Author: A. Book A Book by Me

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2013-03-19

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13: 9781484199992

In spring of 1940 something special happened in the Danville Community School in Iowa. Teacher Birdie Mathews offered her students the chance to correspond with pen pals overseas. A student named Juanita Wagner drew the name of a ten-year-old girl in the Netherlands-Anne Frank. The brief connection between Anne Frank in Amsterdam and Iowa was the work of Birdie Mathews. Mathews was a veteran teacher who had taught for over two decades in country schools. She taught a wide range of curriculum and varying ages and levels of students. No doubt this had made her a seasoned teacher who had overcome the obstacles that plagued rural teachers. "Miss Birdie" acquired teaching resources through travel. She was even a bit of a local celebrity when she sent home lengthy letters to the local newspaper sharing stories of her 1914 trip to Europe. Her letters were front-page news, and her travel experiences became classroom lesson plans. Her students often spent afternoons gathering around Mathews to hear about her adventures. In order to open their eyes to the world beyond, she frequently sent postcards to her students from her travels overseas and across the country. On one of these trips she acquired the names of potential pen pals for her students. Having pen-pals in the classroom was rare at this time. Only creative teachers would have set up situations in which their students could learn first-hand about the world. Some Danville students wrote to other children in the United States, but many, including Juanita Wagner, chose to write to overseas pen pals. In her introductory letter in the spring of 1940, Juanita, age ten, wrote about Iowa, her mother (a teacher), sister Betty Ann, life on their farm and in nearby Danville. She sealed the letter and sent it to Anne Frank in Amsterdam. In a few weeks, Juanita received not one, but two overseas letters. Anne had written back to Juanita. Anne's sister Margot wrote to sister Betty Ann since both girls were fourteen. "It was such a special joy as a child to have the experience of receiving a letter from a pen pal overseas," Betty Ann Wagner later recalled. "In those days we had no TV, little radio, and maybe a newspaper once or twice a week. Living on a farm with so little communication could be very dull except for all the good books from the library." The Frank sisters' letters from Amsterdam were dated April 27, 1940 and April 29, 1940 and were written in ink on light blue stationary. Anne and Margot had enclosed their school pictures. The letters were in English, but experts believe that the Frank sisters composed their letters first in Dutch and then copied them over in English after their father, Otto Frank, translated them. In her letter Anne told of her family, her Montessori school, and Amsterdam. She must have pulled out a map of the United States because she wrote, "On the map I looked again and found the name Burlington." Enclosing a postcard of Amsterdam, she mentioned her hobby of picture-card collecting. "I have already about 800." After the war was over, Betty Ann Wagner was teaching in a country school in eastern Illinois. Still curious about the Dutch pen pals, she wrote again to Anne's address in Amsterdam. A few months later she received a long, handwritten letter from Otto Frank. He told about the family hiding, of Anne's experiences in the "secret annex" and how Anne had died in a concentration camp. This was the first time Betty Ann learned that Anne was Jewish. "When I received the letter, I shed tears," Betty Ann recalled. "The next day I took it with me to school and read Otto Frank's letter to my students. I wanted them to realize how fortunate they were to be in America during World War II."