By Beverly Clinkingbeard
In 1981, Betsy Chapin was teaching the 5th & 6th 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.
This letter is a little unusual in that Betsy remembers the little girl, Roseann, but not the name that goes with it. On inquiry, we just haven’t asked the right person(s) who remembers Roseann’s last name. Roseann asked her grandparents for their memories and it is signed, but without names. This is their story.
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“Dear Roseann, Thank you for your letter. I’ll try to answer your questions, since your granpa don’t write letters.
“When I started to school, there was only one room. All the grades were together, first through eighth. We had one teacher, the school was heated with a coal stove in the room. There was no gym or anything like you have now.
“Our entertainment was plays, we put on ourselves. We played ball at recess, tag, drop the hankies, and jump rope, were what the girls played.
“There were very few toys, trucks, tractors, and wagons for the boys, and dolls and dishes for the girls.
“When we got home from school everyone had chores to do. Some of them were carry water and coal for the night (very few people had running water or furnaces like today).
“The girls’ dresses were below the knees and they wore cotton stockings.
“We walked to school, because there was no buses to ride. We had to carry our lunch to school. There was no lunch meat to take in sandwiches, we had home-made jelly, bread and sugar, or fruit in season, apples in the winter, because we could store them in the cellar with our potatoes and canned food from the garden.
“Everyone had cats or dogs. Some of the kids had pet sheep, or calves.
“Our main subjects in school were reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, history, geography and health. When Thanksgiving and Christmas came we put on plays.
“At home on Thanksgiving and Christmas, the whole family got together for dinner and visiting. There was turkey, ham, chicken, pie, cake, and all the good things we didn’t get every day. Christmas was the only time we got a lot of candy and oranges, tangerines, most of the candy was home-made fudge.
“There wasn’t too much difference when your granpa and I went to school, because we both lived on farms in small towns.
“Your granpa was born in Louisville, at home. Most babies were born at home then.
“There was a newspaper clipping from the Alliance Review. It tells a lot about the way schools were then.
“Love, Grandma and Grandpa”
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This concludes the series of the Westboro 5th & 6th Grade Assignment.
