‘She believed in us’ - Community fondly remembers elementary teacher killed in automobile accident

A 1969 graduate of Jefferson City Senior High, Celia McIlwain went on to earn her degree in education from Lincoln University. She taught fourth-grade classes for 17 years at Russellville Elementary School but was killed in a car accident in 1989. Courtesy of Cole-R-1 Schools

Celia (Seidel) McIlwain was for years a beloved fourth-grade teacher at the elementary school in Russellville who helped inspire generations of students. When she died unexpectedly from an automobile accident, an entire school district mourned, flooding to her funeral service to pay their final respects. Decades later, her memory is still celebrated by friends, family and former students.
 
Born in 1951, Celia Seidel was the second of three children raised on a small farm on Meadows Ford Road north of Lohman. In her youth, she attended Centertown School through the eighth grade before transferring to high school in Jefferson City.
 
“On our parents’ farm, we raised some cattle and put up a lot of hay,” said McIlwain’s older brother, Mervin Seidel. “We also grew some truck patches so Celia spent a lot of time helping mom around the house and doing some canning of the vegetables we grew.”
 
Church was also an important aspect of their family circle. The Seidels were members of the Central United Church of Christ in Jefferson City, where Celia underwent her Confirmation as a young woman.
 
Mervin, who was five years older, recalled that he and his sister had their moments of sibling rivalry and mirthful retaliation while growing up. On one occasion, when he was 15 years old and Celia just 10, they played a game of croquet in the yard and had a disagreement on the rules.
 
“I kept knocking her ball across the yard and we argued about it for a little bit and then finally quit playing,” he said. “We were walking back to the house and she came up behind me and hit me in my upper back with the croquet mallet.” Chuckling, he added, “That hurt for a while.”
 
 When graduating from Jefferson City Senior High in 1969, Celia enrolled at Lincoln University to pursue a degree in education. During college, she met Ralph McIlwain and they were married at Central United Church of Christ on June 2, 1973.
 
A few weeks later, she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and was hired to teach the fourth-grade at Russellville Elementary School.
 
“Although she loved to teach, I think she also wanted a career with the summers off because she loved outdoor activities like gardening” said Cheryl Morris, McIlwain’s younger sister.
 
Morris added, “She was a Christian and her family was very important to her. The summer months were also a time for her to volunteer with her church at events like Vacation Bible School.”
 
McIlwain and her husband became parents to a son and daughter—Matthew and Jill. Sadly, in 1987, they lost a son, Addison, in infancy. This proved to be an emotionally trying period for the McIlwain family, but through the support of relatives and friends, she continued to focus on her career and providing a quality education for her students.  
 
Jim Kilson, a student of McIlwain’s in the late 1980s, said, “She was always willing to go the extra mile to help those who were struggling by coming in early or staying late. She had a way of making learning fun to the point that even when it came to the difficult things, we were all on board to do it.”
 
He continued, “For me personally, I really struggled as a student when I was younger and those things made all the difference in the world.”  
 
On many occasions, McIlwain carpooled with other teachers who lived in the Jefferson City area. On November 27, 1989, the first Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday, she and three other teachers finished the school day at Russellville and were returning to Jefferson City when the unexpected occurred.  
 
McIlwain was riding in a vehicle driven by one of her co-workers that was traveling eastbound on Route C. A car failed to stop at the intersection of Routes C and D north of Lohman and the vehicle in which McIlwain rode was struck on the left side, knocking it off the road.
 
“One Russellville teacher was killed and three were injured in an accident that occurred at 4:30 p.m….” reported the Eldon Advertiser on November 30 1989. “Celia McIlwain … of Jefferson City was pronounced dead at Charles E. Still Hospital.”
 
Of the three teachers injured in the accident, only two were able to return to their careers in education.
 
“The superintendent got a call that some of our teachers were involved in an accident,” said Jay Acock, who was at the time elementary principal at Russellville. “He came and got me, and we drove to the intersection, but it was all over by then. We knew that Peggy (Heinrich) and Celia were hurt bad, but I didn’t hear that Celia had died until visiting the hospital a little while later.”
 
Acock noted that counselors were brought in from Jefferson City to be available for students and faculty coping with the trauma of McIlwain’s death and the medically-necessitated absence of the other teachers.
 
Funeral services for the 38-year-old McIlwain were held at Central United Church of Christ, where friends, family and scores of students and faculty from Russellville Elementary School packed into the building. She was then laid to rest in Riverview Cemetery, the same location where her infant son had been interred two years earlier.
 
“It was not a good time in a lot of peoples’ lives; it affected more than just family,” said Morris. “But people obviously liked her and I know that she helped make a positive difference in a lot of lives.”
         
“My sister,” she continued, “was a visionary and knew that her students could accomplish certain things academically. Then, through her imagination, she worked to make that vision become a reality.”
 
Reflecting on his former teacher, Jim Kilson added, “She was super encouraging and often I’d hear, ‘I know you can do this—give it another try!’ And I know others heard it as well. She believed in us even if we didn’t believe in ourselves.”
 
Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the upcoming historical compilation "Beyond the Moreau."

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McIlwain is pictured in her senior photograph from Jefferson City Senior High in 1969. Courtesy of Mervin Seidel