Miss Ikuta

As I have alluded to in previous pieces, elementary school wasn’t a particularly good time for me. I struggled with reading and learning in general. I didn’t think the teachers were too fond of me and I was sometimes miserable. I knew I was somehow different than the rest of the kids and didn’t know what it was or why. There was one place…a place that I loved…a place where the teacher welcomed me and I felt warm and comfortable. It was art class.

Tomie Ikuta was my art teacher in elementary school. I was in love with her! She was absolutely beautiful and she was so kind to me. She always greeted me with a smile and was very positive about everything I did. I called her “Miss I Cute a” and she would blush.

Miss Ikuta was Japanese. Her family had been sent to an internment center during World War II. During that time Americans of Japanese decent, unfairly, were not trusted because of the war and they were moved to internment centers all over the country. Many were humiliated by the experience. Miss Ikuta was only a child during that time. When she grew up she went to Central College in Pella and graduated in 1954 with a teaching certificate.

She was hired and came to Mt. Pleasant after graduation to teach art in the elementary schools. While she was there she taught at Saunders, Lincoln, Harlan, and a few sections at the junior high. She didn’t own a car so she walked to work at one building or another every day. There were a few days a week that she served two building so she would walk from one to the other over her lunch hour. Amazing when you think about it now!

It’s amazing, too, what affect the kindness and gentleness of one person can have on someone’s life. Miss Ikuta awed and inspired me. She made me feel like I had worth and I cherished the time I had with her in art class. It was an island of comfort in a stormy sea. After I left elementary school and on to junior high I had a different teacher. Art was never the same for me. Miss Ikuta left Mt. Pleasant and I lost track of what happened to her.

While I was an elementary principle a few years ago I was urging students to write former teachers and tell them how much they appreciated them. I had received a kind letter from a former student and realized what a powerful impact it could have. I decided to take my own advice and thought I would write Miss Ikuta.

I did some detective work and determined that Miss Ikuta had married and was now Mrs. Conaroy. She had lived in the Quad Cities for a while and now was living in the Minneapolis area. More work led to her last known address. I wrote a letter to her in March of 1996. In late April I received a hand written letter from Italy. Mrs. Conaroy and her husband were traveling in Europe (with some friends originally from Mt. Pleasant) and had finally found the time to write back to me.

It said, in part …”You can’t realize how much I appreciated your letter. You could not have known that I opened your letter at the end of one of the most frustrating and depressing days (related to my job). Your letter was the perfect tonic to my mood…It also inspired me to resolve to write one of my high school English teachers from who I learned all that I know of grammar…”

By this time Heather was living in Minneapolis so arranging a meeting was in order. Becky, Heather and I had dinner with Tomie that summer in Minneapolis. We had a very nice time and she said she remembered me. I am not sure she really did but she is so kind that I don’t think she would tell me even if she didn’t. Oh, if the world was just full of more people like Miss I Cute a.