Pap is the first boy on the left in the second row – Martins Creek School
Schools in our area are starting back to school. After the girls graduated I noticed the time of returning as Paul prepared for a new school year each August. Now that he’s retired my only connection is hearing friends and family discussing the excitement of a new school year.
Granny loved school when she was a girl, especially high school. She enjoyed getting her lessons and learning. Pap enjoyed his school years too, although I don’t think he liked it as much as Granny. I’m sure he enjoyed the social aspect of school and was glad to get to learn some things along the way too.
Years ago as another school year for the girls was approaching I asked Pap to tell me about his time as a student. Pap shared some interesting things about his school days with me.
He said that when he was a boy the school year always let out in early May so children could help their parents plant the fields.
The desks still had a place to hold a bottle of ink, although Pap said no one used ink.
The school didn’t serve breakfast, but for ten cents you could buy lunch which included three vegetables, a meat, and a piece of bread. Pap worked in the lunchroom to pay for his meal each day.
All Pap needed for school was a pencil and paper.
Pap had an 8th grade teacher, Mr. Garrison, who let them do all their work on the chalk board. No writing things down, no homework—each student just had to prove they understood by doing a problem on the board. Pap said he learned more from Mr. Garrison than all the other teachers he had put together.
My brothers and I all went to the same elementary school Pap did. I loved the old building! After I was grown the school burned down. For several years students attended school in trailers that were brought in. Eventually a new school was built down the road a ways. Katie, Corie, my niece and nephews all went to school in the new building.
When my brothers and I were in school you had to go outside to the use the restroom. The bathrooms were just off the side of the porches. One on each side of the back of the building.
I too worked in the lunchroom, but I didn’t get paid. I did get the satisfaction of knowing I helped the lunchroom ladies. I also worked in the school office helping out when needed—when that happened I really thought I had hit the big time.
Like Pap the only supplies I remember needing were paper and pencils. I might have needed a notebook for something special in the older grades.
Our school was a kindergarten through 8th grade. All grades had three recesses each day.
My teachers rarely gave homework.
Like Pap, my 8th grade teacher, Mr. Moffitt, was my favorite. I learned so much from him. He was also principal of the school and taught part of the 7th grade.
I never liked school as much as Granny did, yet I didn’t really dislike it. I fell somewhere in between. I certainly enjoyed learning and I enjoyed the social aspect of school too. But if I’d been given the choice of going to school or staying home I’m sure I’d have stayed home. I made the best of it because I knew I had to go. I had a good high school experience too, but as I’ve gotten older the days at Martins Creek School have become so precious to me. It was such a nurturing environment with bonds of community woven around teachers and students.
Last night’s video: The Best Peach Ice Cream I’ve Ever Eat & Making Delicious Relish With Big Cucumbers.
Tipper
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I really enjoyed this entry. I read every single comment. All were wonderful!
I went to Antioch School 7 years. In Union County Georgia. My mother was the teacher. Less than 20 students grade 1 through 7. No indoor plumbing. We had outhouses. Every morning two 7th grade boys would go to the spring and fill a bucket with spring water. Carrying it on a pole they would bring it to the cloak room. We had a metal dipper . We would make a paper drinking cup by folding a sheet of notebook paper. In summer we opened the windows. In winter we were warmed by a wood saver heater. When 129(Murphy Hwy) was being rebuilt the winter of 1950 my mom and I rode a horse to school. About 4 miles. Students walked. Good old days? Nope!! There was mumps, measles, whooping cough, and polio in those days. We were vaccinated against smallpox.
W.T. Moore of Murphy built a lot of schools and bridges. The rock gym in Murphy and Hayesville. The old rock school in Robbinsville.
Family school records-
Just yesterday (no foolin’), I found the school record for my grandfather’s sister. She was a good student. The record provided the attendance for the year 1914-1915 and she was promoted to high school.
The areas scored were: spelling, reading, writing, THINKING!, figuring, English Comp, geography, history, physiology, and AGRICULTURE!
I enjoyed reading your (“coincidental”) reply here. I found the categories on her report card very interesting! I’m glad that you shared!
We had the ink bottles and the quill pens. We had to learn to write cursive with them.
I loved school. I loved all the books that I could take home and read. There were shelves full and I would read one and exchange it. My dearest memories are of 5th and 6th grade. Our teacher was also our principal. There were two large rooms in our school. They were the same size but one was the big room and one was the little room. The little room was 1st-3rd grades. There was a teacher and an aide in there. We had an aide that worked in the big room (4th-6th grades) with all of us too. She was great. She took two of us kids home on a Friday night all during the year. She and her husband took us bowling and bought us hotdogs and giant lollipops. On Saturday, she cooked breakfast and dinner before our parents picked us up. I remember she had pickled eggs. I had never had one before. I had never been bowling or slept in a big upstairs room. I went with my friend, Cindy, when it was my turn. She taught me and some other girls how to crochet during inside recess in the winter. I can never thank her enough for that. I love to crochet and have made many things in my life. Our teacher/principal left me with many fond memories too. One time I remember peeling paper from tons of old crayons. We got to make wax candles that were colored by the melted crayons. We could pick what color we wanted. I picked silver. They were giant candles made in a Pringle’s can. I can still remember how they smelled—kind of lemony. I thought that was so cool. He played softball with us during recess in the spring. He even arranged for a van to take us to another grade school in the county to have a softball game one day. It was such an adventure. He took us sledding on a big hill across the road during the winter one time. He had a very long wooden tobaggan. We had never seen a sled like that before. He made school fun and interesting with many activities and projects. It was a great start that led me to love school all through the years.
I remember liking my teachers and lunch bag or school lunch. I loved being on safety patrol and raising and lowering the flag too. Got to wear my scout uniform on scout day
We had safety patrol too. The 6th graders wore an orange safety banner across our shoulders and chest. One walked in front and one in back. All the walkers in our little community walked in a straight line between us. We would walk all the grades (1st -6th) home and then come back to let the principal know everyone got home and turn in our orange banners for the day.
You made me curious this morning about how far I walked from elementary school to home. So I went and measured on a map application I have. It was just about exactly a mile by taking a footpath down across the creek through the woods. I walked it many times because it was faster than waiting for the bus. I used to try to find new ways to go just for a change but there were really only three variations. We waited on the bus out on the playground and while others waited I just took off, never said anything to anybody and it was never a problem. I used to be more hardheaded and independent but I reckon most of it wore off, depending on who you ask. Anyway, that school was a sandstone WPA building, long sitting empty now if still standing.
Ron, take this for the teasing way I mean it to be, you didn’t mention having to walk uphill both ways-coming and going. My elementary/grammar school was 10 miles away and high school 15 miles. Just as soon as I turned 16, I started driving a school bus until I graduated. Students use to drive the school buses in the past in SC. I fudged on my time and claimed 3 hours a day when I could run my route in 2 1/2 hours, my bus ran a little faster than it was suppose too. This was the total time for each day, I was paid $1.65 an hour – $4.95 a day, I need my smart phone to be sure! I used the money I made from driving my bus to buy my school clothes, high school ring and other things I needed for my high school graduation. I was not made to do this, I not only wanted too but felt like I needed to help out my parents because of the sacrifices they had made for me when I was too young to help them with money.
Yeah, I didn’t mention barefoot in the snow with no coat either. I dis- remember things that never happened. I did meet up with a neighbor one time and helped him carry his paint buckets home. Found out the narrow bails and the heavy weight are not kind to hands.
School is about to start back here in NW Ohio in a week or so then our county fair will come to town next will be thanksgiving before ya know it. Thank you for sharing your picture of Pap and memories of your childhood with us Miss Tipper. Blessings from Ohio!
What a treasure to have a picture of Pap’s school days! Cherished memories for sure. He was a handsome lad then and remained a handsome man.
School memories ❤️
I enjoyed reading you amd Pap’s school memories. Every year come September i get a little nostalgic for school too. I was a teacher before I got married, so it was always a very exciting time. I am the daughter of a teacher too, so it has always been that way.
Now I homeschool my children, so we don’t have the school place memories, but we do have some truly wonderful ones right here at home.
I enjoyed hearing about your daddy’s school experiences. The schools started August 7 here in south central Virginia. When I was a girl in northeastern Ohio we started school the Monday after Labor Day in September and were out of school for the summer beginning the first week in June. A full three months. The children today are lucky if they get off two months. In second and third grades, 56′-58′, my desks had wooden tops with a place for ink bottles and an indention on the bottom of the top for pencils. The bottom was a steel scrolled support bolted to the floor. I think this was from when the school was built in the early 1900’s. We had modern steel desks from there on out. We had a cafeteria for all twelve grades, lunch was 25 cents in elementary school and 35 cents all through high school. The old elementary school was torn down a few years ago and nothing was rebuilt. It’s strange to go by and see an empty field. The high school was also old but a solid brick building. They tore it down a few years ago and rebuilt a middle school there. A new high school was built in another area of the community. I enjoyed high school better than elementary school. We had wonderful teachers of which I think most have passed. The community I lived in was very small and I lived there from age four and one-half years old to 37, when we moved to Charlottesville, Va in 1986.
Tricia, the price you mentioned for school lunches were very similar at my schools. I remember being able to buy an extra half pint carton of milk for 3 cents when I was in grammar school. Over the years I have heard people complain about their school lunches, the ladies cooking our lunches were neighborhood ladies that knew how to cook. The meals would be like “home cooking.” I was glad to be able to get these lunches, a lot of times it would be something different from what I would have at home. One lady could cook yeast rolls that would make your tongue smack your brains out, if she saw there was going to be extra rolls for the day, she would give us older boys two rolls.
Randy, for a small community school we had wonderful home cooked meals. The ladies did a wonderful job of coming up with the choice of two different meals each day. You would walk in the school building in the morning and fantastic smells of food would hit your senses. Mostly all the food was made from scratch. My husband’s school just next to our town did not have a cafeteria and he had to carry his lunch the entire 12 years. We had homemade French bread with our spaghetti and a salad, cookie and apple. That was one of the meals I remember. Today the kids have to eat frozen foods and don’t get the home cooked meals we did. The one food I didn’t like was their green beans. I think they poured them out of a can and heated them up. (the northern people can’t make green beans like us southern people). No seasoning. Otherwise most of the food was really good.
I could have picked Pap out of the group of kids in that picture. For me, the most exciting thing about school starting back was the new clothes and shoes we got one time a year. My school didn’t have a library, but books were stacked everywhere and that alone was enough to make me love going to school. I loved to read then and still do. One of my teachers said he was going to nickname me Nancy Drew if I didn’t put that book down and get outside for recess.
Great school picture of Pap and his classmates. It’s interesting how school has changed over the years. Enjoyed the stories about Pap, Granny and yourself on school memories.
praise God for old pictures and cherished memories, what a great story, thank you and God bless you very much, God bless Granny Wilson
Yes schools are starting back here too. A sign Fall and cooler temperatures are not far away.
My maternal grandparents only went to second grade. My Daddy was a member of Mensa. I loved school. I’m a student of life now.
My elementary/grammar school and high school were both rural country schools, we did not have kindergarten or middle school. The years were 1960-1972. Too many differences between now and then to write about. The boys carried pockets knives most of these years, in my high school years the few that had rattle trap cars and hunted would often have a rifle or shotgun in their vehicle in plain sight, nothing would be thought about it. The lack of respect for authority and discipline in the classrooms is one of the biggest differences I see know. I have friends that were teachers that have quit because of this. One was a third grade teacher, she said her students would tell me you can’t do anything to me and loved being put in detention. Then I would be blamed for the kids not learning or sued by the parents if I tried to discipline them. In my day, you hoped and prayed your parents didn’t find out you had misbehaved or caused trouble at school. Anything done at school was nothing to what they were going to do your rear end if they found out. In high school, there would be a FIST fight somewhere almost everyday between boys, usually over a girl. Mondays were the worse, someone else had dated your girlfriend over the weekend. If the coaches saw the fight, they would take the boys to the gym and be given boxing gloves and told to settle it. I’m ashamed to write this, I made pretty good grades all through school but thought about intentionally failing a grade in high school after my cousin was killed in Vietnam. For poor boys like me, we knew were we going on our senior trip. One other thing, I had a high school age girl check me out at a grocery store Saturday, she could not figure out half of $4.50 without looking it up on her smart phone! Many of today’s generations are going to be in a world of trouble in they loose their phone signal. Nuff said!