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English Valleys remembers veterans
NORTH ENGLISH — Ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things. That’s what veterans are, English Valleys Elementary School Principal Amy Andreassen said Friday morning.
The 14th annual English Valleys Veterans Day service followed a breakfast for veterans in the elementary school gym.
Every year Michelle Patterson, one of the chairs of the committee that plans the breakfast and program, has her first-grade students create signs for each branch of the military. Kindergarten and first grade students make place mats, and fourth graders make gifts for the veterans to take home. This year, those gifts were Christmas ornaments.
Organizers (Julie Miller and Noah Cornelius in addition to Patterson) announce the event in the newspaper, on Facebook and on the school website. They also have a list of veterans they contact each year.
Still, the numbers of veterans attending is decreasing, Patterson said. “It is definitely getting smaller, which makes me sad.” Younger veterans don’t come, but, as one veteran pointed out, they are still working. Older veterans are retired.
North English used to invite veterans to have lunch with the students, Patterson said. In 2020, the event was canceled due to COVID restrictions, and when the school started the practice again, it planned for breakfast — without the students — so tables could be spread out and people could social distance.
“Breakfast worked a lot better,” Patterson said.
As veterans dined on biscuits and gravy, a Quilt of Valor and an afghan lay on a table in front of the stage. The quilt would be presented to Don Christy during the program. Christy’s daughter, Megan Knapp is a teacher at English Valleys.
The afghan was crocheted by Karen Steren for Richard Claeys. Though not a resident of Iowa County, Claeys was welcomed at the English Valleys’s breakfast. Claeys’ granddaughter, Kate Molyneux, is a teacher of at-risk children at the elementary school.
Claeys’ daughter, Donna, saw an announcement on Facebook about the Veterans Day breakfast and thought she and her father could surprise Molyneux during the program. But Molyneux saw her mother’s car in the parking lot while on the playground before the breakfast.
It was still a surprise, Molyneux told her mother.
Claeys, 96, was drafted in 1945. Inducted in Fort Snelling in Minnesota, he attended basic training in artillery at Fort Bragg before spending eight weeks at Fort Benning in paratrooper training.
Seeking a spot in the 82nd Airborne Division, Claeys volunteered for paratrooper training his first day in the Army, he said.
World War II was ending in Europe at the time, but the U.S. was gearing up for an invasion of Japan. Claeys is glad he didn’t have to use his training for a prolonged war in the Pacific, he said.
Claeys came to Iowa and took up farming east of Belle Plaine. He’s a Life Member of the Belle Plaine American Legion where he served as Sergeant of Arms for 20 years.
Jim Smith, of North English, was a first-timer at the English Valleys breakfast. “I’ve thought about coming for a long time,” he said. Smith was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1970-1972
Across from Smith sat Bob Evans, also of North English. He served in the U.S. Air Force in Iceland from 1967-1971. “I went with him for three months,” said his wife, Nancy, though she overstayed. She was supposed to be there only a month. “It was unaccompanied duty for him,” she said. He was a weapons controller.
Though Nancy didn’t like being separated from her husband, “We were pleased he was there and not in Vietnam.”
Evans and his wife also remember his uncle, who was killed in Saipan during World War II.
Susan Elwood attended the breakfast in honor of her husband Richard, now deceased. An Army veteran, Richard Elwood was in Korea form 1958-1960.
Elwood also remembered her father, who served in the medical corps during World War II. His wedding anniversary was June 6, now known in American history as D-Day. Elwood has a letter her father wrote to her mother in which he said that something big was happening that day, and he hoped he’d see her soon.
Lynn Moffitt, another North English resident, served in Vietnam with the Army from 1969-1970. “We appreciate that they do this,” he said. “It’s nice for the kids to know what people sacrificed for what they have.”
Following the breakfast, students filed into the gymnasium for a program that included posting of the flags by Boy Scout Troop 227, music by school band members and the elementary and high school choirs and an address by 2003 English Valleys graduate Brian Fischer who served with the Army in Iraq, Egypt and Afghanistan.
Ron Van Berkum introduced Fischer, a former student athlete with affection. “This is one of those rare times when a former student goes on to become a good friend, he said.
