From These Roots

“Miss Tuttle, small of stature but towering in her spirit of dedication and unbending principle, has given herself without reservation to the training of young minds and building of Christian character for forty-six years, twenty-seven of them at North Greenville.”

December 19, 1896, in Graymont, Illinois, parents William Atwood Tuttle and Fannie Mae Algeo welcomed a baby girl named Elsie Florence Tuttle into the world. William was a farmer while Fannie was a homemaker born to Irish immigrants. As she grew up, Elsie Tuttle discovered a love of geography and wanted to see the world. She knew that an education was the best way to achieve her dreams. As the oldest of twelve children, she realized early in life that if she wanted an education, she would have to make it happen herself. Hard work would not keep Miss Tuttle from obtaining what she wanted, but sickness plagued her throughout her life and made things even more difficult.

After finishing high school, Miss Tuttle began a teaching career that included time at Schaefer School, King School, Volo School, and Maple Grove School in Illinois. She saved as much of her salary as possible to pay for college and read everything she could to further her education. Once she had saved up enough, Elsie began taking college correspondence courses and attended a summer term at Northwestern University. This taste of college fueled her desire for more and made her more determined than ever to get a degree.

Eventually, she attended Illinois State Normal University where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography and Education in 1930. While attending Illinois State Normal University, Miss Tuttle attended Normal First Baptist Church and was a leader in the Baptist Young People’s Union there. During this time, she also started her dream of traveling when she attended a 28-day tour of the northeast United States with her geography class. She saw New York City, Plymouth, Boston, Niagara Falls, and Detroit on this trip.

She did so well in her work at Illinois State that she was granted an honorary scholarship to attend Peabody College for Teachers (now a part of Vanderbilt University) in Nashville, Tennessee. Miss Tuttle earned a master’s degree in geography with a minor in economics at Peabody in 1931. After graduating from Peabody, Miss Tuttle took a position teaching at the Memphis Teacher’s College for a spring-summer term. By the time she finished her degrees, Miss Tuttle was a member of the Gamma Theta Upsilon National Honorary Society for Geography and Pi Gamma Mu National Honorary Society for social science.

Miss Tuttle returned to Normal, Illinois for a couple of years before moving to Bastrop, Louisiana where she took a teaching position at Bastrop Central Grammar School. After two years in Louisiana, Miss Tuttle relocated once again to Commerce, Texas in 1937 where she served in a leave of absence position as supervisor of social studies at Eastern Texas State Teacher’s College.

In 1938, Miss Tuttle accepted a position as Dean of Women and geography instructor at North Greenville Junior College and Baptist Academy in Tigerville, South Carolina. The college part of the school was still new when Miss Tuttle first stepped foot on campus. She quickly became known as the professor who started class with the same opening prayer, “Our most gracious heavenly Father, we thank Thee for They many blessings…” She always felt that she and everyone in her classes had much for which to be thankful. By 1940, the dean of women’s duties had moved to Mrs. White, and Miss Tuttle was a full-time professor of geography and economics.

Miss Tuttle continued her education past her master’s degree by taking post-graduate courses and extension courses. By doing this, she expanded her teaching capabilities into social science, general science, and history. At different times throughout her teaching career at North Greenville Miss Tuttle taught geology, economics, geography, sociology, and government. She was the faculty sponsor for the Honorary Social Science Society which later became Sigma Tau Sigma and the Sociology Club.

Miss Tuttle had accomplished her dream of traveling and by the time she had retired, she had visited much of the United States, spent six weeks in Europe, and had toured Mexico. In 1964, towards the end of her career, she created the World Wide Interest Club at North Greenville. Through this club, she shared her passion for travel, sociology, and government.

Elsie Tuttle announced her retirement at the end of the 1964-1965 school year after forty-six years of teaching and twenty-seven years at North Greenville. She received an Excellence in Teaching certificate from North Greenville to add to her collection of other awards and acknowledgments including Who’s Who in American Leaders in Science, a National Council for Geographic Education Fellowship, Who’s Who in American Women, and Who’s Who in American Education.

North Greenville honored Miss Tuttle in 1966 by naming the new clinic Tuttle Clinic. She was able to attend the dedication service and unveiled the plaque featuring her name and dates of service to the school. Miss Tuttle stayed in Tigerville until May 1976 when she moved to Normal, Illinois to be closer to her family just before her 80th birthday. She remained there until August 23, 1982, when she passed away at the age of 85.

“In the more than forty-six years of classroom experience, Miss Tuttle has exemplified John Ruskin’s philosophy that ‘education is painful, continual, and difficult work to be done by kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, and by praise, but above all- by example.’” – Veda Sprouse