Mrs. Parrill. What a beautiful name!
It’s been a long time since I was a first grader in Russell, N.D., and she was my beloved teacher. I remember her as the kind and gentle lady who set me out on the wonderful path of learning. I never knew where Mrs. Parrill went after leaving Russell, but over the decades, thoughts of her have pretty much made me melt.
I also remember Mrs.Parrill’s husband, Dean, and that they and their little baby lived in an apartment in the Russell School known as the teacherage. Sometimes students would be invited into the teacherage until their parents came to pick them up. I can still see the wooden cupboards and the big windows that looked to the north and to the east and how the back door from those living quarters led to the stage in the gym where we presented our programs.
The years – they slip by in a heartbeat!
Two weeks ago, I went to Cavalier, N.D., to the memorial service for Donald Cox, father of my good friend Brian Cox. It was a beautiful service in every which way.
As Barb Puppe so beautifully played pre-service music, I read Donald Cox’s obituary. I was taken by surprise to see the name, Dean Parrill, and that he was the half brother of the deceased.
During the luncheon which followed I asked Brian if Dean Parrill was there. “No,” Brian said. “He died several years ago, but his wife is here.”
That’s when I nearly dropped my plate. To think Mrs. Parrill, who I hadn’t seen in 60-some years, was in that very room.
Brian led me to her table and we had a lovely reunion which was a bit tearful for me.
“You are Naomi?” she said when our eyes met and we hugged. “Oh yes, I remember you.” Next to Mrs. Parrill sat her daughter, LeaRae (Parrill) Espe, who was the baby in that teacherage all those years ago. I had to ask LeaRae her mother’s first name because I honestly did not know. It is Mildred, but I have too much respect for her to call her by her first name.
My teacher and me
We took photos and talked as long as time permitted that day in Cavalier, and since then we’ve had a couple of wonderful chats on the phone.
Mrs. Parrill is 88-years-old, in reasonably good health and lives in Bottineau, N.D.
She grew up on a farm near Dunseith, N.D., attended a country school her first eight grades, and then graduated from Dunseith High School. Over the years she earned teaching certificates and a bachelor’s degree from Minot State Teachers College now Minot State University.
Besides her two years in Russell, Mrs. Parrill taught country schools in Ward, Rolette and Bottineau Counties. She taught a total of 36 years with 28 of them in Dunseith. She retired in 1986.
Besides LeaRae, who also lives in Bottineau, Mrs. Parrill had two sons, Joel, who I found out lives in Grand Forks, and the late Clark Parrill.
Even though I had lost track of Mrs. Parrill, she knew about me.
When her grandson, Joshua, attended school in Kramer, N.D., she was invited to Grandparent’s Day and there she met my sister-in-law, Shirley Hall, who taught in Kramer.
“I knew she was Mrs. Myrlin Hall and I asked about you,” Mrs. Parrill said. “I knew you wrote for the Grand Forks Herald and she said you had put together a book. I wrote (to the Herald) to get a book and I asked for it signed. I read it and enjoyed it. It’s so interesting when the ones we taught do something.”
I asked Mrs. Parrill if she remembered how I cried the first few days of first grade because I missed my mother so much. She did not recall that, “but I remember how you looked when you were little,” she said. “You were a very cute little gal. We’d see you at ball games, too. I remember one time we went to a ball game in the gym and you and Judy Brandt came and sat with Dean and me. You squeezed in right between Dean and me.”
Mrs. Parrill says she could have picked me out in a crowd. “You look somewhat like you look did when you were little,” she added.
I was Naomi Hall then and having a bad hair day when pictures were taken at school.
Mrs. Parrill remembers something else. “We got invited out to your folks place and it was such a nice place,” she said. “Those people at Russell were so wonderful. I’ve often said that community had such good people. We were there two years and we got to know so many people. Dean would go around and visit everybody.”
Mrs. Parrill is as overjoyed as I am that we have met again after all these years.
“It’s so good that you found this out,” she said. “It’s wonderful and to think it’s been 61 years. You don’t look old enough to be even 60. I remember you very well. Seems like you are one of the main ones I remember. It just makes my day when I see somebody I taught who is satisfied.”
My older brothers, Myrlin and David, didn’t have Mrs. Parrill as a teacher, but they remember her as well.
“Both she and her husband were very nice people,” David said. “Dean used to play ball with us boys in the gym.”
When Myrlin saw her picture he said, “I see a young Mrs. Parrill in there.”
And I see the teacher who meant the world to a little first-grader.
Until Soon