Going to school

I’ve always thought that I got to where I was in life in spite of my education rather than because of it. I started to first grade in 1943 at a little one room school about 1/10 mile from our house. That year there were only 9 students in the school. Besides myself and my brother and sister there were 3 Switzers, 2 Bowersox and 1 Dwyer. Our teacher was mister Hetrick. The school had a big coal stove in the center and did not have any electricity. Two pictures hung in the front of the room, one of George Washington and one of Abraham Lincoln. We had a 48 star U.S. flag and a Pennsylvania State flag.

There was a crockery water jar with a spigot on the side. We had to walk to the neighbors spring, about a quarter mile away, to get water and carry it back in a bucket to fill the jar. We had a dipper to fill the bucket. It was the same dipper that we used to drink from. I don’t think the Health Department would approve to this arrangement today.

The toilets were outhouses, one for the boys and one for the girls.

I spent a lot of time that year listening to the older kids recite their lessons and being taught by the older kids because the teacher was working with someone else. At recess, and we had a lot of recess, we would play out in the school yard sometimes the older boys would knock out flies. Or we would rotate around the bases and then up to bat. In the winter we would sled ride from the neighbors woods down past the school to the creek. We also played Fox and Goose and Warriors Base.

Everyone had to learn and recite poems and the older kids had to read the classics, like “Tale of Two Cities”. I remember the older kids reading Evangeline, The Village Blacksmith, and A Cask of Amontillado.