Editor’s note: Each year, the Brown County Democrat celebrates some aspect of Brown County history in our Founders Day section. This year we’re writing about residents who are about 80 or older, who have incredible stories to share and who define “Brown County character” in some way or another. If you have a suggestion for a person to feature in the next Founders Day issue, send it to [email protected] or call us at 812-988-2221.
In 1967, Sara Epler accepted a job as a substitute third-grade teacher at Helmsburg Elementary School and she ended up staying for 22 years.
She first started teaching in 1956. She taught second grade in her hometown of Greensburg for one year.
She met her future husband Carl Epler the same year at a New Year’s Eve dance. The two were introduced by one of Sara’s friends who was dating an Indiana State Police trooper. Carl was also working as a trooper.
“They had told me about this fellow and wanted me to meet him. It was New Year’s Eve before both of our schedules allowed that to happen,” Sara said.
“We had a very wonderful time.”
Carl called Sara for a second date. By August 1957 the two were married.
“When you know, you know,” Sara said.
“I thought he was pretty nice from the beginning and I respected him. I liked what I heard about him and I liked the things he said. I liked him.”
Carl passed away in 2017. The couple was a month shy of celebrating their 60th anniversary when he passed.
Carl joined the U.S. Army infantry division, stationed at Ft. Benning in Georgia.
When he moved back home he joined the Indiana State Police and was hired to work in Brown County.
“He always wanted to live in Brown County,” Sara said.
“He had been brought to Nashville and the surrounding area with his grandfather and aunt when he was young. From then on he wanted to live here.
After he became a state policeman luckily enough he was assigned to this area.”
When Carl and Sara met, he was already living in a two-bedroom log cabin on Coffey Hill Road. After they were married, Sara moved in with him.
“It was wonderful. It was fun. There were a lot of young couples on Coffey Hill and they had a lot of young children. It was wonderful,” she said.
The couple lived there for about five years and welcomed their first son David while living there. A couple of years after David was born they bought a farm off of Railroad Road.
Their second daughter Angela was born after they moved to the farm.
“Angie was born two months after we moved to the farm, so she only knows that part of it. She has heard a lot about Coffey Hill, but unfortunately she was not able to live there,” Sara said.
After moving to Brown County, Sara taught one year at Nashville Elementary School. She stopped teaching when her children picked it back up and began substitute teaching.
She filled in as a substitute teacher in third grade at Helmsburg Elementary. The teacher Sara was filling in for suddenly passed away and she was asked to substitute the rest of the year.
“So I did. I stayed about 22 more years,” she said.
And she never left the third grade classroom.
“I loved the kids. I loved it so much I would have done it without any pay. It was great fun. It was a good thing to do,” she said.
As a teacher, Sara would have to face the chalkboard to hide her laughter if her students said or did something funny.
Her class sizes were large compared to now. Each year she had between 30 to 36 kids.
Living on Railroad Road meant Sara was not far from work either.
“It was convenient, except it was a little too close. I always figured I had one other thing I could do before I went to school, which meant I ran late,” she said with a laugh.
Farm life
When Sara thinks about raising her family on a farm in Brown County one word comes to mind: Safe.
Her children could be outside playing on the farm all day. There were only a couple of times Sara had to yell for them to come home when the weather would start to get bad.
Living on a farm was not without its exciting, and sometimes humorous, stories.
Sara remembers caring for an infant Angie and a toddler Dave one evening when Carl had to stay at the ISP Post in Bloomington, something he had to do every so often for his job.
She was home alone with the children when people came up to the farmhouse letting her know there was a cow in the road. She wrapped infant Angie in a blanket and headed out to try to get the cow back into the pasture, but it would not go in.
She called the sheriff at the time, Harold Mathis, to come and help her. Mathis and his son helped Sara get the cow back in the field.
“Carl came home the next day and I told him I had the most horrible time last night trying to get this cow in the field. He asked which cow was it? I pointed it out and said ‘That’s not our cow,’” Sara said with a laugh.
As a state police trooper in Brown County, Carl mostly worked traffic accidents and directed traffic, including pedestrian traffic in October. Sara rarely worried about him in the line of duty, but one moment sticks out in her mind when she was working as a teacher.
Her classroom was near the school’s parking lot and back then visitors did not have to enter through the front office. One day towards the end of the school day her minister came to visit and as she was greeting him she began to think something bad had happened to her husband and the minister was coming to deliver the news.
“I said ‘Had something happened to Carl?’” she said.
But the minister was just stopping by to say hi.
That was one of the scariest moments in her life, she said.
When Carl retired as a major with ISP in early 1988 he became a full-time farmer. In 1978, Carl received a Sagamore of the Wabash award from Gov. Otis Bowen.
About 25 years ago, the couple decided to move from their home on the farm and build a smaller house on the other end of a hay field on Dunaway Road.
“He (Carl) didn’t want to be mowing that huge yard we had. We weren’t farming anymore,” Sara said.
The couple sold half of their farm. They also rented their farm out to local farmers as the years went on.
This summer, Sara made the decision to leave Brown County and move to Zionsville to be closer to her children.
She enjoys reading and playing games, like Dominoes. She used to paint, too. She knew many artists in the 1950s and took lessons from artist Fred Rigley. Rigley would bring painting classes to the Epler farm to paint their barn.
She painted watercolors and “dabbled in everything” when it came to art.
She still returns to Brown County for hair appointments and for lunch with friends.
“I led a wonderful life,” she said.
“Brown County is home. It has been a blessing that Brown County came into my life. It was a great place to raise a family.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Sara Epler” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Age: 87
Place of birth: Greensburg, Indiana
Spouse: Carl Epler
Children: Dave and Angie
Parents: Mildred and Herman Bewley
Occupations: Third-grade teacher for over 20 years at Helmsburg Elementary School
Hobby: Reading, playing games, arts and crafts.
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