spartan quilter

I went to a 1 room school that had grades 1 through 8. It was heated by a big coal furnace in the basement, that the teacher had to get going early, so it would be warm for the kids. We used outhouses. Somedays, we would bring a potato to school and set them on a pan in the opening of the furnace and have a baked potato for lunch, slathered with home churned and highly salted butter. And the school was just wired for electricity, before I started 1st grade, because I rememember going to the Christmas programs, and everyone brought their kerosene lamps for better lighting. Quite the times.

CMARAS1234

I also went to a one room school house and had a 8th grade graduation . with the white dress, diploma etc. I only went there about three years after my mother died and I was sent to the farm to live with my grandma, till I was 16 . I remember the teacher a very stern man that looked like Abe Lincoln.

veryvirginia

I,too, went to Oak Grove Elementary in a rural area and had to ride in a van that had benches wired to the walls and the door was held close with baling wire and we picked up the teacher along the route to school. No running water and a wood burning stove that we kept going by carrying in logs from the wood shed. Every one drank from the same ladel and the water came from a well that gave icy cold water on the hottest of days. How did we survive? Loved it.

jad1044

I went to a one room school house from K-6th grade... had a new teacher each year but 2nd and 3rd grade- and that one read us each book of Little House on the Prairie- history from our area near Walnut Grove- and she dug into detail and history to tell us more - and showed maps of the area to get us to understand where the trail was and where it was from us in our little school house...

I had another teacher in 4th grade who was a nature lover and craftsperson - so she took us to the Minnesota River Valley for hikes - on picnics when she'd pile all 9 of us on/in her big old car and head down the river a mile away and she showed us what the different spring flowers were - and what they were called, and how not to dig/pick the Jack in the Pulpit - showed us local bee hives, and took us to an old country store still in existence today as a historical site so we could learn more about the settling of the area - also to a State Park where there was an indian uprising - and the old battle field in that park - and in winter we went on tobagan rides on the hills in the park. She also taught the boys how to use drills to make pencil holders in wood chunks - or use birch and drill holes in for candles for a centerpiece for Christmas; us gals made dishtowels by using spatter paint through a screen over a leaf or flower we'd laid on the towel, and she also showed us how to do the thread pulling on the edge of the towel, to give it a fringe - or had us do embroidery on tea towels for our mothers.. On Mother's Day we made corsages out of kleenix (its in how to fold the kleenix that made the big carnation type corsage. She brought home grown daisies and showed us how to put ink in the water to get the daisy to turn to a different color and when to take it out to get just he edges colored, or if we wanted teh whole daisy to be colored... She was a very knowledgable teacher in the craftworld and I found my love for crafts and nature through her.
We had the two outdoor privies (girls and boys) and snowbanks 10 ft. high to get to them, so at recess we'd trudge over the top of these high banks with shovel in tow in case we had to shovel out the door!

There was the high old merry-go-round which most of us rode each recess; and got it to really spinning! Never had a fatality - but wondered if sometime the littlest ones might not fly off.

The big school ground - we had 5 acres of school ground, was a ball diamond, and we held some pretty serious games, and one teacher even arranged playdays between the country schools, where one day per week, in the afternoons - we'd meet at one school yard or another to play ball. We had actual playoffs at the end of the school year to see who was the winning school - made school life so interesting and yet we learned our lessons too.

Oh those were the gool old days.

Psychomomquilter

my dad had a very bad accident at that time , my brother and i had to go live with relatives, I was in the third grade, one memory sticks out. the older boys found a rattler in the yard, and they killed it. I also remember peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.I think I went for just a few months, maybe a remainder of a school year. was so neat to remember that little school oh in Smith county Kansas, near Lebanon , did arrive in a school bus.