ZOOM LISA FERNANDEZ/REGISTER PHOTOS Donna Love, office manager at Moulton Extended Learning Center, holds a photo of Emma Case Moulton, the school's namesake. She has been working for five years to uncover details about the school's history. • EMAIL THIS   • SEND LETTER TO EDITOR • PRINT THIS  • SUBSCRIPTIONS

Uncovering Moulton's past

Moulton Extended Learning Center office manager Donna Love continues to piece together the puzzle of the school's history. Each time she thinks she has reached a dead end, another clue pops up to guide her to a new piece.

"One clue leads to the next, and you just keep following them," she said.

Love, a genealogist, began her research project five years ago during the building's renovation at 1541 Eighth St. An envelope of photos and other artifacts sent to a former principal piqued the interest of then-principal Deb Gettys.

"She said, 'You like history, you take this stuff and do whatever you can with it' - that's all I needed," Love said.

She researched the school's namesake, Emma Case Moulton, as well as the building itself, which used to be North High School, and other tidbits of the school's history. She then turned the material into a 17-minute PowerPoint presentation that she plans to display in a kiosk in the school's lobby.

"It's been so much fun," Love said.

She started with photographs sent by former teacher Mary Eaton, who's now a nun in Dubuque. Love examined books and other materials of former North High School principal and historian Robert Denny.

"Rather than reinvent the wheel, I started with his research," she said.

While reviewing his work, she discovered that he mislabeled an old photograph of the original North High School, the current site of Moulton, as Forest Home School. Love recognized the house behind the building in the photograph as one she looked at every day across the street.

"That was my favorite find," she said.

One of the school's biggest mysteries was which students were pictured in a mural titled "Brothers All Are We," which hangs in the school lobby. Love knew the teacher in the painting was Margaret Cannom, who died of malaria in Jerusalem in 1968. The staff at the time commissioned the painting in 1969 in memory of Cannom.

Love learned the names of two of the six students pictured with Cannom: Liz Frazier and Michael English. After The Des Moines Register's Community Publications published an article seeking the names of the other students, a grandmother told Love she could probably identify the children if she saw a photograph of them. It was then that Love remembered she had some photos of the children posed underneath the painting. The woman was able to identify five of the six children.

Another person recognized a photograph of the artist, Beth Knotts, and told Love how to get in touch with Knotts. The artist was able to find her sketchbook from the project, which contained the children's names: Liz Frazier, Christine Donahue, Kenneth Calhoun, Debbie Brown, Mike English and Vance Singleton.

Love plans to hang a plaque with their names by the mural so they will never again be forgotten.

"After all this work, I'd just love to meet and talk with them," Love said, but Calhoun is deceased and she has not been able to contact Donahue or Brown.

Another unique find was photographs and information on the Open Air School, which was housed in an old tuberculosis hospital. Open-air schools were a popular concept in the early 20th century. The philosophy included hot lunches, which were unheard of at that time, one-hour rest periods for all students and open windows year-round.

Love is waiting on an estimate from an audio company for professional sound and push-button technology for the kiosk. She plans to have CDs made of the presentation to sell as a fund-raiser to pay for the audio work.

The kiosk has been built and sits in a corner of the lobby near the mural. Love designed the wooden display cabinet, which includes carved images of children, and Iowa Prison Industries built it.

"I think its going to be really cool," Principal Al Burrows said. "I think she's done a really good job getting all the information and putting it into a presentation people can see. I can't wait until the kiosk is going."

Love said she hopes the kiosk will be up and running before school begins in July.