Morningside Connect

Adeline Anderl ’34 celebrated with family and friends as she turned 102. She currently resides at Sunrise Retirement Community in Sioux City, Iowa, and has lived quite the life.

She was born in 1913 in White Lake, South Dakota, but when she turned two, her family moved to Sioux City. She has lived in the Morningside College neighborhood for 100 years. She graduated from East High School when she was around the age of 16 and went on to start her educational journey at Morningside College. During her time at Morningside, she was involved in the sorority ADPi. Anderl loved her English classes during her time as a student. After graduating with a degree in English, she went on to teach English, rhetoric, debate, and drama.

When she was teaching in Le Mars, Iowa, she became secretly engaged. At this time, a woman couldn’t be a teacher and married, so many couples would keep their engagement a secret for some time. They eventually eloped, and at the end of the school year, she left teaching.

Anderl was a mother to three boys, Richard, Jim, and William. She has lived a very social life. She was involved in her church, involved in PEO, played bridge very successfully, and picked up the game of golf around age 50. Jim says she had something going on at the house every week.

In her lifetime she has witnessed some important moments for Siouxland and surrounding places. Anderl’s first apartment was across the street on Morningside Avenue. In 1957, when the Grace Church burned down, they were able to see it and her three boys were able to get closer looks the next day.

Anderl was also working one summer as a secretary for Mr. Wells in an office in Sioux City. During that summer, the company held a contest in the Sioux City Journal for a company mascot. The mascot picked was the blue bunny and thus, Blue Bunny Ice Cream came to exist.

For the past nine years, Morningside College’s chapter of Omicron Delta Kapp (ODK), a national leadership honor society, has been organizing Into the Streets. This annual event provides an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to give back to the community by volunteering their time to help others. More than 900 students, faculty, and staff volunteered to help approximately 90 different organization this year.

The track team spent the morning helping Camp High Hopes.

The track team at Camp High Hopes gave the tables a fresh coat.

The Morningside Student Media and ACACIA teamed up to help Sioux City with environmental services.

It is hard to imagine being a senior in college when it seems like yesterday you were making the journey to Morningside college to start a new chapter in life. Years fly by fast, but the memories made will be cherished. Anna Ryan, a senior psychology major from Omaha, Neb., started her college journey in 2012.

“They (Morningside College) were interested in my well-being, not only just picking a college, but picking the right college for me,” said Ryan. “They treated me as a person rather than a number they could get.”

She became more involved on campus each year. She started off with AOPi, a girl’s sorority, her freshman year. The next year it grew and by her senior year she was involved in ODK, an upper-class honor society, marching band, and TAK, a religious studies group. She said that AOPi is very small on our campus.

“Because it is small, you really get to know everyone in it very well compared to other chapters on different campuses,” said Ryan. “It has given me a lot of leadership opportunities – a lot that I wouldn’t have had otherwise – because since it’s so small they needed leaders, so I just kind of had to step up. Now I’ve become a much different person than I was as a freshman.”

As president of AOPi this year, Ryan got to travel to Los Angeles for a convention. There she got to spend time with other chapters from around the country, network, and attend to National AOPi business.

Throughout her four years here at Morningside College, Ryan has had the opportunity to attend MAC events and other Morningside events on campus. Her favorite MAC event was the Paradise Fears concert that MAC held early this school year.

“I like Christmas at Morningside,” said Ryan. I have gone every year and I think it really helps putting everyone into the spirit. It just makes me really happy and it is always very well done.”

In her college years, Ryan has been challenged, experienced the joys of events, and sorrows of older friends graduating and starting their own new chapters in different areas. This spring she will be starting a new chapter in her life by continuing her education in graduate school.