This time of year brings memories of the time I spent getting part of my education in elementary country schools back in the 1950s. 

I trust that the things I discuss here will bring back memories for those of us who had the pleasure of attending these country schools. 

Looking back on it, it was amazing what the teachers in one-room country schools had to do, could do and did. Out of the eight grades, they would usually have students in at least six grades, sometimes seven grades. That would mean that they would have lined out different study/learning sessions in the five basic school topics — your reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and some history for seven different grades. Can you imagine doing lesson prep for and teaching 35 classes per week, besides teaching basic penmanship, where you had to learn to write your name where you could read it? 

Actually, there were more than 35 because we had reading and some form of arithmetic every day. If the teachers were lucky, some of the seventh-grade or eighth-grade students would help the first- and second-graders learn how to read and write their names. 

In addition to teaching class and keeping the rest of the school quiet while she/he was teaching, they had to make sure that the kids had sufficient drinking water. If the school didn’t have a good well, the drinking water had to be hauled in. Also, there was usually only one dipper that everybody had to drink out of. 

They had to make sure that the wood stove was fired up on cold days, put on a Christmas program, supervise recesses and make sure that the older kids didn’t smoke or chew, and that they didn’t beat up or cheat the younger kids. 

Also, some of those 17-year-old eighth-graders probably outweighed the teacher by a 100 pounds. Wow, you talk about some superhuman beings.

At the beginning of the school year, which for the younger students and the girls, usually started a few days after Labor Day. For some of the older students, the seventh- and eighth-graders, they generally would not start until sometime in October, after all the canning was completed, after the crops were put up in barns and silos and the family was prepared to take care of their livestock and the family through the winter. 

I remember mom and my sisters “canning” what seemed like hundreds of quart jars of green beans, dozens of jars of tomatoes, some peaches, some potatoes and various types of jams and jellies.

One more reason for missing school in the Fall was butchering time. When families were lucky enough to have a second-hand freezer, they usually had a steer, and/or a pig and usually one or two deer cut up and stored. Most rural families were certainly not what you would call rich, but being on the farm, having two-acre gardens, being able to shoot deer, rabbits and squirrels within 100 yards of the house and having a steer or hog in freezer, they always ate well, and for the most part, very healthily.

Back to our country school activities. Although most of the country schools did not have a very large playground area so that we could actually play softball, there were many, many games that we could and did play. Old timers, see if you remember playing these games. The older kids would play Red Rover-Red Rover, Annie Annie Over, Dodgeball, King on the Mountain, Tetherball (If the school had a “well to do family” that could afford to put it in), Basketball (one basket, no net, and again, if some family could afford to put up a rim), Marbles (but you couldn’t play “keeps”), Stickball (somebody would find a 3-foot-long straight stick and then we would wet paper or old milk cartons, squeeze it and use it for a ball and keeping adding paper as you needed), Snowball fights (weather permitting) and maybe softball in the spring (If someone had a ball that really had a cover on it). 

Girls could play these games, but they had their own games such as Jump Rope, Blind Man’s Bluff, Hopscotch, Double Dutch, Jacks, etc. Some of the middle grade boys, and girls, would sometimes play Cowboys and Indians, building their forts out of sticks or hiding behind the firewood piles or behind the outhouses (Yes, even though most of the schools had electricity, the restrooms were usually outside), and, using sticks for horses and broken tree limbs for guns. 

I am happy to say that in attending three one-room country schools and two four-room country schools while growing up, I played all of these games, except maybe Double Dutch, had the time of my life and I didn’t have to spend one minute looking for an electrical outlet so I could recharge my batteries. 

Of course, we all had to walk to school, and as I have stated previously, and these elementary schools were usually no farther than four miles apart so that no kid had to walk more than 2 miles or walk more than 30 minutes to get home — because there were always chores to do. 

A lot of times, lunch would consist of sausage, ham or bacon on one biscuit for the main meal and Jelly on another biscuit for the dessert with a cup of water from the fountain or water can. I attended Sparks School, near Star City, for the first grade and I attended Black School (yes, the one standing behind the Barry County Museum) for second grade.

Anyone remember these? Box Suppers and Cake Walks. They were used to raise money for the school and to raise money for the “ribbon” candy, candy corn, etc. and fruit, usually oranges, for the Christmas treat bags that would be handed out to the students after the Christmas program. 

Box suppers were a light meal with a “favorite” dessert that was auctioned to the highest bidder. A girl’s/lady’s male friend or husband generally purchased the “correct” boxes, and together, they feasted on the delicacy. But, Oh it was the “Devil to Pay” if the gentleman purchased, or even bid upon, the wrong box. Another problem was that if the older male student purchased the wrong girl’s box, then he sent the wrong message to the wrong girl and that was terrible also. 

In the seventh grade, my dad bought Sandra Hoffman’s box supper, but I really liked Susan Baker. I ran all the way home (about a mile) then hid in the barn. Incidentally, I learned that later in high school, Sandra became Homecoming Queen, Susan didn’t. Aren’t memories fun?

A Cake Walk is a game similar to musical chairs, but instead of winning a seat, you win a cake! Yes, a whole cake. Each woman brings a small cake. Participants pay a set fee to walk around a circle marked with numbers while music plays. When the music stops, everyone freezes at the number they’re closest to. The host then randomly picks a number from a container, and the person standing on that number wins a cake!

Another monumental task that the country teacher had to do was to come up with a Christmas program that included everyone in the school, so that the parents could see little Johnny or Janie participate on stage. And worst of all, Johnny or Janie would do just fine rehearsing in front of the rest of the class, but when they saw a room full of people, not just schoolmates and family, they would freeze up and not say a word.

I haven’t even gotten to the spelling bees, the math games, 4-H programs, the field trips to go roller skating or to go to the County Fair, the religious group that came to school, and if you memorized 200 Bible verses, you got a free week at camp (the only camp I ever went to), the teacher’s four foot long and half-inch thick “Board of Education” and other country school special days that we enjoyed. 

I hope this brings back memories to some of you older folks, and I hope it is educational to some of the younger generation. This life may have seemed very boring to you younger people, but we had a great time. We got to know each other. We got fresh air and exercise, and we still got a very good education.

It is that time of year to be thankful, so in an historical context, be thankful that you have thermostats and central heat, and that you’re not the one who has to get the wood and make the fire while everyone else stays in bed until the house warms up of a morning. 

As I’ve told people, I always thought my winter name was either “git wood,” or sometimes I had a middle name “git more wood.” But, as the old saying goes, “What didn’t kill us made us stronger!”

As I hope I have shown I have a very high regard for the teachers that taught and served in these elementary Ozark country schools from 1870-1960. Most of them deserved Sainthood status. My Mother was one of them, teaching at Hailey during World War II and at Jenkins in the 1980s (Love you, Mom). 

Please see Dennis Epperly’s “Rural Schools in the Ozarks” for more information about some of these rural elementary Barry County schools.

If any of you have any rural school stories or other “old times” stories you want to share with me and/or the Historical Society, please let me know. If anyone wants to know the rules on how to play the games mentioned above, please let me know, and I’ll be glad to share with you. Remember to be Grateful this holiday season and Hug a loved one everyday, especially an “older” person. Merry Christmas!

My next installment will be “First Settlers.”

Lynn Hilburn is an officer in the Barry County Genealogical and Historical Society, and invites all to come and join meetings, to provide information about their families or to look up information about their families. Hilburn may be reached at [email protected].