living."