A hundred years ago, the educational experiences of one generation very much mirrored the previous. Not so now.
My mother grew up on an Iowa farm and each fall, the school-age children were held out of school for a couple weeks to help with corn picking. This was done by hand, the only tool being a glove with a hook on the palm to assist in the husking. Each cob was snapped from the stalk, husked and thrown into a wagon with a high side to block overthrows. Hard, brutal work, generally under a blazing sun, done largely by school kids. My mother had no fond memories of this annual school vacation. Completely outside my experience.
District 30 was a four-room school, 8 grades, 2 grades per room. There was no kindergarten. This is outside the comprehension of anyone not of retirement age. (Even more incomprehensible - my wife attended a 1-room country school in first grade). The red brick school housed grades 1-2 and 3-4 on the first level, 5-6 and 7-8 on the second. Bathrooms, furnace room and some storage areas were in the basement. A wide stairway with a well worn banister led to the second level. A terrifying fire escape went out a door on the south wall of the 2nd story 7th-8th classroom and down the west side of the building. I dreaded fire drills. A small room on the 2nd floor between the two classrooms served as the "library", with maybe 6 shelves of books, one shelf a set of encyclopedias. The most memorable part of this trove were a set of blue bound biographies of famous Americans, from the presidents to sports heroes to Revolutionary War notables - Francis Marion - The Swamp Fox, Kit Carson, Wilbur & Orville Wright, Jim Thorpe, ... I read them all and every other book on those shelves.
My walk to school also little differed from my father's. Out the back door, across the alley, past Gust & Tina Nelson's garage and down their drive and into the school. 3 minutes tops. Of course all the "country" kids had to ride the bus, faithfully and safely driven by Lionel MacIver.My first grade teacher was Mrs. Anderson. She had a broken leg and she was pregnant. Not sure if I realized the pregnant part. Since there was no kindergarten, we had to be eased into this all-day school thing. Each first grader brought a woven rug to school to lay on during our 15 minute afternoon "nap" - a break for Mrs. Anderson I suspect. And each morning there was a "milk break" for which we paid 5¢/week for that daily 1/2 pt container of white milk. Chocolate milk options were after my time.
Mrs. Lachelt took over for Mrs. Anderson's maternity leave - I think. (This is hearsay, as I cannot verify it, but I believe in her early years of teaching she had to keep the fact of her marriage a secret as only "single ladies" could be hired as teachers.)
In second grade - might have been 3rd - the influx of the baby boomer generation had caused an overflow condition. There were too many kids enrolled to contain 2 classes in one room. So a storage room in the basement, next to the bathrooms & the coal chute and butting against the furnace room was converted into a classroom. Mrs. Bagne was the teacher down in that dungeon-like, hot, no egress, non-OSHA style room. I think there was one hinged basement window - and no egress except up the stairs to the back door. (Anyone remember that hole-in the-wall classroom?)
Third & Fourth grade Mrs. Vincent. Fifth & Sixth grade Mrs. Squire. Mrs. Schmeckpepper filled in at some point in those years, I think for Mrs. Squire maternity leave. Seventh and eighth grades Mrs. Skoglund. I remember she drove from Kensington. And the star substitute teacher that every kid was happy to see - Mrs. Starr. (She read to us from books like "The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle".)
In 8th grade, because the option was available to send Lowry kids to the big school in Glenwood (or Starbuck), there were only 3 of us left to fill the 8th grade class. My father decried the disloyalty of the locals who consented to have their children bussed away. But 3 people in your class - really? Limited social opportunities unless you were willing to fraternize with 7th graders.
We actually looked forward to lunch. In general, school lunch reputations rank right there with congress. The Lowry School lunch building was a separate white-sided structure just west of the back entrance to the school. It had a long serving counter separating the room into kitchen & eating area. You had to sprint the 30 foot open air gap from the back door to the lunchroom door. Lunch was 20¢/day, $1/week.
But this school lunch was not the stuff of most lunch programs. The difference was Olga. Olga Dingwall was the cook and a great one. She worked magic with those USDA supplies. Home made bread & buns. None of that store-bought paste. The older grades rotated kids into "lunch duty" responsibilities, helping out before, during and after the noon meal ... an hour's release from class! For me, hopefully art class.
There was a janitor but darned if I can remember who it was. Anyone remember.
There was no PE instructor. We created our own exercise program out on the playground. No music or art teacher either. All teachers were expected to be able to play the piano and for art we had our box of 8 crayons to create a Memorial Day poster. Science labs dealt with things like mixing vinegar and baking soda or snuffing out a match in an oatmeal box with a small hole in the lid and banging on the bottom to produce air currents, a.k.a. smoke signals. But we were superbly drilled on readin'-ritin' & rithmetic. And spelling tests every week. Teachers were our spell-check.
Not exactly Groton. But the numerous Lowry School grads I know have represented themselves in the world pretty well.
Lowry grads - I am hoping some of you "Lowry Group Oldtimers" will add some of your memories of the red-brick District 30. I'd appreciate it if you would at least add a comment naming your teachers, either before or after my time.
Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin
But this school lunch was not the stuff of most lunch programs. The difference was Olga. Olga Dingwall was the cook and a great one. She worked magic with those USDA supplies. Home made bread & buns. None of that store-bought paste. The older grades rotated kids into "lunch duty" responsibilities, helping out before, during and after the noon meal ... an hour's release from class! For me, hopefully art class.
There was a janitor but darned if I can remember who it was. Anyone remember.
There was no PE instructor. We created our own exercise program out on the playground. No music or art teacher either. All teachers were expected to be able to play the piano and for art we had our box of 8 crayons to create a Memorial Day poster. Science labs dealt with things like mixing vinegar and baking soda or snuffing out a match in an oatmeal box with a small hole in the lid and banging on the bottom to produce air currents, a.k.a. smoke signals. But we were superbly drilled on readin'-ritin' & rithmetic. And spelling tests every week. Teachers were our spell-check.
Not exactly Groton. But the numerous Lowry School grads I know have represented themselves in the world pretty well.
Lowry grads - I am hoping some of you "Lowry Group Oldtimers" will add some of your memories of the red-brick District 30. I'd appreciate it if you would at least add a comment naming your teachers, either before or after my time.
Copyright © 2018 Dave Hoplin
Yes - Ralph Lundblad was the school janitor - at least in the early 60s. I remember him shoveling coal into the furnace and the mess outside a basement window (coal dust) that the coal was shoveled into.
ReplyDeleteAnd Olga was the BEST cook - except for Chow Mein. That was a foreign substance and it took me years to appreciate that dish. Sandie Bennett Gibbs
Oh, my! You kids in Lowry really had it good compared to those of us who started in a 1-room country school! Thanks for writing this--I knew next to nothing about the Lowry school until reading your description. My Aunt Liz Braaten thought there a few years prior to her retirement, but that would have been after you started busing to Glenwood.
ReplyDeleteDavid, thanks for the memories! I absolutely could not name all my teachers, but you have jogged my memory on that! We had 13 in our class which made for a big combined 2 grade level all the way through. I loved our "little library" and felt like I read all the books which isn't true because I've never read those you mentioned! Those were the days for certain.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your great memories. There were only two in my class k-3 13 miles SW of Morris. My aunt Ruth Dahl was the teacher. Jimmy Griener was the class salutatorian and I was the valedictorian of the class. Jimmy went on in life to star at the DAC and I advanced to Morris public schools in 4th grade.- Neil Thielke
ReplyDeleteI attended Lowry school, but by 7th grade, we all went to Glenwood - no grades 7 or 8 in Lowry at that time.
ReplyDeleteSecond grade for me was in the basement room as well. I hadn't realized that it was used for more than one year.
I remember using the steam pipes in the basement to dry our wet clothes in the winter after recess in the snow. I guess we all brought a change of clothing with us, since I don't remember sitting in class in my underwear.
Winter recess! I remember in 3rd or 4th grade being asked by my teacher to check the thermometer that was outside the window of the stairway between the first and second floors to see if it was warm enough to go outside for recess. I recall reading the temperature as -10 and reported back to the classroom with this information, only to be accused of misreading the thermometer. Convinced that the actual temperature was +10, we were dutifully sent outside to play. A few minutes later, Mrs. Schmeckpepper came out and hustled us back indoors, out of the subzero cold. Turns out I had accurately reported the temperature.
Ah, Mrs. Starr! How often I wished our regular teacher would be taken ill so we would have Mrs. Starr substitute.
From another "anonymous".
ReplyDeleteThe bell-tower room served as a nurses office. Of course, there was no nurse. There was a flu outbreak and I told the teacher I felt sick. She took me to the bell room and took my temperature. She left for a minute and I put the thermometer on the radiator. She came back and my temp was 103 and I got sent home.
As you went down the stairs to the basement bathrooms, a steam pipe was about a foot below the ceiling and the boys would sail down the steps and jump to grab the pipe and swing. Kenny Hagen missed it one day and landed on his back and got a concussion. No more pipe swinging.