Edna Brown: 100 years of gratitude
By:
Keeley Meier, staff writer
Edna Brown poses for a photo in 1944 while teaching high school English at Chester High School. Brown taught for a total of 22 years.
On Edna Brown’s first day as a high school English teacher in Chester in 1942, one of her students talked back to her. The student was 6-feet tall, and Brown barely stood 5-feet tall.
“Kids dressed up when they came to school. He had a nice neck tie on,” Brown said. “I reached up and jerked that neck tie. Buttons flew everywhere. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what have I done?’”
When the young educator went to the principal’s office to tell him what she had done, he sat in silence for a while.
“Do it again,” he told her.
“I never had to,” Brown said. “I never had another discipline problem.”
Brown taught for a total of 22 years, spending 18 of those years in Valley Springs. This, however, only accounts for a fraction of her life.
Brown will turn the page to 100 years young on Nov. 3.
“There are just so many things that I forget!” she joked. “It’s been a good ride. I’ve been very thankful for it.”
Brown humbly attributes her longevity to good genes, but her daughter Linda Rippentrop says it comes from gratitude.
“Whatever she’s had was enough,” Rippentrop said, tears streaming down her face. “I think gratitude will carry you a long way, and I think it’s carried her.”
Every year since Brown’s 80th birthday, Rippentrop says she has written something on her birthday.
“If you read through them, every one of them talks about being blessed with friends and being grateful for the days she has,” Rippentrop said. “She always says, ‘If the next birthday comes, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s great, too.’”
Teaching: A lifelong passion
Growing up, Brown and her two sisters would play ‘school.’ Brown was always the teacher.
When the time finally came for her to go to college, she jumped at the chance, despite the financial burden. Brown’s father, who didn’t make it past the third grade, jumped a train from Missouri to South Dakota when he was just 16 years old. Brown says her father vowed that if he had kids, he would make sure they got an education.
“It was something that I knew when I was a kid that I wanted to do,” Brown said of her teaching career.
She attended the University of South Dakota and lived with a couple, working for her room and board while her father borrowed the rest of the money, which covered tuition and books.
And then, she went to work.
One of Brown’s most meaningful stories comes from her days teaching fourth graders.
“There was a little boy [who was with a foster family], and something happened there. He looked up and said, ‘Nobody loves me.’ I said, ‘Oh yes, we do, and Jesus does,’” Brown said.
Years later, the little boy, who had since grown up and joined the Army, looked up Brown. The two still keep in contact.
But that’s not the only lasting impact the now Centenarian has made on a student. She even attended her one of her former class’s 50-year high school reunion.
“When I told [my daughter] I was invited to this party, she said ‘Mom, do you know those kids are on social security?’” Brown laughed.
“When you think about it, those kids are now also 95, 96 years old,” Rippentrop said.
Growing up during The Great Depression
Brown’s life, however, wasn’t always filled with happy memories or heartwarming stories. She was born in 1920 and grew up amid The Great Depression in Olivet.
“The wind blew every day,” Brown said. “You’d clean your house and by night, you’d never know you did it. There was always dirt in the air.”
She remembers a time when her father lost all but two of his farming horses to suffocation. Despite the initial worry, she said her father’s friends gifted him an old tractor so he could continue to farm his land.
Another time Brown vividly remembers was when her younger sister fell out of the wagon being pulled by horses and was stuck between the front and back wheel. Unaware that anything had happened, her father told the horses to keep going, but they refused. Once he saw his daughter below the wagon, he immediately jumped into action.
“He picked her up and ran to the house,” Brown said. “We just about lost her. The horses saved her. Just a little harder pull, but they didn’t want to do that.”
Brown, who is fiercely independent, picked up some of her independence from her mother who would work out in the fields alongside her husband, picking corn by hand.
A family of her own
Brown married her own farming husband when she was 25, even though he wasn’t a farmer at the time.
Before moving to the rural landscape, Brown and her husband Gene managed a movie theater in Onida. It was just the couple and a popcorn girl who ran the place for two years. At that time, Brown said $1 would get you two movie tickets and a bag of popcorn—a perfect date.
Then Gene Brown’s mother wanted him to take over the family farm. Gene promised his young bride that they wouldn’t be there more than 10 years; they stayed for 11.
“I made a remark one time: ‘I will never marry a farmer,’” Brown laughed. “I’m glad we [moved to the farm] because that’s when we had children. The farm has been important to me and my kids.”
Edna and Gene Brown had two kids—Linda and Mark—the latter of which now lives in Colorado.
Their kids gave them five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Gene Brown passed away in 1990, meaning she’s been on her own for 30 years. This hasn’t stopped her, however, from living.
Act two
After her husband passed, Brown continued to go out and about, spending time with friends and camping.
Yes, camping.
In 2007, at the age of 86, Brown embarked on a solo trip to a lake. She stayed at a friend’s cabin, but no one was around. One day, during the trip, she went fishing and caught one. She couldn’t seem to get the fish off the hook, so she went into the cabin to find something to get it off. When she came back out, she fell.
“And there I lay. So, I started screaming,” Brown said.
She was on the deck, with a broken hip, for almost six hours before some boat passersby happened to hear her cries for help. Luckily, two of the good Samaritans were nurses.
Brown broke her other hip just last year.
“I’m glad I only have two hips!” she mused.
Brown, who moved to Brandon with her family in 1965, stayed in her home until June of 2019 when she decided to transition into an assisted living center in Sioux Falls.
However, she considers Brandon as her “home.” She remembers moving to Brandon and feeling instantly welcomed.
“People were so friendly, they took us in and helped us,” she said.
Rippentrop said her mother fully enjoyed taking in athletic events up until the time she moved.
The move has been a positive change, despite the pandemic forcing her to visit with friends and family through a window.
For her 100th birthday, the family has planned a socially-distanced party that includes scheduled window visits and cake and ice cream for all the residents.
For Brown, though, life isn’t about what other people can give to you. It’s about what you can do for others.
“Most of all, don’t forget who’s taking care of you upstairs,” Brown said as her advice to young people. “Be nice to everybody. Help people that you can, and feel bad when you can’t help. Just be kind to everybody.”
Brown’s family is also organizing a card shower for the milestone birthday. Rippentrop encourages including a photo, if possible. If you’d like to send her a card, you can send it here:
Edna Brown
4501 E. Pampas Pl. #41
Sioux Falls, SD 57110.
Click here to see a glimpse of Brown's life in photos.
