Mamie Bechstein, Educator of Yore

  When extolling the benefits of living in Mokena, one of the first points arrived at are the village’s schools. Known throughout Chicagoland for their sterling quality, Mokena is right to boast of our schools. For all of the laurels they’ve brought to our community, the schools never would’ve amounted to anything if wasn’t for those who taught in and oversaw them. One such individual whose name shines upon the record of our years is Mamie L. Bechstein, teacher and principal of the Mokena public school. 

  Maria Louise Bechstein’s life began outside Mokena on July 11^th, 1880, have likely first seen the light of day on her father’s farm, a wide, sprawling estate whose homestead stood at what is today’s intersection of LaPorte Road and Kirkstone Way. As she grew up, her friends and family all knew her as Mamie. Her roots in the community were well planted, as all four of her grandparents were German immigrants to the Mokena area in the days before the Civil War. Her mother was born Ida Schmuhl, and her father, Christian Bechstein, was a prominent citizen who would come to wear many hats in the Mokena of his day, including that of mayor of the village from 1896 to 1903, as well as being one of the founders of the Mokena State Bank in 1909.  

   As a young girl, Mamie Bechstein was educated at the Mokena public school, a brisk walk over country roads from her parents’ farm, the edifice having stood on the northwest corner of today’s Front Street and Schoolhouse Road, which would later take the name of the landmark. Built eight years before Mamie’s birth, the stately, two story wooden structure was considered one of the finest schools in all of Will County. During her time here as a pupil, Mamie’s teacher was Mary Jane Cunningham, who she’d later note with a touch of mischief and a hint of spice, that “we had words.”

   Around 1895, the Bechsteins moved to town, with her father still maintaining ownership over their farm’s buildings and acreage. At a time when few went to college, Mamie continued her studies at the Illinois State University at Normal, and graduated in June 1903. By the next year she was teaching in the small coal mining town of Minonk, in central Woodford County. At some point in this era, she returned home and began teaching at her alma mater, the Mokena school, and by 1907, was working in its primary department. 

Mamie Bechstein as a senior at Illinois State University, 1903. 

   In May 1910, Mamie Bechstein moved up the school’s ladder when the Board of Education hired her as principal to replace I.O. Sinclair, while receiving $90 a month for her duties. While she now had an important administrative position, she still stayed true to her roots and taught the combined fifth through eighth grades at the school, which was made up of 52 pupils in one room. In her words, she handled “the entire approach with no help.” There was no opportunity for high school education in Mokena in those days, so students would commute elsewhere for this level of schooling, at the time usually to Blue Island. 

   Mamie’s world as an educator in the grand old schoolhouse is one that would be totally unrecognizable to Mokenians of today. The school’s bell, perched high in its tower, played an integral role in the day. At 8:30am, a half hour before the start of the school day, Mamie would ring it around ten times with a thick rope that “took quite a jerk” to use. She’d also summon her pupils back to class with two or three rings after recesses at 10:30 and 3:30, and also to herald the end of the day at 4:00pm with three or four strokes.

   The entire building was heated by coal in her time, with the stoves’ fires in the school being started every morning by their janitor, which Mamie fed continually throughout the day from buckets. Each floor had one big classroom, in which the pupils sat in bench seats, coming to the front of the room when they were asked to recite an answer. Also at the front of each room was a platform upon which stood the teacher’s desk. 

This stately structure, which stood at the northwest corner of Front Street and Schoolhouse Road, served as the village’s school from 1872 to 1929. 

   In early December 1911, calamity befell Mamie when she contracted a debilitating illness, which one account describes as malaria, while another calls it typhoid-pneumonia. Being confined to her home in town, her class at school was cancelled until her younger sister Alice, herself a teacher, could fill in for her. Just before New Year’s, Mamie’s students showered her with Christmas post cards. Almost a year later, just before Christmas 1912, she resigned due to the untimely passing of her mother. 

   History hasn’t recorded if she continued to teach after she left the Mokena school, but it appears that she left the profession when she married Owen Miller of Iowa around 1919, it being common in those days for teachers to be single women. This union was graced by the arrival of a daughter, Edith Jane, around 1922. Over the years, Mamie and her family lived in various places around the country, such as San Diego, Cincinnati, and later Boulder, Colorado. She could rightfully claim many addresses over her long life, but she always considered Mokena her home, and so it was that her mortal remains were interred here at St. John’s Cemetery when she passed away at the venerable age of 101 in November 1981. 

   The Mokena schools of today serve as a living testament to the labors of Mamie Bechstein, and of those who came before and after her. While our Mokena is one that would be unrecognizable to her and her students, she was part of a long and time-honored tradition in our community.