Introduction
VIOLA BATTEN was born in New Jersey in May of 1875 to Joseph and Wilhelmina Batten. She was an only child. Her early years were spent in Gloucester Township, where, in 1880, her father was a farmer. Joseph Batten had a contracting business in 1900, and by 1910 was a teamster with his own team of draft horses.
After graduating from the New Jersey State Normal School, Viola Batten taught in Atlantic City and in Orange, New Jersey. She began teaching in the Camden public school system in 1893. She retired at the end of the 1933 school year as assistant principal of the E.A. Stevens School at 430 South 4th Street.
The 1900 Census shows the Batten family living in Gloucester Township. The Battens were living on Tomlinson Avenue in the Laurel Springs section of Clementon at the time of the 1910 Census. Laurel Springs became its own borough during the 1920s. The 1920 Census lists Miss Batten and her mother Wilhelmina, 73, residing on Tomlinson Avenue in Laurel Springs NJ. The Census taken in April of 1930 shows Miss Batten still living at that address. Her mother was gone, but her aunt, Clara Pearce, then 80, lived with her. She lived out her days in Laurel Springs.
Miss Batten passed away on March 24, 1941 in a Philadelphia hospital after a short illness.
Normal Exercises — The Last of the Series of Commencement
Trenton Times —
New Jersey State Normal School commencement, 1893 – Viola E. Batten among graduates
E.A. Stevens School
Retiring Teacher is Guest of Honor
Camden Courier-Post —
Miss Viola E. Batten, retiring assistant principal of Stevens School, this city, was the guest of honor at a luncheon given at the Woodbury Court Apartments, Woodbury.
Miss Batten has been a member of the teaching staff of the Camden public school for 40 years, the last 26 of which she has spent at the Stevens School.
Among guests at the affair were Miss Mary Ridgeway and Charles Furst, former principals of the school, and V. N. Heffelfinger, present principal. The latter presented Miss Batten with a dinner ring, the gift of her associate teachers.
Viola E. Batten
Camden Courier-Post —
Viola E. Batten, for 26 years a teacher at the E. A. Stevens School, Fourth and Benson streets, died yesterday in a Philadelphia hospital after a short illness. Miss Batten, who resided on Tomlinson avenue, Laurel Springs, was a lifelong resident of that borough. She taught at the Stevens school from 1907 until 1933 when she retired. Previously she had been a school teacher in Atlantic City and Orange. She is survived by several cousins. Services will be held Thursday at 1.30 p. m. at a funeral establishment at Central and Rich avenues, Berlin. Burial will be in Berlin Cemetery.