I was born in 1950. When I was 5 I attended a country school just like this one. This one still stands about 7 miles west of the one I attended. Mine was Dist. 48. My first year just me and my 2 older brothers went there. 3 students; kindergartner, me, a 1st grader and a 3rd grader. Our teacher's name was Alice. She is still a widow, alive and in her 90's. She made several mission trips to Russia after she turned 80.
The school was one room with a lean too enclosed porch as you see in the photo. We had electricity. We had a hand pump on a well out front for water. There were two out houses behind the school, one for boys and one for girls. There was also a horse barn out back. We rode various horses to school as did others over the years.
The room was heated with a pot belly wood stove. The blackboard was real slate. We said the pledge of allegiance to the flag every day and we said, "one nation, under God". What a concept! A picture of George Washington hung on the wall and there was a flag in the room. Examples of all your letters and numbers, Palmer method, were posted above the blackboard around the room.
The school sat on the corner of Dad's section and our cows were across the fence.
We had a small indoor sand box I played in. In the spring I enjoyed the windows open and listening to Meadowlarks sing, "I wash my feet I do". We also tried to drownd out and catch 13 striped squirrels during recess.
I always find it so amazing that you attended a country school as 'primitive' as this one. I attended a large, modern public school and when I hear your stories, it seems as if they happened more like 100 years ago! You rode a horse to school, I rode a bus! Your experiences sound like something out of 'the olden days'. Stranger still, is when I see some of those country schools still in operation--it's like a piece of the past, in the present.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful cherished memory. The school looks wonderful, much nicer than many of the ones we have today. I started school in 1950 in a two room country school in New South Wales, Australia. We had two teachers and about eighteen students until the Maltese and Italian immigrants came to our community. We learned to sing songs in Italian, and quite a few general words in both languages. These new children usually came to school about two hours late every day after they had worked around the farm. None of us, accept for one little italian child, wore shoes. I used to look at her pretty dresses and lovely bow in her hair as if she was something out of a picture book. I wore hand-me-downs from my two elder sisters..but we were happy with what we had.. Blessings to you.
ReplyDeleteCrystal Mary