I am thinking of when my brothers and I would get ready to head back to school. Thinking. Thinking. I guess I don't have the memories that relate to today's all out shop till you drop sprees. You know, for all those "necessities".
We might make a trip for a few things, and I do mean few. Jeans were checked before hand for size and if patches would hold for a while. Over the summer, Grandma would make me some feed sack dresses and we would be ready. Tablets ( red covered Chief ) and pencils appeared at school. I don't remember Mom buying them. I guess we had crayons. Don't remember buying those either. Art class was last period every Friday afternoon for the whole school. No Picasso's" ever came out of those classes !
Feed sack dresses. Anybody out there remember feed sacks or know what I am talking about? Back then farmers could buy feed for their livestock by the bag. Then some very smart entrepeneur came up with the idea of making those bags out of material. What a big hit with farm wives !! The wives would go to town with their husbands, the guys would tell the dealer what feed they wanted and the wives would tell them what sacks they wanted. If there was more than one dealer in town, you had a better selection. The wives would shop around for their favorite material and tell the husbands where to go. (No pun intended of course.) Grandma would also make all of our pillow cases out of Mom's feed sacks . We even had pairs with a different material on each side of the pillow cases. For you younger people, you have to realise this was before we had " Martha" to tell us what was acceptable. Free material probably sounds silly to today's generation but back then it was a big deal. This was after WWII and times were tough. If you got something for nothing that you had to buy any way, it was like money in the bank.
Back to school for us wasn't about shopping. My memories are more of getting the school house ready. I have mentioned before that we went to a one room country school. Two miles, uphill, both ways and we always walked. In all kinds of weather. Anyway, that is the story my kids claimed I told them. ( I did not.) In reality, it was a long 1/2 mile. A couple of hills and a long lane up to the school house on a hill. And we walked every day.
There were three families. Three kids to a family. Three sets of parents. As time for school neared, our parents would get together and get the school ready. Back then it was the responsibility of the school district (don't know if that terminology had been invented yet) for the upkeep. The men refinished the wood floors. Varnished or shellacked. Don't know, but they sure did shine! The women washed windows, walls and curtains, cleaned blackboards , dusted and everything else that needed done inside. They also cleaned the restrooms. Both of them. Back then we called them outhouses. Cob webs were swept out and everything was washed down. All with water carried from home.
In the mean time, the men had moved to the outside. The grounds had to be mowed and cleaned up. Every couple of years the "pits" had to be tended to, if you know what I mean. I wonder. Is that where the expression, " it's the pits" came from? A load of coal would be ordered from one of the local towns. One of the basement windows would be removed and when the truck would come, the coal would be shoveled into the coal room through this opening. Future heat for the winter . Meaning, it took the chill off of the room. Maybe !!!!!
Mrs. Hydinger. Our teacher. A neighbor lady. A friend of the family. What a wonderful person. Everyday. Nice dress. Lipstick. Earrings. Perfume. Never mussed up. Not that our mothers were sluffs, but they were farm wives. Nobody got up in the morning and dressed up for chores or the fields. I think we all put her on a pedestal as the "perfect woman" or something.. She got paid for teaching us.
Part of her contract included, bringing the drinking water for the school and arriving early enough to fire up the coal burning furnace so it would be warm enough in the school house for us kids. Meaning water wouldn't freeze if you left a glass of it sitting somewhere in the school room. Maybe, that is why I am so cold blooded today. She brought this narrow, tall can with a top that held our drinking water. We also used some of this water at lunch to wash our hands. A pan was filled in the morning and set on the register ( where the heat from the furnace came up into the school room ) to heat in the winter months. Each one of us got some water dipped into a pan, just enough to wet our hands, at lunch time. We each brought a drinking cup that was placed on a window ledge near the crock with a spigot that our drinking water was in, to use through out the day. Before it got cooler, we were more or less rationed on how much water we could drink. Every day she would bring this pail of water. We survived and I don't really remember being deprived. At the end of the day, someone would be asked to take the blackboard erasers out side to dust. While they would be doing that, she would be putting compound on the floors. I don't know how to describe this. It is a woody fibrous kind of thing. Even seemed like it had a kind of oil in it. You would spread it around, and then aweep it up. Dirt and all. Floors looked great.
Mrs. Hydinger had her desk in front of the room. Near it was a wooden bench. As the school day was started she would call the classes. Kindergatrten, first grade etc. Reading, english, arithmatic and writing. Geogrophy. Kind of a dead subject today. When our class would be called, we would go up to the bench and sit. We would go through our lesson.. We didn't have homework back then. Everybody else would sit in their seat and listen to all of the other classes. . Also learn, but we didn't know it then. We absorbed so much from the other classes going on that the next year it wasn' too new for us.
We would have a recess in the morning. Classes. Then lunch. By the way, lunches were packed and there was no refrigeration, so it had to be non-perishable. After lunch, was our longest break. One hour ! We played twenty-four scadoodle, pump pump pull away, pick up sticks and andy-i-over. Winter months we played "fox and goose" or sleded. We had no watches, but we all seemed to have a built in timer. Right before lunch was over, as many as possible would get on their sleds and go down Gillan's hill ( the longest one to the southwest). Needless to say, it would take us a lot longer to climb up the hil than it took to go down it !
Recess would always end with Mrs. Hydinger standing on the school steps and ringing the bell. Warmer months we were prompt. Winter months we took our sweet time !! Can't believe we did that ! We thought we were pushing the limits then. We thought we were really bad! That is so tame compared to what is going on in the word toay.
How times have chqnged !!
8 comments:
When I was a kid, paper, pencils and crayons were provided, too.
Now, with the huge budget shortfalls (especially in Michigan, with pathetic state funding,) parents have to supply everything from Kleenex to scissors, to crayons, to glue sticks.
It's amazing how much a family of five can blow on supplies, and that's before you shell out for backpacks and clothes.
I am with you Colleen, I remember everything being provided by the schools and I dont remember my parents paying a "registration" fee either.
(Ya know...maybe that is why NE taxes are higher? - But then, after I spend all this money on "Free Education" I think we are about even)
We didn't go ALL OUT on school shopping either Bobbie - I checked our hand-me downs, and went garage saleing for clothes, then I did have to go buy the school supply list they give us - But I hit sales and everything was $0.19 or $0.22 each!!
I like your theory on "it's the pits" never really thought of it like that before...but it fits.
My Grandma taought at a one-room school room, in Firth I think. And the only thing I know about them is a fourth grade field trip we took to the old one room school house that used to be down at the fairgrounds. We even dressed up like " the old days" and took our lunch in a "pail" and all for that field trip day. It was kinda neat/fun. A good memory.
What did you do for lunch - I am curious, as I need to make lunch and they don't get refrigerated either - although with an air conditioned classroom, I suppose it can't be too bad??
What is 24 scadoodle, pump pump, and andy-i-over AND fox and goose???? I can't believe I haven't heard of them before.
Yes indeed, times have changed...........
Mom made dresses from feed sacks too, in fact I had a favorite one but don't remember the pattern or colors.I am not sure where she got the sacks since we lived in town. Maybe from Aunt Ann or the feed store when they emptied them. Some of them had really nice designs. Thanks for the good stories.
Oops! I forgot to sign that last entry. Donata
Things sure have changed, When we attended Catholic School in Hebron there was no tuition for parish children. The parents bought all of the school supplies including books. When we moved up a grade the old books were sold to someone comming into that grade, and used books were bought for the next grade. They didn't change books that often so it wasn't a big expense. I remember my fourth grade reader had pictures of 1920 vintage cars and the womens hats were from the twenties. I started to school in 1940, so the books were about twenty years old then.The only school suplies we had was a slate, a slate pencil, a thin tablet for drawing and a little thin box of eight crayons. Dick Kutlas had a big box of crayons and we thought that he must be rich. I dont know how the parish afforded to provide an education for all of the kids, especially during the great depression. The school closed sometime in the early seventies after all ten of us kids were through. Our grandson Will goes to Catholic School in Athens Georgia, and the tuition is like it was for college when I was a kid. The Nuns worked for nearly nothing, there vocation was to teach and propogate the faith and live on the bare necessities. They did a great job, but there ranks fell short with economic prosperity. I guess that's whe we call them the good old days. Jerry
Well, Spencer started school this Wednesday. We did not purchase one single thing for school. He is using last years backpack because it is still in good shape. So were his shoes, unders, socks, and clothes. We plan on getting some jeans when it cools down some more, otherwise, he does not need anything else.
As for school supplies, Lincoln Public Schools pick up the tab for everything. We do not buy kleenex, glue, scissors, pencils, nor crayons. I was suprised and pleased at open house to see a new pencil, erasor, notebooks, crayon boxes, and file folder on Spencer's table. In addition, the 4th graders at his school this year have "planners." Every day, he writes down what he works on for each subject: math, reading, science, social studies, and english. There is a box to check if the subject has homework. Then, the every night, the parent has to sign off that they reviewed the day's activities and homework. There is also a spot for the teacher and parent to write notes back and forth. I think this is great, and I wish we did that when I was younger, because maybe then, today I would be more organized!
Anyway, the first day of school, I heard school was "boring." It took a while to find out that the girl Spencer likes got to sit by him. :) Don't tease him though, he'll get upset!
In the 4th grade, they start moving around for science and social studies. The kids switch classrooms for those subjects. This is a new thing for Spencer. In the past, for an hour a day, they would rotate out going to PE, Wellness, Computer, Media, Music and Art. Now Media (library) is a part of reading, so he rotates these other subjects they call "specials." I wish he had more computer time though. And of course, he has them written in his new "planner." Very cool.
Did any of you older folks have "fundraisers?" At open house, we picked up the fundraising packet. The proceeds to to the PTA. I cringe at this. We are in our 5th year. Now Spencer is asking if we can take it to work. I have a policy that I don't buy at work, so I can't do that for him. But he knows he can win a ride in a limo if he sells 40 items. I don't have that many friends. Ouch!
Anyway, I dont' want to take up all mom's blogging space... Times have changed haven't they?
-Kellie
P.S. I think Spencer enjoys school more than I did. He is not shy and very social. I was always shy. Plus, his teachers aren't mean. My kindergarten teacher threatened to cut off a kids tongue because he stuck it out of the side of his mouth when he would write or color. I can still picture her gripping his chin, with a HUGE pair of scissors up to his mouth. Thank the Lord Spencer hasn't had any of those types of experiences.
Very interesting story about how rural schools operated. I was a town kid so we had heat, water, hot school lunches, oh boy! I still can't stand canned spinach!! We ate it for lunch and had the sand in our mouth for hours!! I do remember the Big Chief Tablets but I can't remember how much they cost. We had to wear dresses and then, in the winter, we wore "leggings" under the dresses to keep our legs warm and we wore them on the walk to and from school, which in my case, was something like 5 blocks. Took us forever to get ready to go out for recess and then another "forever" to get everything off after. Those were the "Good Old Days"?! Sherry
Sherry, I got by wearing jeans to school in the winter when we went to country school.
When we went to town school that went out the window. Fast !! Dresses only, and there was no such thing as leggings. The rule was, "dresses only". We just suffered. Froze so many mornings waiting for that darn bus that never was on time, but you had to be out there at the time given your bus stop.
At high school football games we could wear slacks. No JEANS. Slacks. Those thin things that couldn't stop a gentile breeze much less a cold winter wind.
Maybe that is why I am so cold blooded......
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