THE "OLDEN" DAYS

One of my daughter-in-love's that works for the state historical society suggested that I tell you some stories of the past. You all should have such wonderful daughter-in-laws as the two I have. So for awhile we'll see where we can go with this. I really need some of you "old-timers" like me to join me in the box below the stories & add your memories, too. I was born in the 30's to a dad & mother that had their own farm and that was how they made their living. It was a Milking Shorthorn, Duroc hogs, Laying hens (raised from baby chicks we bought each year and when they weighed a pound Mom would start butchering the males for food), Pasture/fields we put up for hay, crops that had to be planted-tilled-harvested. Anything I forgot Brother? Yes, I have an older brother. Just read in our local home-town paper "65 Year Ago Items" that he graduated from our 1 room country school house where we attended 1 through 8 grades with 1 teacher teaching all 8 grades in that one room. We went to school everyday in the days that no matter what the weather you went to school. The teacher rented a room just down the road from the school and no matter how high the snow, she could get there. If you had to ride a horse we had a 3 sided pole barn beside the school to leave your horse while you were in school. I can remember several times my dad would take me through the fields (snow blew off and into the road so it was not as deep there) because it was too deep to walk. Yes, we walked to school or when they invented bikes ha. ha. weather permitting we could ride to school. It might sound bad to some of you younger people but those days to educate the kids a community would dig a hole for a basement & build a building (ours looked like a house) with one large room for our desks and entrance hall to hang our coats and leave our lunch box. The basement had the big old wood furnace the teacher had to build a fire in before we got there so the building was warm. By the way most of my teachers were women with the qualifications of having graduated high school. The basement also had big tables with benches where we ate our lunch & had community pot luck dinners, etc. The school was the center of the community. One was built about every 2 or 3? square miles so the distance for the kids to walk wasn't that bad. However, I was lucky we were only a mile. I feel very fortunate to have attended that school where you heard every classes education each day. By the time you were in the 7th & 8th grade our classes were pretty easy even if you did have 4 different teachers during the 8 years. When I graduated from 8th grade the county bought school buses and everyone rode the buses which ended the one room school houses. All the kids now joined the town kids that had gone to school together all their schooling and it was quite a transition for the country kids who were used to 2 or 3 classmates.