The Great Rock School

As I reread “The Best Teacher” I realized there was much more to tell, especially about that type of school. Very few such schools remain today. I have read of a few in the upper midwest. But now they have the internet.

The building was already quite old by the time I started school in 1933. I had visited so it was not that new to me. However, I was quite excited to be a pupil-a first grader. As we entered through the outside door, we found ourselves in a hall. The first door which was almost immediaely to the right was the door into the classroom. On the right side of the wall beyond that door were hooks for our coats. On the left side there was another door. This opened into the woodshed where slabs had been stored for the coming winter. Most of the wood we used were the cuttings of bark and some wood from trees being prepared to saw into boards at the sawmill. Farther down also to the left were two narrow hallways, the first going to the boys indoor outhouse, and the other at the far end going to the girls. They were not heated. No one asked to “leave the room” in winter until it was necessry.
The classroom was large with a blackboard on the wall next to the hall. The teacher’s desk was in front of that and then the stove sat between the desk and the outer wall. There were a couple of windows in that wall. Along the back of the room were some shelves and a stand for the water jug. Since there was no running water, a couple of the older students went up to the Cottons, the nearest neighbor, to get a pail of water. This was poured into the water jug. Each student had a cup that was brought from home. I am not sure if that wall had a window. The other wall which faced the road and the Great Rock was nearly all windows. That was our source of light. Working could be difficult on very cloudy days, but we were used to it. There were individual desks with a little space on top for an ink well. That was a small glass container with a metal screw on top with a hole in which a pen could be dipped. Only the older students wrote with ink. The teacher made the ink with a black powder and water. The pens were tapered black sticks with a curved narrow opening on the big end in which the other end of a pen point could be pushed. A point did not last very long. Blots were also common.
School started at nine. The first day we were issued a ruler, a pair of scissors, an eraser, two pencils (two more at the beginning of each six weeks), a blotter to some, and the year’s text books Appropriate paper was issued with writing assignments. First graders sat in front with the older students in the back. Assignments were written on the board for the upper classes. There were usually five or six of the eight grades. The teacher spent time in turn with the different classes. She had the day well planned and the day moved ahead smoothly. We had a fifteen minute recess at 10:30, and a full hour for lunch at noon. We all brought our lunches from home. In winter the teacher used a kerosene stove and baked potatoes which we ate with butter, salt, and pepper. They tasted so good. At recess and after lunch we played baseball-scrub-with an old bat and a tennis ball or just ran around with tag games etc. (In scrub players rotated positions: batters (usually 2 I think), 1st base, fielders, pitcher, and catcher. If the batter hit the ball, he would run to first base and back home if he could. If he had to stop at first, the other batter was up. If he struck out or was thrown out, positions rotated. The actual positions depended on the number of players.) In winter we had snowball fights, slid down the rock on slabs, or the hill behind the schoolhouse with sleds we brought from home. We also played games like prisoner’s base in the snow. One year we built an igloo. On bad days we played indoor games. School let out at 3 or 3:15. First graders got out at 2:30.
Somehow the teacher managed to correct our papers and hand them back during the day. If we had a failing grade in arithmetic, we could do it over for a seventy. I was absolutely mortified the first day I had long division. I got a zero. I got it fixed when I realized what I had done wrong. We had a spelling test every Friday. If we did not get a hundred, we had to stay in at noon and keep taking the test until we did. That taught me to be a good speller.
Besides Christmas there were other special days or occasions. The teacher brought her victrola (windup) on Fridays and played many records, mostly classical music. In the spring we would have a sugar on snow day. The teacher brought some maple syrup, boiled it down until it was ready to sugar and then poured some on each pupil’s bowl or pan of snow. After it cooled a litle it was utterly delicious. The last day of school was an outing. The teacher and parents or older kids who were former students would load us up in several cars and we would go places, the Community Camp, Burns Pond where the teacher lived on the lake, the Tramway, the Old Man, and Glen Ellis Falls are the ones I remember.
The school building is gone. The school yard, except for the site of the building, has gone back to the properties from which it came. The Great Rock is still there. There are trees where it was open. I think erosion has changed the ledge where we sat eating our lunches on nice days. It will be there for a long, long time.

Questions, anyone?

The Best Teacher

I wrote this several years ago.
I got an email a little while ago from an old friend back in New England (actually a cousin of
mine). We grew up in Northern New Hampshire. He now lives across the river (Connecticut) in
Vermont. He told me about visiting our old teacher in the nursing home where she resides. He
took her a quart of maple syrup and they reminisced about having sugar on snow for a treat at
school every spring. He said she was doing well.
At this point this story could go a dozen different ways. Which way to go?
Millie Morse is the name of our teacher. She had her hundredth birthday in 2005. I was up there
a few days after her birthday and visited her with my son and two of my grandsons. The local
paper had a long write-up about her and included the article she wrote for a magazine some years
back entitled "Thirteen Years in a Country School". She had written me to write some of my
memories and I sent her some which were included in her article and attributed to me. I have a
copy but can't use it without permission because it is the property of the Betz Family Archives.
I can do another though.
When I started first grade two other girls and myself were the only first graders. Three of my
brothers were still in school there as it had grades one through eighth. The school was called
Great Rock School because of the massive rock just across the road. We could go sit on it and eat
our lunches on good days. It was also called #15 though by that time there were not that many
country schools. The number of pupils was low after I finished the fifth grade so we were all
transferred to the Grange School #7 which was three or four miles away and were bused there by
my Aunt Mildred (my uncle was on the school board). It did not much matter which school. Our
activities were about the same. Besides our studies we did many things. Mrs. Morse was an
accomplished artist and that led to many things. I wish I had pictures of the monthly wet chalk
drawings she did on one of the chalkboards.
From Thanksgiving to Christmas we spent a lot of time making Christmas gifts for our parents.
Every year it was something different. We knitted yarn through a spool and then sewed the little
rolls together and made holders or mats. We made small cases of fabric remnants and then filled
them with balsam fir needles (wonderful smell). We made things with raffia, gourds, and others I
do not now remember.
At the same time we worked on our Christmas Program. Mrs. Morse's sister, Alice, could play the
piano so she came nearly every day while we practiced singing Christmas Carols (the real ones).
We also learned poems to recite and had a couple of short plays. Mrs. Morse would rig a curtain
with borrowed sheets and a wire across in front of the desks. And of course we also made many
decorations for the room. This was done with very little money and what was spent came from
her meager paycheck.
On the day of the program, many parents and friends filled the desks and other chairs while we
gave the performance. They enjoyed our errors and miscues as much as they did that which went
right. You see, everyone in the school participated regardless of age or ability.

Millie Morse passed away shortly before her 105th birthday in 2010. I last saw her in 2008 when cousin Howard and I visited her. She was so delighted to see us.

Problems

Have I been having problems! I could get to my blog, but I could not sign in. Was told I did not have one. I went the route of changing password etc., but could not sign in because I got the same old message-NO BLOG. Finally I went to blogger instead of my blog and have managed to reset and I think I am now here.
I think now it will be a while before I post any new stuff because of the Christmas season upon us. Hope it is a time of blessings and fellowship for all.

Food on the Farm Number Three

I had an easier childhood than many in the 1930's and 40's. My folks were not rich. Far from it. We had a dairy farm in the North Country of New Hampshire. My dad had paid off his mortgage in the twenties when times were good instead of going deeper in debt as many did-and ended up losing their farms,
Dad was a good gardener. We had plenty of vegetables to eat. Mother would can the surplus.I would often wake in the morning hearing the click, click of his hoe as he tended his garden behind the house. I seldom saw any weeds in his garden. We had tomatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers (many became pickles), corn, pumpkins, and squash. On one side of the garden were rhubarb plants which came up every year. We kids liked to get a saucer of sugar and dip the tart stalks in the sugar and eat them while making faces because it was still so sour. On the other side of the garden were parsnips which I do not think anyone but Dad ever ate.
We picked raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, ate a lot, and canned the rest. I remember many mornings when Dad would come home from taking the milk jugs to the creamery and announce that he had heard that there were lots of blackberries in Lunenburg (across the river in Vermont) or blueberries on Dalton Mountain or some somewhere else. We would gather all the smaller pails and milk pails and off we would go. It was usually a day after a rain and no haying could be done. We would come home scratched, tired, and happy. My mother and older sisters then set to work cleaning and sorting the berries. There would be a shortcake and pies for a few days. Raspberry bushes grew on the low stone walls that separated the fields “overback”. We picked them frequently as long as they lasted.
We had some apple trees but had lost most in the freeze of ‘34.I do not really remember that, but so I have been told. So Dad would buy a couple of barrels of apples in the fall and keep them in the cellar. There were shelves for the canned fruits, meat, and vegetables in the cellar. There was also a large potato bin where the annual crop of potatoes was stored. Mother would sometimes send me to get some apples for a pie and always counseled me to look for those developing bad spots. If I wanted an apple to eat, I got the same warning. Once I asked if I couldn’t please have a perfect apple! Sometimes in the fall we would pick a lot of crab apples and take them to be made into cider. Oh, so good.
We had our own meat. Dad would butcher a cow and a hog in early winter. My mother would pack the cuts into cloth bags, hang them in the woodshed until they were frozen solid, and then they would be put in the oat bin in the granary where they would stay frozen well into summer. Some of the hog meat would be ground up and flavored for sausage. Some beef cuts were canned, and hams were smoked in the smoke house. I would get very tired of canned beef in the summer but knew better than to complain. How happy I was when my mother bought some hot dogs or hamburger meat
We had three small chicken houses which were alongside the garden. Each held about 20 or 25 hens. As soon as I was big enough, I had to feed and water the chickens and pick up the eggs. Once I saw what seemed to be a big kitten under a nest. I reached down to pet it and then I saw a white stripe down its back. I got out of there as quickly as I could. We would have a stewed hen for dinner sometimes. They were chosen because they were no longer laying and stewed because they were old and tough.
With a large family to feed, my mother had a rule. You ate what she served or you ate bread and milk. When she had pea soup, I ate bread and milk. When we had liver, my brother Winston ate bread and milk. No complaints from either of us.
In the spring my brothers would tap some maple trees in the woods across the road from our house (they belonged to my Uncle Bill Bishop who had lots of maple trees and a sugar house way over on the other road near his house). Sometimes I went with them to collect the sap. We also had a big maple in our yard that they tapped. Its sap was especially sweet. They would pour the sap into a big wash boiler {that could be part of another tale)on the kitchen stove and keep it boiling until it became syrup. This did not produce all that much syrup but it was delicious. We would go to a “sugaring off” at Frank Rowell’s up on the mountainside (quite a climb). Dad would buy some syrup and pails of maple sugar. Mother would use them in cooking and we would have syrup for biscuits and pancakes.
Mother made her own bread, dried apples on a rack which hung from hooks over the kitchen stove, made a cake and a pie or two nearly every day, and served 20 meals a week. On Sunday nights we were on our own to pick up what we liked and could find, often bread and milk or leftovers-if there were any.
Breakfast was usually cereal, hot or cold, rolls which Mother made each morning (when someone asked for the recipe, she said to beat an egg or two-if available., add some butter, pour in some milk, and stir in flour until it felt right).
Dinner at noon was meat and potatoes with whatever vegetables were ready in the garden or canned ones, bread, and pie (lemon, apple, berry, raisin (and another note-my dad loved raisin pie so he would bring home boxes when grocery shopping until my mother had to show him she had way too many in the cupboard).
Supper was a dish like macaroni and cheese, rice, shepherd’s pie, corn or fish chowder, pea soup (ugh!), what they called sauce (berries, canned peaches, pears, plums or other canned fruit) which my dad insisted we eat with bread whether we wanted to or not, and some kind of cake.
What did we drink? We drank a lot of milk. Unlike some dairyman, Dad encouraged us to drink all we wanted. Others felt this was their income and discouraged their families from using much milk. Mother liked her tea. Dad drank Postum in the mornings. As we children got old enough we could have coffee. In the summers we made root beer using a 15 cent bottle of root beer extract, quite a bit of sugar and 5 gallons of water. We put it in quart jars and put them in the cellar. The hay crew consumed it rather quickly along with water and sometimes lemonade. When we had raspberries, Mother would make raspberry shrub. She squeezed the juice from the berries, and then mixed the juice with sugar and vinegar. We would put a little in a glass and fill it up with water. Delicious.

In telling my husband about how we grew up in New Hampshire, he compared it to his growing up on an East Texas farm. While different in many details, there were many similarities, especially in the nearly self-sufficient farmers of that time.
We ate well and probably more healthy than many today in spite of using lard to make pie crusts and not knowing better than to eat the fat on the meat. I think all the fruits,vegetables,and hard work more than made up for that.

Dinner at Meme's number two

Dinner at MeMe's occurs every Sunday. However, of late it has been rather small. But today was one of the old time gatherings with most here. Judy, her boys, Marshall (hs freshman-Chapel Hill). Lance (college freshman-Northeast Texas Community College ),and J.C. (junior at North Texas State-Denton and works at as rock climbing place) were here. Their dad, Johnny, who is usually working or sleeping, was also here. Then J.C,'s girl friend, Kristina, who comes when he does, and Kaitlyn, great friend and sort of "adopted daughter" of Judy's, were also here. When I came in from church, all were here but Judy who arrived shortly thereafter and dinner was almost ready. We had chicken, beans, biscuits, mustard greens tea anc cheesecake. The boys decorated the cheesecaket with many candles in honor of their mother's birthday last Friday. The boys (and girls when present) have gradually taken over the cooking in recent years. But I am usually here before them. Lance and I had gone shopping on Friday and had all that was needed. It is not the meal but the closeness and conversation that make memorable dinners. I wrote about this some time ago.

This the previous composition:
What is Dinner at MeMe’s? It is nearly every Sunday after church at the Hinsons’. The Hinsons are there but MeMe is the one who gets the dinner- or rather her part of it. When she goes to the grocery store she purchases whatever will be needed. Sunday morning before Sunday School, she lays out some of the dishes and foods that will be prepared. After church she is joined by several of the church youth, usually including grandsons Marshall, Lance, and J.C. Carlos is a frequent diner and lately Kaitlyn (his girlfriend) is coming also. Carlos gets busy making tea and working on the potatoes and other vegetables. Carlos loves mashed potatoes so that is his specialty. MeMe, after changing her clothes, takes care of the meat and biscuits or other bread. J.C. pitches in wherever needed. If Carlos is not there he does more. J.C.’s girlfriend, Kristina, is also a frequent diner. The girls help then or later. Then Judy and Lance arrive, having gone home first to take care of some chores or to get some things to bring over. If he is not working, Johnny comes too. Others have come at times, John Cook and Kristina’s sister, Krystal, have been here recently and many others in the past have been diners and I am told there are others hoping to come sometime. After it is announced that dinner is ready, all get their plates, make their selection and go into the dining room to eat. Oh yes, someone, perhaps Marshall or one of the girls, has the dining room ready. MeMe has actually done very little. There is light conversation during the meal which is finished usually with store bought cookies. Occasionally the meal may be spaghetti or Burritos. Lance and whoever did little before dinner do the dishes and cleanup. They all do their part with almost no prompting!
Some things have changed. Carlos and Kaitlyn have other boyfriend and girlfriend now. Carlos has a job at the movied theater.. He does not get here very often.

When I publish this, I will go back-likely many times-to fix the typos. The keyboard on this laptop picks up extra letters and leaves out others.

CMHintex her blog number one

This is my first attempt at blogging. I have read other blogs from time to time, but never really thought of doing one. I sort of stumbled into this. So number one will introduce me. I am a Christian, I belong to a Southern Baptist Church in which I have taught Sunday School for many years. I have taught just about every class there is-except the men's class. Did do a couples class in which there were men, however. I lean right politically but try to vote for the best candidate regardless of party. I am a retired school teacher
I have done some traveling, have been in 49 of the 50 states. (North Dakota, how did you get left out?) My travels have taken me to a number of other countries as weell..
I was born in and grew up in New Hampshire. I taught in Massachusetts and then got a job in California where I met my then future husband. He was from Texas. We have lived in East Texas for many years. Our children are grown. One lives near us; the other lives in Virginia near D.C. We did have breeder lay houses before retiring from that endeavor. We still have beef cattle but have cut back due to the current drought. More about many of these things later, perhaps.