Community invited to say goodbye to longtime Algonquin teacher

Barbara Hinkle was a kindergarten teacher in demand during her 27-year career in Community Unit District 300.

"Each year I would receive several letters from parents requesting for me to place their child in Mrs. Hinkle's classroom," said Bill Doran, principal at Eastview Elementary School in Algonquin. "There's not a better compliment you can receive as a teacher."

Doran supervised Hinkle for the final four years of her career before early-onset Alzheimer's disease forced her retirement at the age of 53 in December 2003.

"Barb Hinkle is an icon in the Eastview Elementary School community," Doran said. "She had a phenomenal impact and was very well-known."

Because Hinkle helped shape the lives of a generation of residents, her husband, Jim, her mother, Dorothy Lee, and sons Brian and Brad are inviting the public to say goodbye.

Hinkle, because of her deteriorating condition, will move permanently this weekend to Heritage Manor, a nursing home in Carlinville, Ill. Carlinville is near her mother's home.

On Friday, the Hinkle family will hold an open house at their Algonquin home at 333 Lincoln Ave. Former students, parents, colleagues and friends of the kindergarten teacher are invited to visit between 6 and 9 p.m.

"You know those people who say, 'Everything I know I learned in kindergarten?' Well, they must have had Barb as their teacher," said Jim Hinkle, the boys basketball coach and attendance specialist at Jacobs High School in Algonquin. "I would like them to come by and acknowledge that she had an impact on their lives."

Barb Hinkle began her District 300 career at Dundee-Highlands Elementary School in West Dundee in 1977. She soon became a kindergarten teacher, splitting her time between Neubert and Eastview schools in Algonquin.

She eventually became a full-time kindergarten teacher at Eastview, where she spent the bulk of her career.

Of the 4 million Americans affected by Alzheimer's disease, fewer than 10 percent develop symptoms before age 65, according to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Hinkle first demonstrated signs of the disease at 49. She will turn 57 on Sunday.

"She was just one of the unlucky ones," her mother said. "The doctors told Jim down at Rush (Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago) that they don't know what causes it. But whatever causes it, it hit."

Her husband was Barb's chief caretaker for the first three years after she stopped teaching. Barb's mother moved to Algonquin from Carlinville to assist with her daughter's care as the disease progressed.

She has spent the last 21 months living with her daughter and son-in-law, which has allowed the Hinkles to spend two extra years together under the same roof.

"Dorothy gave up her life to let us have these last two years together at home," Jim said. "She's been an angel, strong as anything."

Friends of the Hinkles have been lending constant support, too. Rita Moran and Janet Peterson, each of whom had two sons on the Jacobs basketball team last season, prepare a meal for the Hinkles once a week.

Nancy Arndt, the wife of District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt, "does whatever she can," Dorothy said. "There's help all the time. The people here have been so wonderful to us. Nobody had better ever say to me that people up this way aren't friendly. Because they are."

Caring for Hinkle has become increasingly complicated. She suffered a grand mal seizure at home four weeks ago, an episode during which she stopped breathing. A second seizure followed as Algonquin paramedics arrived and a third occurred at the hospital. The incident hastened the move to Heritage Manor.

Jim Hinkle said he hopes those whose lives were affected by his wife will stop by the house Friday to say a final farewell and thank you.

"She doesn't have the ability to converse anymore, but she'll know the faces," he said.