THE WAY IT WAS

Recalling the old one-room schools

I attended a one-room schoolhouse. Before all the small schools were consolidated in the early ‘50s, most kids on farms went to one-room schools.

Our teachers were very special, often former students. They had to come early to build a fire in a pot-bellied stove to heat the room and were most likely girls who had just finished eighth grade or young mothers, not necessarily highly educated.

One of the first things they taught us, after the alphabet, was penmanship. I realize that isn’t taught much today (kids learn to type early on computers). But we learned to write, staying in the lines. The older students often helped with the younger ones. We’d read and do simple math figures with their help.

Recess was an important part of our day to play games and just enjoy two quarter-hours of non-school. Lunch time was an hour, so after we’d eat our sandwiches, made with scrambled egg, peanut butter and jelly or mashed beans with mustard (my favorite), we’d again play games. Lots of socializing.

In Sis Helen’s book, “Across the Prairie”, she wrote, “My generation is the only link between these early pioneers and the new modern world. Our children will only know about it from what we have shared, while I actually lived during the later years of it.” So it is with country schools. They will never come back and the generation of us who attended these one-room school houses is fast fading away.

Though a few of those schools had two rooms, Wann (10 miles west of Gravette), where I spent a few years, was the traditional building, longer than wide, with windows down each side, so we could see the world outside. Two doors at the front led to a porch where we often lounged against an iron railing. About two dozen kids, grades one through six, sat at individual desks facing the teacher, who had her desk in front of a huge blackboard that practically covered the entire wall. Books were scarce so most of our lessons were written with white chalk on that board.

We all had responsibilities. Older kids brought in water and coal, while the younger might clean blackboards. What fun to shake out erasers by hitting them against the outside steps and watching the chalk dust float into the air. Sometimes our teacher let us put sawdust on the wood floor so we could sweep it without raising dust, or ring the bell to call everyone inside.

Our country schools began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance and singing patriotic songs. This was followed by Bible reading and prayer. This impressed upon us a sense that God and country were important.

And yes, I did walk one mile to school each day, in rain and snow, over swollen creeks and icy roads. Parents driving their children to school was unheard of. Perhaps they thought the harshness was good for us. I rode my first school bus in the fall of 1949 when we were consolidated with the Gravette school district.

Not many of these old school buildings are left, but a few have been preserved. Beaty school, just a few miles from Wann, has been restored. Our social activities usually centered around these rural schools. They hosted revival meetings, Sunday School and church, allday singings with dinner on the grounds and pie suppers.

Today I drive by where I attended Wann (made into a residence, then burned) and see a tiny mound on which the historic school once set and think back to those good old days attending a one-room school house.

Marie Putman, onetime Gravette resident, shares her thoughts with our readers twice every month.