WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) - Fifth-grader Alfred Real never noticed the four framed paintings of Blackfeet Indians in the hallways at Lowell Elementary School.

"No. They were, like, invisible to me," he said, shaking his head.

That was the case with most students at Lowell until January, when teacher Nancy Grimes began leading a group of 10 fifth-graders in researching the artwork.

The 18-by-14-inch portraits of Angry Bull, Chief Lazy Boy, Wades-in-the-Water and Bird-Sings-Different, with intricate detail of their clothing and ornate headdresses, were painted by Winold Reiss, a German native who came to the United States in 1913.

Reiss established himself in New York as a muralist and designer, but eventually was hired by the Great Northern Railway to paint members of the Blackfeet Confederacy.

"He wanted to do his life's dream of painting Indians," said Lowell fifth-grader Joshua Billings, who learned about the artist with the help of Waterloo Center for the Arts curator Kent Shankle.

The railroad used Reiss' paintings as posters, on calendars and in ads to promote the West.

Reiss died in 1953, his ashes scattered on the Blackfeet reservation near Browning, Mont.

Grimes latched on to the idea of using the portraits to teach a more diverse history to students. In December, she was awarded $620 McElroy Excellence in Education grant to make connections between the fifth-grade curriculum and the paintings through an art project, book purchases and field trips.

The grant also will pay for restoring the paintings, which first appeared in a Great Northern Railway calendar.

But Grimes also wanted students to unravel the mystery of the paintings' donor. Name plates say each portrait was donated by Kay Marilyn Kruser.

The students found a reference to Kruser on a 1950 orchestra program in a crumbling PTA scrapbook. "She played violin," said fifth-grader Kayla Dues.

She graduated from West High School in 1958.

"The mystery was why did the family decide to present pictures? Why these? Did they have a connection with the Great Northern Railroad? We just don't know," Grimes said.

Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier archives reveal that Kruser married Donald C. Hunt in 1961 and was a secretary at Rath Packing Co., where her father also worked. She eventually moved to Tulsa, Okla., and was still living there three years ago when her mother died.

Attempts to track her down in Tulsa were unsuccessful.

The students' research prompted interest in the American Indian tribes that lived in the Waterloo area.

It also inspired Shankle, who discovered a Reiss exhibit planned this summer in Montana. He contacted the museum to see if it is available for travel.

"We're exploring the idea because of this," he said.

On the Net: Waterloo Center for the Arts: http://www.wplwloo.lib.ia.us/arts/

Lowell Elementary: http://www.waterloo.k12.ia.us/schools/index.php?pageid

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Blackfeet Tribe: http://www.blackfeetnation.com/