CLOSER! CLOSER! CLOSER!

It's funny how you can start a project and before you know it, what was once so simple, can escalate into something major.

Colleen is wanting this done so she can scam my pictures. I mean, put them on to her external drive. That is really a good idea. If something should happen to mine, there would always be a way to recover our family pictures.

But....... As I told you, I am turning this into my own personal history book. I am scanning things for me. If the kids don't want to copy some of it, that's fine with me.

I came across old papers in my Mother's cedar chest that I haven't read in years and even forgot they existed.

My mother taught country school for 5 years before she married my father. She came from a very poor family, but some of those kids had it really rough. She would occasionally take one home with her for the weekend. It was really a treat for them.

I have her teachers contracts for those years. I am posting a picture of her 1940 contract and a cropped picture of a teachers requirements. For the grand sum of $50 a month, she was required to keep the school in good repair, provide the necessary fuel, textbooks, school supplies and water. Not much to ask, right?

Those contracts brought back memories of my own country school days. I am sure my teacher had a very similar contract.

For you of the younger generation, you might be wondering about the water requirement. It pertained to my country school days also, so I am knowledgeable about that. There was no running water in the schools. Facilities were located out behind the school houses. Teachers were required to bring enough drinking water to accommodate however many students were in the school. We had nine, plus the teacher. In the spring and early summer before school got out, we had to ration our water so we didn't run out. Our teacher had a silver, tall bucket- can type thing she used to bring water in. It was then poured into an old Red Wing crock with a spigot at the bottom. Each student was required to bring their own drinking cup. The cups were lined up on the window sill and taken home every Friday to be washed.

From this water supply, we also used some of it to wash our hands before lunch. (Notice I didn't say anything about after visits to the facilities? How did we ever survive?)

In the winter time our teacher would take an enamel pan every morning, put some water in it and then put it on the heating register that was on the floor. By lunch we had "warm" water to wash with.

Our teacher taught grades K-8. Three families, three kids in each family. Not all grades had to be taught as some of us were in the same grades. The teacher would call a class, say, 5Th grade reading. Whoever was in that class would go to the front of the room and sit on a bench by the teacher's desk and have that lesson.

The bad thing was, there wasn't really a new learning experience for us from year to year. While one class was in session, the rest of us sat at our desk and listened. There wasn't much else to do.

We also had a system where we could ask a question, not interrupt a class and not speak. Sign language. We would raise our hand-one finger would be, may I get a drink. Two-restroom. Three-library (if you could call it that). Four-don't remember. Five-we needed to speak to the teacher. When the teacher saw one of us with a request, she would either nod her head yes or no.

We also had a list of chores our teacher assigned to us. The chores would periodically be reassigned and we all had our favorite. Can you believe there were nine chores? Two that I can remember were flag raiser and eraser duster.

Enough about country schools and contracts. I will post more about found "treasures" later.