Former Jefferson Elementary School teacher Linda Brocker remembers when she switched from third grade to first.
She was dismayed to realize the younger children “didn’t know anything.”
But by the end of the school year, they could read.
She realized: “I did that. I taught them to read. After that I loved teaching first grade.”
In all, Brocker would teach for 41 years, nearly all of it at Jefferson.
She made scrapbooks of each of her years of teaching, going back to her first year at Jefferson in 1976.
When the Allen County Historical Society invited former Jefferson teachers to return to the building to give tours and talk about their time there, Brocker’s scrapbooks drew large crowds.
Former students and fellow teachers poured over the pages, recalling memories and friends. 
The Historical Society’s meeting brought together about a dozen former teachers, along with former principal Ken McGuffin, to talk about the building. It closed at the end of the school year, and the new Iola Elementary School opened this fall.
McGuffin also mentioned Richard Sears, who preceded him as principal and was unable to attend Thursday’s event. They still keep in touch.
Most of the teachers had worked together at some point. Many of them spent decades — most or all of their careers — at Jefferson. Most are retired, but some continue to teach at IES. Many of them had attended school at Jefferson as children.
The evening of reminiscing began with McGuffin, who said he wished he had been able to bring a VCR tape about the construction of the building. He wasn’t sure a VCR machine could even be found to play it, if he’d been able to get his hands on it.
“History disappears if we’re not careful,” he said.
He briefly talked about the school’s construction under the Works Project Administration (WPA), which built both Jefferson and Lincoln in 1940.
The buildings were designed to last.
“I remember when they did a remodeling project. I don’t know how many drill bits they broke trying to drill through these walls,” he said.
Each of the teachers shared a story before they went to the rooms where they had taught while at Jefferson.
