2021/2022
Collection 17

A Field Trip to Remember

c. 1968; Granite City, Illinois, and St. Louis, Missouri, USA

In the late 1960s Linda Louise Wizeman, my grandmother, was a third-grade teacher for forty students in Granite City, Illinois. Twenty-three-year-old Grandma took a teaching job at Wilson Elementary School to pay the bills while Grandpa was finishing college at Southern Illinois University after serving as a Marine. What started as a fun field trip turned into a harrowing experience that Grandma will never forget.

The day started off bright and sunny as the children filed into school. Grandma, who was a new teacher, had her hands full trying to control forty rambunctious students with no teacher’s aide. One day she had sent a kid to sit in the hall and had forgotten about him until she left that day.

She had some very wild boys who were particularly hard to manage. Donny Wigglesworth was the most difficult of all. For example, he once took an Allen wrench to school to pass around the class so everyone could loosen the desktops. When the next class went in, the desktops dropped to the floor. Donny had also tried to climb out the window while Grandma was writing on the chalkboard. Grandma had a very hard time with Donny Wigglesworth! To make matters worse, all the kids thought he was very cool.

On this day everybody was especially excited for the field trip to the St. Louis Arch.(1) While all the kids were climbing onto the bus, Donny would try to trip them as they walked down the aisle. Grandma had had enough and put Donny in the seat next to her.

After arriving downtown, the driver parked the bus, and everyone started walking to the Arch. While looking up, Grandma noticed that the sky to the west had a very dark line that divided the blue clouds from the dark gray. A storm was brewing.

As the forty kids slowly started to ascend to the top of the Arch in the tram,(2) Grandma told the first ones to go up and to behave as they waited for her to get everyone else on the tram. She kept Donny at her side. Finally she arrived at the top. As she exited the tram, she looked out the window and saw that the storm had become considerably worse. The sky had turned green — with a twister in the distance.

The Arch staff immediately began evacuating everyone. One girl began to cry, and Grandma held her while trying to herd the kids back toward the tram and keep count of them. In all of the chaos, she lost sight of Donny, and another student told her he had already gone down with the first group. As the last group made it to the bottom, Grandma discovered that Donny was down there helping to keep the kids together until she made it down. She was very surprised, and thanked him for rising to the occasion.

The storm passed quickly, and everyone loaded the bus to head back to school. It was a day to remember.

Elizabeth Grady; Missouri, USA

1. The Gateway Arch, a stainless steel monument honoring westward expansion of the United States, opened to the public in 1967.

2. Visitors can ride an eight-car tram (five seated passengers per roundish car) to the observation area at a height of 630 feet.

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