"Sorrow To Many Hearts

Tribute to Leanna Hague Dunlap: Pupils Lovingly Recall Her

By Mary Bates Sargent

The news of Leanna Hague Dunlap's death will bring sorrow into the hearts of scores of her former pupils. They love to remember her as she presided over the school room. There was not one among them who did not love and honor her. At a picnic reunion of her Cherry Grove country school pupils, held some years ago, a large number gathered, the guests coming from many states, drawn by their loyalty to the teacher who had put her soul into her school room work. She never forgot any of them nor lost her interest and enthusiasm in their various successes.

The most of her married life was spent on the farm 2 1/2 miles north-west of Abingdon. Here her three children, Wendell, Bailey and Edith were born and grew up. Into the home life she carried her characteristic thoroughness and enthusiasm. One of her remarks I remember was "When I was teaching school I tried to be the very best teacher I could and now that my place is cooking family meals, I'm going to be the very best cook I can possibly be." How well she succeeded many who shared the hospitality of that home can testify. Her garden abounded, her fruit trees were loaded, her fore thought was every where. About ten years ago they left the farm and moved to Galesburg, purchasing a home on West Tompkins Street. Most of the time since coming to Galesburg to live, she has been in very poor health. Many times severe illnesses have brought her near to death but her determined spirit and persistent vitality have conquered. Back into life she would come and always, even in the midst of bodily weakness, with bright and eager interest in the life she had almost left. Her sister, Miss Belle Hague, so well known in Galesburg, has helped care for her tenderly during these invalid years.

Mrs. Dunlap was closely identified with the educational interests in Cedar township for many years. Her father and his wife and two little children spent the winter of 1851-52 in the Cherry neighborhood, one and one half miles north of Abingdon, where he had come in October from Pennsylvania. The next year he moved over into Galesburg township where he lived for the remainder of his long life. His oldest daughter Leanna after graduating from Waynesburg College in Pennsylvania came back to Cedar township and for fifteen years taught school in the newly erected country school house at Cherry Grove. She proved herself a rare educator. Thorough and enthusiastic in her work she had a gift to a marked degree of inspiring her pupils with great loyalty and ambition. Working in close association with Mary Allen West, county superintendent of schools from 1873 to 1882 she did valuable service to the township and county in classifying and previding [sic] graded courses of study for district schools. Her own school was repeatedly the banner school in number of premiums taken for fine work shown at the county fair. For several successive years this ditrict [sic] excelled all others in the State in number and value of premiums for superior work shown at the State fair. Her work with Cherry Grove school ceased when she married George Dunlap in 1883.

The death of Mrs. Dunlap occurred in Long Beach, Calif., after an illness of about a week. The funeral will be held in Abingdon Tuesday.

There are left to mourn her loss her husband and three children, Dr. Wendell Dunlap of Toledo, Bailey Dunlap of Texas, and Mrs. Edith Dunlap Walker of Minneapolis. Also four grandchildren, one brother, Bailey Hague of Maine and two sisters, Belle Hague and Mrs. Carrie Hague Thompson of Des Moines, Iowa. Both sisters were with her at the time of her death at Long Beach, California. Miss Frances Hague of this city is a cousin."