Barb Seidel marker is a mystery

November 8, 1:21 PMSouth St. Paul ExaminerRob Shirk

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          Holy Trinity School in South St. Paul

There are big mysteries and there are little mysteries. When the universe began is a big riddle as well as, "What does it all mean?". A monument for a person that nobody seems to know or care about is a little one and yet a mystery it remains: Who was Barb Seidel?

Outside the Holy Trinity School on 6th Ave. So. in South St. Paul there is a marker that has yet to be explained. It reads, in three lines, "Special Friend, Beloved Teacher, Barb Seidel". It is placed under a tree along a row of trees that seem to have been planted at the same time, their age being as mysterious as she. Everyone I spoke with at the school knew of the marker yet no one knew anything about it.

The school, a K-8 Catholic elementary institution, is attached to the church of the same name and has been going strong since 1954. Somewhere between then and who knows when, Barb Siedel taught there and she must have been held in high regard by her colleagues, parents, students or all of the above. Barb Seidel has reached Civil War monument status in that no one seems to know who she was or what she did.

I asked the person in school office and she did not know when the marker had been laid down or any biography of Seidel and when she'd asked the next individual up the totem pole, that person did not have a wit of an idea either. Explaining that almost everyone on the faculty was new and probably had a limited knowledge of the history of the school, she could offer me no further names on who or could could offer any enlightenment. As I walked outside, one of the instructors said that she knew of someone who could, perhaps, solve the riddle and had, as far as she could remember, even had Seidel as a teacher. So far...silence.

I went into the church office and no one, from maintenance to the priest, could offer me an answer or clue on who she was althogh everyone there, also, knew of the marker.

You know, it's just not that often that a person can find a monument for another, other than a graveyard or park, and as long as I stroll by Holy Trinity School, I'll wonder what not only made Barb special, but beloved. Who and what did she teach? Has she passed away and if so, when? Whose idea was it for the marker? There doesn't seem to be anyone who seems to think that it is all that important, but for someone to be special and beloved in a profession that is notoriously under-appreciated must be important to some.