She’s a Doll (Maker)

Retired kindergarten teacher Nancy Kukla shares her crafty ways

THe LiBrAriAnS AT the Grandview Heights Public Library welcome Nancy Kukla warmly whenever she strolls in. There’s always something for them to talk about.

Kukla, who retired from her position as a kindergarten teacher in Grandview Heights City Schools in 2004, never turns down a chance to help the library however she can – whether that means creating the ornaments for the library’s annual Christmas tree or donating a doll for use during story time.

Kukla, 71, grew up in Chicago and attended college in Milwaukee, where she studied to be an occupational therapist. But post-graduation, she initially decided that working with children wasn’t her calling. “I thought, ‘I can’t deal with this.’ I wanted to work with old people,” Kukla says.

After spending a year in Ireland with relatives, Kukla returned to the U.S., desperate for a job. “When I came back, I needed a job now, so I started teaching school because it was in a day when practically any warm body would do,” Kukla says.

At her first teaching job in suburban Chicago, she was in charge of 50 kindergarten students every morning and afternoon – all by herself.

“But I really liked doing it. I wasn’t surprised that I liked doing it, but it was just convenient,” she says. She stuck with teaching after she married her husband, Michael, and they moved to Cambridge, Ohio.

She took a brief hiatus from teaching when the couple moved to Grandview Heights in the late 1960s because their children were young. Michael had a job at The Ohio State University.