SOLON — May was Older American’s Month, and in recognition of Solon’s senior citizens the Solon Economist has been proud to publish a series of interviews conducted by Solon High School senior William Wittich for his National Honor Society project. Wittich is a high school volunteer with Solon Senior Support, and with encouragement from Jill Weetman, he conducted interviews with over a dozen individuals.
This week we are featuring his interview with Marcele Kaduce, our fourth and final profile. An interview with Larry Brecht was published on May 19, Sandy Hanson was featured May 26, and Phyllis Fiala’s interview ran last week. The full interviews are available online at YouTube by searching for William Wittich.
What is your name?
“My name is Marcele Kaduce and I’ve lived in Solon about 14 years, and I moved here from Mason City.”
Tell me about your first memory.
“I’m thinking that’s when I was about five-to-six years old. What I remember is being with a friend and being in our home, and just playing with my friend.”
Do you remember what you were doing?
“I think we were going to plan a tea party.”
Can you tell me where you went to school?
“I went to school in Mason City. I went to elementary school and then I transferred over to Newman (Catholic) High School.”
What was your best subject?
“I would say English. I liked English because I loved reading, and my mother always had a lot of books at home. I was a frequent visitor to the library too.”
What was your favorite book?
“Oh, I love the fairy tales, Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, Snow White, I loved all those. And some of them I remember were a little more unusual, like Rumpelstiltskin. A lot people don’t know too much about that, but that was my favorite.”
Who were your best friends?
“I remember my best friend in middle school and high school was Lesley. She lived down the street from me and she and I often walked home from school together, and after we got home in our respective homes, we usually called each other and said, ‘come on over!’ Not so much during the school day, but after school we’d spend a lot of time together.”
What was your favorite memory?
“I’d have to say my wedding day! I had married Carroll Kaduce, we had been going together for 4-1/2 years, and we met in junior college. He got drafted into the service and I finished college, and then he got out of the service, and we got married.”
How was your experience in college?
“The friendships. I transferred to UNI. At the time it was called State College of Iowa, but shortly after it became UNI. I transferred from a junior college and so many of the people that I got to be friends with were from other junior colleges around the state like Clinton, Estherville, and several other junior colleges. So, we had a bond. We all came in as juniors.”
What was your favorite memory of college?
“I can remember the first snow at UNI, and my friends and I went out and threw snowballs, and had a great time, because it wasn’t anything to do with classwork, or subject area, it was just fun.”
Where did you work?
“In high school I worked in a little corner grocery store as a clerk. Also, I had taken dance lessons, probably from about the time I was seven years old, and my instructor needed an assistant. So, while I was in high school and college, I had my afternoons free sometimes, and I would go and assist her and be her assistant while she was teaching.”
Do you have any idea on choosing a career?
“I think you have to find what you really love, and the only way to do that is to try many different things. I can remember thinking, when I started college, that I wanted to be a speech clinician. And so, as I went on to UNI, I started taking classes specific to that topic. And then, just by chance, they made that a five-year program rather than a four-year program, and I didn’t have the money to go another year. So, I switched over to elementary education, and kindergarten really became my love. That’s what I did, all my teaching years, well except for a couple years, but I mostly taught kindergarten or preschool, and I loved it.”
What was the happiest moment in your life?
“My wedding day.”
What are you most proud of?
“I’m most proud of my children. They have turned out to be productive, kind, compassionate citizens that care about their community, they care about their country, they care – of course – about their family. But the fact that they care about others, not just about themselves, that’s what I’m most proud of. I don’t know how we did it, my husband and I. Maybe we didn’t have anything to do with it at all. But that’s what I’m most proud of.”
What is your most favorite thing to do?
“Read. I’m a regular visitor of the Solon Library, and I try to branch out and read more biographies, not just novels. Novels are my favorite, but biographies of different famous people. That’s my plan, to branch out and learn new things. I think learning is a lifetime thing. You don’t ever give it up.”
What world events have changed your life?
“I was never political, but in my years now, I’m very concerned about our country, and I’m very concerned about our world. Climate change being number one on the list. So, as far as knowing about the climate has really changed the way that I live – recycling, thinking of ways to preserve. I like to garden a little bit. I like to do things that take care of our country, our land.”
Can you tell me more about your kids?
“I have two children. Our daughter is Jill Weetman, and what can I say? We think alike, I’m so proud of how she cares so much about others, especially seniors here in town. Our son Chris lives in Johnston, and he’s a market analyst for Blue Cross and Blue Shield. After my husband passed away, he became the one who did all the things his dad did, which was so helpful to somebody like me. Yeah, two wonderful children.”
Can you tell me more about your husband?
“He was a very tall man, he was 6’-5, he grew up on a farm so he had very, very wonderful years of doing chores, doing farm work. I met him in junior college and we went together about 4-1/2 years before we were married. He was an extremely generous man – with his time, with money, with everything. He was always thinking of others and how fortunate we were, so he was very, very kind. Being so tall, he got comments from lots of people saying, ‘Oh, what college did you play basketball for?’ and he didn’t. He played in high school, but he didn’t play in college. I have very fond memories.”
How would you like to be remembered?
“Well, I was a kindergarten teacher for many, many, many years, and I first of all would want to be remembered as somebody that imparted to the children the love of learning, the kindness that they needed to take care of others, and then I’d like to be remembered as ‘Grandma.’ I love to cook and bake and sew sometimes. That’s what I want to be remembered as, somebody who cared about children that weren’t her first love, and who tried to impart in her own children the values to be good, productive citizens.”
What is one piece of advice you have?
“I guess I’d go back to the love of learning. Never stop learning. When I retired I had three goals: I said I wanted to learn to speak the Spanish language better, I wanted to learn how to quilt, and I wanted to become more computer savvy, more technological. You get forced into it when you have a smart phone. You just learn to use it because your grandkids are using it, your kids are using it. I still call my daughter or my grandson, and say, OK how can I do this? But yes, I think that is what I would want to impart to others, a love of learning.”
Can you tell me more about your kindergarten class?
“Over the 33 years that I taught mostly kindergarten, the children always came in everyday…you know, kindergarten kids love school, maybe as they grow up, not so much. But they love school. They love coming together with all the other kids and their friends, and you don’t have to entertain them. All you have to do is let them learn to love the learning. Finding out new things, and children are just instinctively wanting to learn, so they’re always very ‘up.’ So, even if I had a bad morning at home, you come to school and the kids are always the same. They always need this, and they always learn this, so as a teacher I grew about as much as they did because I just loved giving them a good start.”
Postlude
“I don’t have any regrets, but I do have more things I wanna learn.”
What else do you want to learn?
“I think I’d better become more computer savvy than I already am. I think it is important to branch out. When the pandemic came I had to give up all the things I was involved with like my exercise class, so I need to get back into that, and also I had some Bible studies that I shared with some other people from my church, and I would like to get back into that too. I want to keep learning.”
Living history
William Wittich
June 8, 2022