The remembrances of Mabelle Hull

By Beverly Clinkingbeard

In 1981, Betsy Chapin was teaching the fifth and sixth graders at Westboro Elementary School in Westboro, Missouri. The pupils were given the assignment of asking a senior citizen, their grandparents or a friend, to write an essay of what their school days were like. Those who were asked were in school at a time when essay/story writing and penmanship were a part of their curriculum. As a result, their remembrances were well articulated and the handwriting quite legible or type written. In the coming weeks, their experiences will be shared. Thank you, Betsy, and thank you to the contributors, now deceased, for sharing their yesterday experiences.

Mabelle Hull

Mrs. Hull was a farm wife and mother. She lived to be 101 years old. Her childhood years were spent in Page County, Iowa. She attended rural school and Amity College, College Springs, Iowa. She married Clarence Hull and they lived in Carthage, South Dakota, and in 1934 moved to a farm in the Tarkio, Missouri, area. Mabelle was the mother of Dale and the twins, Phillip and Phyllis. Dale was 11 years old when the twins arrived. It is remembered when Phillip was born, Mabelle said to the doctor, “But I wanted a little girl.” “Hold on,” the doctor said, “We’ll have a little girl in a few minutes.” The babies were very tiny and she fit each in a shoe box, remembering they “looked like plucked chickens.” Here are her remembrances of her “yesterdays.”

March 16, 1981 – “Dear Betsy and ‘Kids,’ Will try to answer your letter to the best of my knowledge. My schooling was quite different from yours. I went to a country school, one room building, and teacher had all grades, one to eight. We took turns in the morning to get a pail of water that lasted all day, and studied the three R’s (reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic). We didn’t have a new outfit – one dress for the week, but changed as soon as we got home from school, as I had to go to the hog lot and pick (up) cobs and also get in enough wood for the night. We were 10 children and lived in a small country house with no plumbing, not even water, as that was carried in from a pump. I never celebrated holidays, not even on my birthday, like you do now. (I) always went to Sunday school and church. That was my ‘holiday.’

Thank you for your letter, Mabelle Hull”