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Keeping lasting connections

Holtzman’s teaching career spanned 35 years

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Delpha Holtzman, of Fort Dodge, reads a letter from a former student at her home recently. She taught in the Fort Dodge Community School District for 35 years.

Since her retirement from a 35-year teaching career in the Fort Dodge Community School District, former students still remember their time with Delpha Holtzman fondly.

Holtzman, of Fort Dodge, retired from Butler Elementary School in 2004. She also worked at Feelhaver Elementary School and Duncombe Elementary School.

She taught an estimated 1,200 students.

One of those students is Caralee Adams, of Bethesda, Maryland.

Adams was in Holtzman’s second-grade class at Duncombe Elementary School in 1971.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Delpha Holtzman, of Fort Dodge, stands next to some of her items she collected as a teacher in the Fort Dodge Community School District. The items include a golden apple award and two Smurf characters. Holtzman retired from teaching in 2004.

During that time, Holtzman gifted a “Wizard of Oz” book to Adams with a special note attached inside.

It was something she often did with her students.

“I always tried to find something special about each student,” Holtzman said.

At the end of the school year, Adams and her family moved to Des Moines.

“After that I never saw her again,” Holtzman said.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Delpha Holtzman, of Fort Dodge, shows off one of her coloring books that she used when she was in first grade.

Fast-forward about 40 years. Adams was raising her own family.

Her daughter Holly, who was 9 years old at the time, was involved in a “Wizard of Oz” play in school.

It sparked a memory of being in Holtzman’s classroom.

Adams dug out the same Wizard of Oz book that Holtzman had given her all those years ago.

“She kept that book and decided to look me up,” Holtzman said.

The two exchanged letters and eventually Christmas and birthday cards.

“I told her when she comes back to Des Moines, she’ll have to come to Fort Dodge,” Holtzman said.

The two met in person at Duncombe Elementary School before the historic structure was torn down in the spring of 2016, according to Holtzman.

They were able to sit and chat in the same classroom where Holtzman taught her.

“She told me I truly was her favorite teacher, and it was a joy to reconnect,” Holtzman said.

In a recent letter, Adams wrote to Holtzman, “To have a lasting friendship is truly icing on the cake.”

Those connections are part of what makes teaching special, she said.

“That just makes teaching worthwhile,” Holtzman said. “Teaching is not an easy job, but it makes it worthwhile when you made such an influence on the lives of children.”

Adams isn’t the only student with memories in Holtzman’s class.

While on social media a few years ago, Holtzman discovered another way students remembered her.

She found a post that mentioned her dental skills.

“Someone said, ‘You know you went to Feelhaver if Ms. Holtzman pulled your tooth,'” she said.

Oftentimes, when a student had a loose tooth, other teachers would send them her way.

“They would knock and I would say, ‘Come in,'” Holtzman recalled. “If it wasn’t loose enough, I would send them away, and if it was loose, I’d pull it out.”

After removing the tooth, she wouldn’t send them away empty-handed.

“I would send them home with a note and a lost tooth award,” she said.

She always tried to greet students with a smile.

“Some children come to school and they have already had a bad morning,” she said. “They need to be lifted up. You need to let them know you are there for them.”

She added, “To be a happy voice in their day and be there to assure them that everything is going to work out.”

Much has changed since Holtzman first came to Fort Dodge in 1969.

“We had 16 elementary schools and now we have four,” she said. “You had all your neighborhood schools. Kids were more spread out.”

She was also asked to teach classes she didn’t necessarily specialize in.

“Back then you basically taught everything,” she said.

Those classes would include math, reading, science, social studies, handwriting, and spelling.

When she interviewed for a teaching position at Duncombe, she was asked to teach music once a week by the curriculum director, Holtzman recalled.

“When he asked me that, I know I looked frightened and I said, ‘Music isn’t really my strong point,'” she said.

The man leaned back in his chair.

“He said, ‘You know how to put a needle on a phonograph, don’t you?'” Holtzman said. “I laughed and I said, ‘Yes I do.'”

Throughout her first year, she ended up repeating the lesson the music teacher taught at the beginning of the week.

“It wasn’t putting a needle on a phonograph, but I basically used a pitch pipe and taught the same songs she had done,” Holtzman said.

The following year, a full-time music teacher was hired.

“I never had to teach music or art again,” she said.

Holtzman grew up on a dairy farm east of Oelwein.

“I did a lot of chores,” she said. “We not only had dairy, but we had chickens where you gathered eggs. We had hogs. I did a lot of chores.”

“I don’t like chores,” she added.

Instead, Holtzman wanted to be a teacher.

“I knew I was going to be a teacher since I was 4 years old,” she said. “All I wanted to do was play school, and I just knew I wanted to be a teacher. I loved school. I wanted to play school and I wanted to teach school.”

After graduating high school in 1962, Holtzman attended Upper Iowa University in Fayette, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1966.

Her first job was in Independence. She then taught two years in her home district in Oelwein before pursuing another opportunity.

“I decided it was time to spread my wings and go someplace else,” she said.

A job opening brought Holtzman to Fort Dodge. But the friendliness of the community is why she stayed.

“I liked the size of Fort Dodge and I made friends easily,” she said. “I did not know one person when I came to Fort Dodge. I found it to be a friendly community.”

“I thought I would stay a few years and move on,” she said. “But I liked this community, so I stayed.”

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