Her Story
Pat Lindquist came from a family of teachers, and her mentor was her oldest brother. She worked her way through Kansas State Teachers’ College in Emporia during the Depression, cleaning bathrooms in the dormitory for her room, cooking and serving meals at a sorority house for her board, and working at the Emporia telephone office from five to nine every weeknight. She was elected vice-president of the freshman class, sang in the choir, and swam with the college’s Splash Club. She earned her Life Certificate in 1931.
Her first school was a one-room country schoolhouse with twenty-nine farm children in eight grades. She walked three miles each day to reach it, with no car, and after four weeks she received a paycheck for $60. “I wasn’t just their classroom teacher,” she writes. “I was their counselor, physical education teacher, music and art teacher, horse-stable-supervisor, janitor, out house maintenance person, nurse, and friend.” She went on to teach in rural schools in Ellsworth, Rice and Saline counties, and for many years taught primary grades at Brookville Grade School and then kindergarten at Happy Corner in the Ell-Saline district, retiring from the classroom in 1976.
Retirement only changed her classroom. She began substituting, tutoring and teaching homebound students at kitchen tables, hospital beds and school cafeterias, and at 91 she was still tutoring. Her honors include induction into the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame (2001), the Outstanding Teacher Award for USD 307 (1987), the Kansas School Volunteer Friend of Education award (1987), the J.C. Penney Golden Rule Award (1990), and a National Wildlife and Conservation award from the Daughters of the American Revolution (1988). She was also the first woman on the Saline County Fair Board and the first woman member of the Ell-Saline Lions Club.
Beyond the Classroom
For forty-four years 4-H has been “a big part of my life.” Lindquist began as a community leader and advanced to national positions, and for many years was the only state wildlife and fisheries leader west of the Mississippi. She has taught leadership, public speaking, wildlife, geology and entomology, judges at the Kansas State Fair, and received the 1989 Saline County Extension Service Outstanding Service Award. A former student recalls her as “the” leader of the Cardinal 4-H Club.
She started a summer day camp for four rural communities with no public funds. It ran for four summers and drew children from age three to seventeen. Since 1985 she has also hosted seventeen foreign exchange students from seven countries on four continents. She has been a leader in her church for over sixty years as a Sunday School teacher, Vacation Bible School director, choir member and church historian, and she serves on the Ell-Saline Cardinal Foundation for Educational Excellence. She and her husband Carl have lived on their family farm for sixty-one years, where they raised two sons.
Her friends say she keeps road-killed snakes and birds in her freezer for teaching. A parent who knows her well calls her the “snakelady.”
Philosophy Into Practice
Lindquist teaches by example and by respect. In her one-room school she began each day with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, and she treated the creek and the outdoors as a classroom for science, art and nature study. Students waded in the water at noon, hunting for rocks, crawfish and shells. Her classroom, her colleagues said, was an “art gallery,” and she still believes in hands-on learning, cooperative learning, praise when earned, and what she calls touch: “I hugged children seventy years ago and I still hug children today.”
“How teachers teach is as important to students’ learning as what they teach.”— from her essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“It is time to arouse interest, awaken excitement, and offer a dream that could come true.”— from her essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
In Her Own Words
“Teaching is not a job for me; it’s a joy. This has been my quest.”— from her essay, “Getting to Know You”
“If you want to teach, you will find a way!”— from her essay, “In the Classroom”
“It takes a village to raise a child.”— from her essay, “Educational Issues”
“Read to a child. Be a mentor. Take tickets at a ballgame. Listen.”— from her essay, “Educational Issues”
“My middle name should have been “Involvement”. I can not sit down, there is too much to be done.”— from her essay, “Outside the Classroom”
What Others Said
“She is the most giving, energetic person I have ever met.”— Bernard L. White, Superintendent of Schools, Ell-Saline USD 307
“Pat Lindquist is the most creative and caring educator I have had the privilege to be involved with. Pat is truly the ‘Eternal Educator’.”— Gregory W. Brockway, President, USD 307 School Board
“When she walks into the room the students are not timid, they run and embrace her.”— Brenda Wikoff, supervisor, district After-School program, and former 4-H student
“Just being in her presence is uplifting and upbeat.”— Ethel Diehl, colleague and neighbor
“She teaches respect, pride, happiness, hope and love to those around her.”— Katherine M. Bradford Anderson, former student
“Mrs. Lindquist sees and understands the potential of every being.”— Faye A. Clements, former student and parent of students
“Pat taught us that the classroom doesn’t stop at the doorway, or even at the county line. The world is your classroom and the sky is your only limit.”— Larry Laas, former student, now a high school guidance counselor