Background
Celestia Josephine "Jessie" Field Shambaugh was born on June 26, 1881, near Shenandoah, Iowa, United States. She was the daughter of Solomon Elijah Field and Celestia Josephine Eastman.
Celestia Josephine "Jessie" Field Shambaugh was born on June 26, 1881, near Shenandoah, Iowa, United States. She was the daughter of Solomon Elijah Field and Celestia Josephine Eastman.
Jessie Shambaugh graduated from Tabor College in 1903 and began teaching at Goldenrod School in Fremont Township, Page County. There she organized the boys' and girls' clubs that became the models for the 4-H Club movement in the United States.
Jessie Shambaugh later became the principal of Jefferson School in Helena, Montana. In 1906 she returned to Page County, first as appointed acting superintendent of schools, and later as elected superintendent. In that position, she administered the 130 rural schools in the county.
Jessie Shambaugh continued the club work that she had begun at the Goldenrod School, with the Girls' Home Clubs and the Boys' Corn Clubs, expanded to include each rural school in Page County. In the first year of the clubs, the students entered the junior exhibit at the farmer' Institute in Clarinda, where they won and continued successfully until 1909. That year Jessie Shambaugh took the Page County exhibit to the International Corn Show in Omaha, which held a competition for the best "County Junior Collective Exhibit." Her students' exhibit won first prize, a one-cylinder automobile.
By that time Jessie Field's work had attracted the attention of the National Commissioner of Education. Accompanied by 15 state superintendents, he toured Page County's rural schools. His conclusion was that these were the best rural schools in the United States, and for the next decade, Jessie Shambaugh and the Page County rural schools served as models of exemplary rural education.
Jessie Shambaugh designed a badge to encourage participation in the clubs. It was a three-leafed clover with a letter H on each leaf. The H's stood for Head, Heart, and Hands, with the motto "Learning by doing, to make the best better." In 1910 she added a fourth leaf to the badge, which stood for Home. Boys studied farm management, agronomy, and livestock, and corn judging and participated in sports and elements of self-government. Girls studied cooking, sewing, interior decoration, gardening, first aid, and child care.
During Jessie Field's career as a superintendent, the clubs in Page County consistently won contests in several categories. The corn judging team won the state contest three years in a row and was awarded permanent possession of the trophy. The team from Page County won the Girls' State Cooking Contest in 1910. The Boys' Farm Camps and the Girls' Camps of the Golden Maids she organized for rural youth beginning in 1910 and 1911 were the foundations for training in self-government. That experience resembled the present-day Boys' State and Girls' State experience and was held in conjunction with local chautauqua. Jessie Shambaugh believed in the possibilities of youths working in tandem with adults for a better life on Iowa farms.
In 1913 Jessie Shambaugh left Iowa to become the National Secretary for Rural Work in Small Towns and the Country for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in New York. During that time in her career, she wrote a civics textbook, as well as The Corn Lady and A Real Country Teacher, all three of which were used to train rural teachers, and were used by rural teachers in their classrooms. After her marriage, she returned to Clarinda and assisted her brother Henry A. Field at radio station KFNF in developing the Radio Homemakers shows.
Jessie Shambaugh died at her home in Clarinda in 1971.
Jessie Field Shambaugh married Ira Shambaugh on June 9, 1917.