A Journey Back in Time with RIC’s Oldest Living Graduate
On June 14 Louise joined fellow alumni from the Classes of 1937-1968 to celebrate the RIC Golden Years Reunion. As the guests came in, some leaned on canes, a few used wheelchairs as did Louise Rimmler.
Her husband – retired Lt. Col. Carl Rimmler – carefully rolled her up to a table glittering with silverware and wine glasses. He then sat beside her and never left her side. No longer as verbal as she used to be, Louise relied on her husband, to reminisce for her. He proceeded to tell her story as if she were telling it herself.
After graduating from RICE in 1937, Louise taught grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse in Foster, Rhode Island.
“The classroom had a potbellied stove in the middle of the room for heat,” Carl said, “and in back, there was a pail with a dipper that everybody drank from. Of course, the lavatory was an outhouse.”
It was hard times, he explained. In 1937 America was still in the midst of the Great Depression. A loaf of bread cost nine cents, a gallon of gasoline 10 cents and the average wage per year was $1,780. Louise earned $800 a year.
She met Carl on a train five years into teaching. Carl was a commissioned second lieutenant stationed at Camp Edwards in Cape Cod, and Louise was on her way home to North Scituate.
“We sat facing each other and struck up a conversation," he said. "We made a date to meet again.”
They met for four weekends before they were married in 1942. Three weeks after their marriage, Carl was shipped overseas. He served in World War II and fought in the South Pacific. He remained in the military for 28 years.
Though the Rimmlers didn’t have children of their own, Louise had hordes of them at school. She taught elementary school in Scituate and later in North Scituate, where she was later appointed principal. She dedicated 35 years to the field of education and continues to receive letters and cards from her former students.
Suddenly Carl’s voice cracked in the telling and his eyes filled with water. He gazed over at his wife. “She’s just a super being, a super wife and a super woman,” he said, gazing into her eyes.
Louise lives in a nursing home while Carl lives in an assisted living unit within the same complex. “We live within walking distance from each other,” he said. “I see her every day.”
Raising a glass, Michael Smith ’79, president of the Rhode Island College Alumni Association, toasted the Rimmlers and all 180 alumni at the Golden Years Reunion: “To friendship, memories, health, success ... and to our alma mater.”
Alumni may send recollections or anecdotes to:
Office of Alumni and College Relations
Rhode Island College
600 Mt. Pleasant Ave.
Providence, RI 02908
Phone: 456-8086
Email: alumni@ric.edu