Carol Heselton:
CLASS OF 1961
St. Irenaeus Elementary SchoolClass of 1961
Park forest, IL
Rich East Campus High SchoolClass of 1965
Park forest, IL
St. Joseph AcademyClass of 1965
Des moines, IA
Carol's Story
2015
Well, with two 50th reunions coming up (SJA next week and Rich East in late September, it is time to update the information below from post retirement. Retirement life has been, and I hope it continues to be, very good. We are no longer on the lake in Minnesota, having chosen to downsize and live in the White Mountains of Arizona during the summers. Winters continue to be spent in a friendly community in Apache Junction, AZ. We are traveling and enjoying life to the hilt! A highlight of the past 7-8 years was the opportunity to marry my life partner of 38 years, Robin. She will be coming to the reunions as she has a couple of times in the past. With her help I will try to post a few pictures to add to the posted one of my departure from the public school system. When you look, the time frame is this: junior year at Rich East, junior year at Saint Joseph Academy, graduation picture, college graduation (start of the short hair), and a picture of the two of us taken last month on an Adventures by Disney trip to Nashville. I am the one on the left. We continue to be big Disney fans and life fans--- as opposed to the alternative. May the good times continue!
2007
Hello to all who remember me. My family moved to West Des Moines, Iowa, in late October of 1963. I was devastated at the time, rebellious too, but all worked out very well. The new school was welcoming although I chafed a bit at the religious/conservative structure after being in public school. I've had a good time reconnecting at reunions and am still in yearly contact with most of the "lunch table crew" from the St. Joseph's Academy years. It was wonderful that Dollie Kauzlarich still had the address for Jacke Stadel,who left St. Irenaeus earlier and who ended up living within walking distance of our new house in Iowa. Her friends became mine and still are. I had a couple of visits back to Park Forest during high school (thanks for the parties, Linda Musengo and others)and then connected with Eileen Maloney and others in the summer of 1968 while on the way to see a boyfriend who was working in Chicago. That was the last contact until Dee Lindhoff and Marti Whitman found me somehow and told me about the school's 50th-anniversary reunion. We made a long weekend of it and saw a couple of plays/sites in Chicago whil...Expand for more
e enjoying the reunion. The next reunion in Las Vegas was another nice way to touch base with friends and memories while having a good time in that city. Thanks to Debbie Paul, Marti, and others who organized those Rich East reunions. Thanks to Barb Hand, who masterminded the details of the St. Joseph's Academy/Dowling reunions.
My apologies to any people whose feelings I hurt through any immature moments/comments during those years. That, along with not applying myself to my studies as much as I should have, are my only regrets from elementary and secondary years. Live and learn.
After high school I attended the University of Northern Iowa, majoring in CORE, a blend of English and social studies in a two-hour time block. I could never decide whether I liked one subject area more than the other, so that major worked perfectly. Eventually, I turned it into a double certification in both disciplines, along with drivers' education and coaching.
I taught in inner-city St. Paul, Minnesota, for eight years and then moved to a northwest suburb of Minneapolis (Maple Grove) and taught in the Osseo district for over 29 more year. My primary emphasis was junior high education, and I am still sane--- one either loves them or hates them at that age (primarily ninth grade), and I enjoyed all but about 2% of them. It was never a boring job. Exhausting, but not boring. I coached volleyball and basketball also until retiring and was the athletic director of the school population of about 1,300 in my "spare" time for 22 of those years.
I retired in 2007 and am loving it!
I love the poetic justice of having the nuns and even the public school teachers make grades/comments about "needs improvement in self control" while I spent most of my later life trying to instill good self-discipline/behavior in my students. This is the payback for being "chatty" all during my schooling. So it goes.
My partner of 32 years and I are enjoying life on Eagle Lake in Maple Grove for half of the year and then spending the other half in Apache Junction, Arizona. Aaaaaah.
I bit the bullet and signed up for this web site for one year. While only semi-literate in technology, I hope to have contact with people who have memories of the fun and foibles which I hope I brought to their lives. Thanks for the memories.
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Yearbooks
Reunions
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